Connection marked as 'CA' on a fluorescent light

[Lorne Bonnell]

Hi Group,

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

I've tried a couple of Google search but have not really been able to find
out specifically what and how this 'CA' connection works.

Any help appreciated

Lorne...

 

[Brian Goldsmith]

"Lorne Bonnell" <lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

***CA stands for "controlled active". Connect it to the "A" terminal and
wire the unit up normally. Make sure you use inch and a quarter Rapid Start
tubes (the new krypton based tubes will not work in this circuit) and that
the metal case cover is securely earthed to give a ground plane close to the
tube.You may have to flick the on/off wall switch several times to get the
unit to fire.The circuit is low power factor as there will be no power
factor correction capacitor in the unit and it will draw almost double the
current of a corrected unit.

Brian Goldsmith.

NB.There are some smaller diameter imported tubes on the market that are
marked"Rapid Start",they are not and will not work in the RS circuit.

 

[Lorne Bonnell]

"Brian Goldsmith" <brian.goldsmith@nospam.echo1.com.au> wrote in message
news:13yQe.14160$FA3.11307@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

"Lorne Bonnell" <lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a
four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing
is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

***CA stands for "controlled active". Connect it to the "A" terminal and
wire the unit up normally. Make sure you use inch and a quarter Rapid
Start
tubes (the new krypton based tubes will not work in this circuit) and that
the metal case cover is securely earthed to give a ground plane close to
the
tube.You may have to flick the on/off wall switch several times to get the
unit to fire.The circuit is low power factor as there will be no power
factor correction capacitor in the unit and it will draw almost double the
current of a corrected unit.

Brian Goldsmith.

NB.There are some smaller diameter imported tubes on the market that are
marked"Rapid Start",they are not and will not work in the RS circuit.



Thanks Brian,

What sort of dolalrs are involved in the controler for these lights ?
Would I be bettor of getting a controler as I have six of these lights to
have fitted to my shed ? Is it somthing I could buy from L & H and just have
a sparky wire up for me ?


Lorne...

 

[KLR]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:23:03 +1000, "Lorne Bonnell"
<lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Group,

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

I've tried a couple of Google search but have not really been able to find
out specifically what and how this 'CA' connection works.

Any help appreciated

Lorne...

Some years back I saw a datasheet on a solid state dimming ballast,

and it used a 10k pot that went from this pin to either neutral or
active, and was used as a dimming control.


There is no guarantee that yours will be the same however, but when
you look at it, there isnt really anywhere else that the extra wire
can go to than active or neutral....

 

[KLR]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:41:57 +1000, "Lorne Bonnell"
<lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote:

"Brian Goldsmith" <brian.goldsmith@nospam.echo1.com.au> wrote in message
news:13yQe.14160$FA3.11307@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

"Lorne Bonnell" <lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a
four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing
is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

***CA stands for "controlled active". Connect it to the "A" terminal and
wire the unit up normally. Make sure you use inch and a quarter Rapid
Start
tubes (the new krypton based tubes will not work in this circuit) and that
the metal case cover is securely earthed to give a ground plane close to
the
tube.You may have to flick the on/off wall switch several times to get the
unit to fire.The circuit is low power factor as there will be no power
factor correction capacitor in the unit and it will draw almost double the
current of a corrected unit.

Brian Goldsmith.

NB.There are some smaller diameter imported tubes on the market that are
marked"Rapid Start",they are not and will not work in the RS circuit.



Thanks Brian,

What sort of dolalrs are involved in the controler for these lights ?
Would I be bettor of getting a controler as I have six of these lights to
have fitted to my shed ? Is it somthing I could buy from L & H and just have
a sparky wire up for me ?


Lorne...

If you want to save yourself a lot of trouble, and just have a light

that works reliably, and will continue to work for many years
(decades) then go to Haymans (or similar) trade counter, and buy 6
normal 50hz ballasts, (in the wattage to suit the tube) and wire them
in place of these fancy dimming ones.

you may also need starter sockets/starters too (if the original was an
electronic ballast without a starter) but they also sell them.

Here is a webpage that shows how a normal fluorescent light is wired
internally
follow example named "inductive single circuit"

(assuming you are competent to wire up mains circuits of course)

 

[Brian Goldsmith]

"KLR" <kenreed1999@yahoo.com> wrote

If you want to save yourself a lot of trouble, and just have a light
that works reliably, and will continue to work for many years

(decades) then go to Haymans (or similar) trade counter, and buy 6
normal 50hz ballasts, (in the wattage to suit the tube) and wire them
in place of these fancy dimming ones.

***** If as the OP wrote,the units are fitted with dimming transformers then
the existing ballast will be exactly as you are telling the OP to go out and
buy.The OP did not mention anything about "fancy" dimming ballasts.

(assuming you are competent to wire up mains circuits of course)

****What a pity you are not competent to read the original posting.

Brian Goldsmith.

 

[Lorne Bonnell]

"Brian Goldsmith" <brian.goldsmith@nospam.echo1.com.au> wrote in message
news:Y7SQe.15066$FA3.5323@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

"KLR" <kenreed1999@yahoo.com> wrote

If you want to save yourself a lot of trouble, and just have a light
that works reliably, and will continue to work for many years
(decades) then go to Haymans (or similar) trade counter, and buy 6
normal 50hz ballasts, (in the wattage to suit the tube) and wire them
in place of these fancy dimming ones.

***** If as the OP wrote,the units are fitted with dimming transformers
then
the existing ballast will be exactly as you are telling the OP to go out
and
buy.The OP did not mention anything about "fancy" dimming ballasts.


(assuming you are competent to wire up mains circuits of course)

****What a pity you are not competent to read the original posting.

Brian Goldsmith.

Hi Brian,

In you opinion would I be better of
1. Doing as you suggested and using the active as the controlled active
2. Buying a controller (if this is an option, not to expensive > $100 )
3. Fitting out the lights by removing the dimming trannie and fitting a
starter etc,etc or what ever may be required using the existing ballasts

Weighing up the life of the lamps 6 fittings 2 lamps in each , cost of the
controller, the mucking arround and costs of starters and holders

Thanks

Lorne...

 

[KLR]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 05:28:24 GMT, "Brian Goldsmith"
<brian.goldsmith@nospam.echo1.com.au> wrote:

"KLR" <kenreed1999@yahoo.com> wrote

If you want to save yourself a lot of trouble, and just have a light
that works reliably, and will continue to work for many years
(decades) then go to Haymans (or similar) trade counter, and buy 6
normal 50hz ballasts, (in the wattage to suit the tube) and wire them
in place of these fancy dimming ones.

***** If as the OP wrote,the units are fitted with dimming transformers then
the existing ballast will be exactly as you are telling the OP to go out and
buy.The OP did not mention anything about "fancy" dimming ballasts.

He didnt mention that they were fitted with a standard ballast, only a

"dimming transformer" not a "dimming transformer in addition to the
ballast". This implies only one "device" in there which (if there is
one device) is going to be either a modern electronic dimming ballast,
or a custom ballast/filament transformer in one package.

If there was also a standard ballast in there - Im sure he would have

worked out what had to be done, or at least commented on it being
there.

Either way, my advice will solve the problem for him & it will work

with any standard tube on the market.

Over the years I have seen equipment from other countries with some

very odd ballast/tube configurations. (especially from the USA) In
most cases, I have found that its better to remove these odd setups
from the start and put in the standard australian series
ballast/starter system.

(assuming you are competent to wire up mains circuits of course)

****What a pity you are not competent to read the original posting.

Thats life.

Brian Goldsmith.

 

[Brian Goldsmith]

"Lorne Bonnell" <lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote> "Lorne Bonnell"
<lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a
four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing
is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

***CA stands for "controlled active". Connect it to the "A" terminal and
wire the unit up normally. Make sure you use inch and a quarter Rapid
Start
tubes (the new krypton based tubes will not work in this circuit) and that
the metal case cover is securely earthed to give a ground plane close to
the
tube.You may have to flick the on/off wall switch several times to get the
unit to fire.The circuit is low power factor as there will be no power
factor correction capacitor in the unit and it will draw almost double the
current of a corrected unit.

Brian Goldsmith.

NB.There are some smaller diameter imported tubes on the market that are
marked"Rapid Start",they are not and will not work in the RS circuit.



Thanks Brian,

What sort of dolalrs are involved in the controler for these lights ?
Would I be bettor of getting a controler as I have six of these lights to
have fitted to my shed ? Is it somthing I could buy from L & H and just have
a sparky wire up for me ?


Lorne...

****** Six by 36 Watts in a normal fluorescent dimming circuit using 40 Watt
tubes and dimming transformers could be controlled by a "standard" 600 Watt
incandescent lamp dimmer ,the rule of thumb for calulating dimmer watts is
to multiply the total fluorescent loading in watts by 2.2 and calling this
result,dimmer watts required.However you would need to provide a
seperate,non dimmed (but switched) active for the dimming transformer
otherwise the heaters (filaments) in the tubes will remain on and will
consume some power even if the dimmer is at its lowest setting and the
tube(s) light output is zero.Professional dimmers had a special "filament
switch" that sensed their control line being at zero and switched off the
heaters.It is generally agreed that dimming RS tubes in the standard RS
circuit results in erratic performance below about 20% of light output as
there is a VERY unstable loading on the dimmer.For improved low end
stability you may have to include some extra "ballasting" across the dimmed
line by the inclusion of a,say, an 40 Watt (or higher,consistent with stable
behaviour)incandescent bulb.There are some dimmers which are "hard firing"
and are much better performers when used with inductive loads such as
fluorescent lighting,very little dimmed line "ballasting" is necessary.In
any case,your fittings,while not being "old" are now rapidly being replaced
by modern,high frequency systems that can use the modern krypton based tubes
and do not require a power dimmer but can be controlled by a 0-10 Volt (or
whatever) control line which is completely isolated from the mains.Alas,in
your case,this does not appear to be so and you must make do with your
existing setup.
Yes,you could buy the bits from L&H or similiar but you may have some
difficulty in finding the average "sparky" with enough knowledge to wire it
up for you,especially in relation to the coprrect tubes to be used.Clipsal
(and I think ,HPM) used to have a leaflet explaining most of the usual
methods of dimming RS tubes using the Preheat dimming transformers.What ever
you do,remember,death is so permanent.

Brian Goldsmith.

 

[Lorne Bonnell]

"KLR" <kenreed1999@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:0697h11s3obiqa3363cddgs3g320s5qhgq@4ax.com...

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:23:03 +1000, "Lorne Bonnell"
lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Group,

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a
four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing
is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

I've tried a couple of Google search but have not really been able to find
out specifically what and how this 'CA' connection works.

Any help appreciated

Lorne...

Some years back I saw a datasheet on a solid state dimming ballast,
and it used a 10k pot that went from this pin to either neutral or
active, and was used as a dimming control.


There is no guarantee that yours will be the same however, but when
you look at it, there isnt really anywhere else that the extra wire
can go to than active or neutral....

I should had fessed this information up in the original post,

The light has two ballasts and a dimming transformer and two tubes, no
starters. At the outset of this quetsion I had no idea that there was so
manny configurations for flourescent lights.

Thanks

Lorne...

 

[KLR]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2005 15:04:07 +1000, "Lorne Bonnell"
<lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote:

"KLR" <kenreed1999@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:0697h11s3obiqa3363cddgs3g320s5qhgq@4ax.com...
On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:23:03 +1000, "Lorne Bonnell"
lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Group,

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a
four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing
is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

I've tried a couple of Google search but have not really been able to find
out specifically what and how this 'CA' connection works.

Any help appreciated

Lorne...

Some years back I saw a datasheet on a solid state dimming ballast,
and it used a 10k pot that went from this pin to either neutral or
active, and was used as a dimming control.


There is no guarantee that yours will be the same however, but when
you look at it, there isnt really anywhere else that the extra wire
can go to than active or neutral....









I should had fessed this information up in the original post,

The light has two ballasts and a dimming transformer and two tubes, no
starters. At the outset of this quetsion I had no idea that there was so
manny configurations for flourescent lights.

Thanks

Lorne...


There are many indeed.

---------------------


To make it work as a normal fluro, remove the dimming transformer, and
install a starter on each tube.

Disregard my previous advice about buying ballasts, as there are ones
in there already

Follow the diagram


http://www.vossloh-schwabe.com/eng/technische_hinweise/leuchtstofflampen/303.php
(top left example). to see how the starter is to be wired into circuit
Note that this will be done for each tube.

 

[Johnny]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:41:57 +1000, "Lorne Bonnell"
<lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote:

"Brian Goldsmith" <brian.goldsmith@nospam.echo1.com.au> wrote in message
news:13yQe.14160$FA3.11307@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

"Lorne Bonnell" <lbonnell@hotmail.com> wrote

I have a fluorescent light which has a dimming transformer in it and a
four
pin plug. The usual 3 A,N,E and another marked as CA. which I'm guessing
is
some kind of control line. What I want to do is to bypass the dimming
altogether and just use it 100%.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on where I might find some information
to do this.

***CA stands for "controlled active". Connect it to the "A" terminal and
wire the unit up normally. Make sure you use inch and a quarter Rapid
Start
tubes (the new krypton based tubes will not work in this circuit) and that
the metal case cover is securely earthed to give a ground plane close to
the
tube.You may have to flick the on/off wall switch several times to get the
unit to fire.The circuit is low power factor as there will be no power
factor correction capacitor in the unit and it will draw almost double the
current of a corrected unit.

Brian Goldsmith.

NB.There are some smaller diameter imported tubes on the market that are
marked"Rapid Start",they are not and will not work in the RS circuit.



Thanks Brian,

What sort of dolalrs are involved in the controler for these lights ?
Would I be bettor of getting a controler as I have six of these lights to
have fitted to my shed ? Is it somthing I could buy from L & H and just have
a sparky wire up for me ?


Lorne...

As I understand it, your fitting has what is commonly known as a
"Filament transformer", and does not use a conventional starter. This
type of set-up is only suitable for 38mm tubes. If you want to use
the more common 25mm tubes, you will need to ditch the filament
transfomer and use starters instead. That will also rule out dimming.

If you really want to dim them, most standard dimmers can be used with
this type of load, however you need to check two issues.
1) The dimmer must be a "Leading Edge" type, that is suitable for
inductive loads. A "Trailing edge" dimmer intended for electronic
transformers will not work.
2) You need to derate the dimmer due because of the "reactive"
property of the fluorescent ballast. So you should count each tube as
effectively 100W. 12 tubes would require 1200W dimmer, which will
cost over $200.

Apart from this, there is something else you should know. That is
that fluorescent lamps actually don't dim very well with this type of
'Low-Tech" ballast. This is the technology of 20 years ago and has
never performed terribly well. I think the only real advantage is has
is that there is no starter needed, so a point of failure is
elliminated.

My advice to you is to forget about dimming, and wire the CA to the A,
as suggested in the first response. That advice assumes you don't
mind to use 38mm lamps.

regards,
Johnny.