Fluorescent ballast - Installation & Change
All gas discharge lamps, including fluorescent lamps, require a ballast to operate. The ballast provides a high initial voltage to initiate the discharge, then rapidly limits the lamp current to safely sustain the discharge. Ballasts are designed to optimally operate a unique lamp type; however, some ballasts will adequately operate more than one type of lamp. In these cases, optimum lamp performance is generally not achieved under all conditions. Less than optimum conditions may affect the lamp's starting characteristics, light output, and operating life.

Fluorescent lamps are reasonably efficient at converting input power to light. Nevertheless, much of the power supplied into a fluorescent lamp-ballast system produces waste heat energy.

There are three primary means of to improving the efficiency of a fluorescent lamp-ballast system:

• Reduce the ballast losses.

• Operate the lamp(s) at a high frequency.

• Reduce losses attributable to the lamp electrodes.