So I purchased a large batch of rollsigns from cars that are being scrapped from the MBTA subway system. Like many of them, they are lit by fluorescent tubes. I have replaced the ballasts in some of them before with good results and I'm looking to do the same with these. The current ballasts operate on 30v, which was the car's auxiliary power voltage, so I'm going to replace them with ones that operate on 120v.

My question is, can anyone recommend a decent but not overly expensive one for a single F30 T12 bulb?

I've found plenty of 40W dual T12 bulb ballasts, but I'm striking out on finding any 30W ballasts, and certainly not any for a single bulb. Is it okay to run a 30W bulb on a 40W ballast or no?

Photos below for reference on what I'm talking about.

I would recommend double ended ballast bypass LED T12 tubes if they will satisfy your goal in your project.

You could use a 30W tube on a 40W ballast, but the age and heavy use the ballasts have been exposed to makes it more likely you will have issues.

And not knowing where these fixtures will be used and under what conditions, it's a WAG.

The signs will just be for decoration/collections.

I plan on brand new ballasts and tubes. None of the original electric (Except for the wiring and sockets once inspected and confirmed that they're still serviceable).

The 40 year old 30 volt ballasts will go.

Why not go LED?

I'd send you this if you wanted to try LED.

Email in my profile.

It's a strip of LED's that uses a 12 volt DC wall wart. I think you can cut to length.

Id rip out all the original lighting wiring and use a 12V LED, like above.

I've replaced all my shop light ballast-driven fluorescents with direct wire LEDs. Easy rewire, better light, longer life, and far less power consumption, plus one less component to go bad (no ballast required). Mine are mostly 4' tubes, but I'm sure you can get 8' and 12' ones. AC line power goes directly to these bulbs, no need for a transformer. The LED tubes come in two varieties, one where the hot and common go to separate pins on one end of the tube, and the other where the hot and common go to opposite ends of the tube. Which to pick depends solely on how you prefer to wire them. They re-use the "tombstone" style slide in and twist physical connectors found in most fixtures that use tubular bulbs.

LED. No question. Even LED fluorescent would be better than ancient technology. You can get LED with various color temps and really make the signs pop artistically.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Why not go LED?

The design of the box and the orientation of the lights isn't conducive to the conversion, at least as far as I can tell at the moment. I'm trying to keep it as original as possible while also allowing it to be used in a residential setting.

quote:

Originally posted by braillediver:
I'd send you this if you wanted to try LED.

Email in my profile.

It's a strip of LED's that uses a 12 volt DC wall wart. I think you can cut to length.

Thank you! That's very generous. I have to play around with it a little bit to see if that would work first. The back is pretty much completely open, so I'd need to see how it could be run first.

For perspective, the black line on the front of the sign across the word Braintree, is pretty much in line with where the bulb sits. I believe most LED replacements only shine light down, rather than 360 like fluorescents. But if I'm wrong on that and anybody has any good recommendations for a 360 LED ballast bypass replacement let me know. I do want to try at least one with fluorescent though since I'm a sucker for keeping this original. That, and I have 15 of these things so I have plenty of wiggle room to try different ideas.

Home Depot has a Phillips # ICS-2N40-N That will work on 1 or 2, 40 watt or 30 watt lamps. For 1 lamp insulate the yellow leads and use the red and blue leads.

https://www.homedepot.com/pep/...5c4e2463f3ca#overlay

Scroll thru pictures and find the wiring diagram. Shoot me an e mail if you have questions.

I just ordered one of those, thank you!

Let there be light!

I do agree with those saying to just use ballast bypass tubes. I ordered a 36" bypass bulb that should be here thursday and I'll try that out as well.