Flourescent lamp choke - use in tube amp?
Hello to all!!!
I found a flourescent lamp choke (you know, heavy white things mounted near the lamp starter). It has 45ohm dc resistance which I just measured. And it has these writings on it:
Type:N/39 Lamp W:30-32-2x14-15 [delta]t:55° tw:120
V:220 Hz:50 And then some semi-cancelled letters:
IL (or maybe TL): 0.xx 0.xx (those x are unreadable numbers)
cosx:0.45 (the x maybe a greek phi)
(note: the [delta] is in greek letter)
What does they mean? How a flourescent lamp works? What does the starter do?
And most important... if this is a choke, can I use it in my tube amp just to filter the B+ for the screens of the power tubes (2 EL84 per channel) and for the anode of the drivers (a couple of ECCxx series)?
Thanks in advance!!!
Hello to all!!!
I found a flourescent lamp choke (you know, heavy white things mounted near the lamp starter). It has 45ohm dc resistance which I just measured. And it has these writings on it:
Type:N/39 Lamp W:30-32-2x14-15 [delta]t:55° tw:120
V:220 Hz:50 And then some semi-cancelled letters:
IL (or maybe TL): 0.xx 0.xx (those x are unreadable numbers)
cosx:0.45 (the x maybe a greek phi)
(note: the [delta] is in greek letter)
What does they mean? How a flourescent lamp works? What does the starter do?
And most important... if this is a choke, can I use it in my tube amp just to filter the B+ for the screens of the power tubes (2 EL84 per channel) and for the anode of the drivers (a couple of ECCxx series)?
Thanks in advance!!!
How a fluorescent lamp works
A fluorescent lamp works by passing an arc from one end of the lamp to the other. In each end of the lamp there is a small filament like the filament in an incandescent lamp, which is ignited briefly to heat the gas inside the lamp - this is done by the starter which switches the filaments on for a moment and then off (usually several times which is why fluorescents flicker when they come on). The gas inside the tube is a mercury vapour which produces ultra violet light when the arc passes through it, and then the phosphour coating on the inside of the glass of the tube converts the UV to visible light.
The Choke in a fluorescent lamp limits the current that flows through the lamp after the lamp has ignited.
Don't know how this helps with a tube amp though!
A fluorescent lamp works by passing an arc from one end of the lamp to the other. In each end of the lamp there is a small filament like the filament in an incandescent lamp, which is ignited briefly to heat the gas inside the lamp - this is done by the starter which switches the filaments on for a moment and then off (usually several times which is why fluorescents flicker when they come on). The gas inside the tube is a mercury vapour which produces ultra violet light when the arc passes through it, and then the phosphour coating on the inside of the glass of the tube converts the UV to visible light.
The Choke in a fluorescent lamp limits the current that flows through the lamp after the lamp has ignited.
Don't know how this helps with a tube amp though!
I been playing with this for a while back like 2 years ago.
From what i gather they are around 3 H - 4H with wire rating up to 200ma. Just take the watt ratin and divide by the voltage should get the wire size. Pls derate this figure. Also because they are used on AC 240v. They need to be largely gapped to handle the large ac. Therefore they even can be used as choke input. IN normall usage as pi filters. They work rather fine. However just to let you know most mass producelamp chokes are fine from recycle steel. Here they recycle the steel from cutting transformer iron and recycle for use in lamp chokes. So don;t run it to hard, even it is made for 240volts it might actully saturate the core if run to much into this. This voltage level is not that high for filter pi style but when run as a input choke it can be problem
Hope this helps
From what i gather they are around 3 H - 4H with wire rating up to 200ma. Just take the watt ratin and divide by the voltage should get the wire size. Pls derate this figure. Also because they are used on AC 240v. They need to be largely gapped to handle the large ac. Therefore they even can be used as choke input. IN normall usage as pi filters. They work rather fine. However just to let you know most mass producelamp chokes are fine from recycle steel. Here they recycle the steel from cutting transformer iron and recycle for use in lamp chokes. So don;t run it to hard, even it is made for 240volts it might actully saturate the core if run to much into this. This voltage level is not that high for filter pi style but when run as a input choke it can be problem
Hope this helps
I tried one (24W/120V ballast) as an AC dropping element in a SE 6AQ5 stereo amp. Dropped WAY too much voltage at 250 mA - went back to 60 Ohm resistor. But it would work ahead of a full-wave bridge or doubler in a preamp power supply, keeping rectifier hash out of the transformer and AC line, and improving power factor.
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