BALLAST 101
First of all what is a ballast? Ballasts come in many shapes and sizes; up until a couple of years ago the most common ballasts were black rectangles with wires coming out of both ends. Fluorescent light bulbs require a large jolt of electricity to start and then require very little energy to actually produce light. This is what the ballast does, it “kick starts” the lamps and then cuts back and regulates the amount of electricity for the duration of time the lamps remain lit.

REDUCE STOCK, REDUCE TIME
Until recently, fluourescent lamp ballasts have been voltage-specific as well as wattage-specific. If the fixture needing a new ballast had 120 volts running to it you had to have a 120 volt ballast, and likewise with 277 volts. Now there are several new lines of electronic ballasts that can be run on either voltage with no decline in ballast life or efficiency. This means that instead of stocking two ballasts (one for each voltage), one can be stocked to cover both voltages. This also means no more grabbing the wrong ballast and having to make another trip to the supply room to get the correct one for the job.

A movement which has been growing in popularity is replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs, which saves a very substantial amount of electricity. A new line of ballasts has recently come out that is not only multi-voltage but multi-wattage as well, to accommodate this movement toward compact fluorescent lighting. Again, the number of different ballasts required to cover all of these different lamp wattages is greatly reduced since one ballast is capable of powering a range of lamp wattages on either voltage. Now you are almost guaranteed no more wasted trips back down to the supply/storage room because the wrong ballast was grabbed!

OUTSIDE LIGHTING
Fairly recent arrivals on the High Intensity Discharge (HID) playing field are five-tap ballasts. A five-tap ballast is a ballast that is capable of handling any voltage from 120 to 480. For example, if you have 250 watt HID lamps in your parking area and 250 watt HID lamps as accent lighting, chances are good that they are being powered using different voltages. These ballasts allow you one item in stock to run on all voltages.

The newest players on this field are Pulse-Start Metal Halide lamps. The benefits of these lamps are tremendous as are the benefits of the ballasts which operate them. Start up time has been cut in half over their probe-start counterparts. If there is a power interruption, the pulse-start lamps take just three to four minutes to reach full brightness as opposed to waiting up to 15 minutes for the old style probe-start lamps to come back up to 100%. Pulse-start lamps illuminate better as well; a 350 watt pulse start lamp produces more light than a 400 watt probe start lamp. Also in the lineup are electronic ballasts for HID lamps in select wattage ranges. These ballasts are dual-voltage as well as dual-wattage and since they are electronic they are more energy efficient than the old core and coil ballasts that we all have somewhere on our properties.