Inverter (COTS) for igniting compact fluorescent?

[Z]

I'm putting together a battery site light for working on the consumer
units etc of empty properties.
The organisation I work for has a few ready made ones form nightsearcher
(www.nightsearcher.co.uk) which provides light for a whole 8 hour shift
off a 40Ah Yuasa/Yucel but they are out of my budget so cherrypicking
the parts out of old light fittings etc for the parts to make my own .
The only component I will need to buy is an invertor. Any commercial off
the shelf ballast /invertor available to illuminate a 4 pin compact
fluorescent. I measure the voltages off a new inverter and it supplies
about 465V to strike the lamp then reduces to keep it illuminated.
--
Z
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On Sun, 16 May 2004 00:12:37 +0100, Z <post@imaris.demon.co.uk> wrote:

I'm putting together a battery site light for working on the consumer
units etc of empty properties.
The organisation I work for has a few ready made ones form nightsearcher
(www.nightsearcher.co.uk) which provides light for a whole 8 hour shift
off a 40Ah Yuasa/Yucel but they are out of my budget so cherrypicking
the parts out of old light fittings etc for the parts to make my own .
The only component I will need to buy is an invertor. Any commercial off
the shelf ballast /invertor available to illuminate a 4 pin compact
fluorescent. I measure the voltages off a new inverter and it supplies
about 465V to strike the lamp then reduces to keep it illuminated.

How about a 12v -> 120 volt inverter running standard compact
flourescent bulbs? The 200- watt inverters for cars are fairly cheap
and compact flourescents have fairly low power draw.

I'm not sure how sensitive the CFDs are to non-sinusoidal power,
though. I've run a shop light off a cheap UPS for several hours (
power went out in the middle of an auto repair job right after I
applied the silicon to the oil pan.)

-Chris