Lighting Tutorial

Modern dimmable electronic ballasts provide excellent versatility for lighting scenes in conference rooms, theatres and the like where magnetic ballasts cannot compete, although a new technique to make magnetic ballasts dimmable is presently under development in Canada but not yet available on the market (for news on this see here).

Non-dimmable electronic ballasts are covering an increasing market share as a replacement for common magnetic ballasts, but so far they could manage to cover only about 35% of the market when counted in piece numbers (2005 market data – later figures are not available). While under normal operating conditions electronic ballasts are doubtlessly more energy efficient than magnetic ones, there is a number of further options to make a fluorescent lighting system more efficient. The difference in efficacy between a poor and an optimal magnetic system is significantly greater than the difference between a best practice magnetic and a good electronic system. The EU classification scheme brings more clarity, although it bears some concealed drawbacks.

Moreover, there is an operating condition under which a magnetic ballast can perform as good or even more efficiently than an electronic system! Now this site wants to help you make your own decision whether the new electronic or the conventional magnetic technique is the right choice for your installation. See sections 8.4 to 8.9 of this tutorial!