remoting fluro ballasts/starters etc

[bjocque]

to fit my 3 foot light (al-30D) into my hood i need to reduce its height (and i thought it would keep heat down) - has anybody ever done this? i'm thinking stripping out electrical guts/switches from light unit and moving them out of the hood, rewiring etc) any dramas/pitfalls that anyone can see? obviously need to get a sparkie to sign off on it at the end of day,

how bout remote ballast lamps anyhows, are they available? price? where?

cheers guys

[Alan]

I did that with most of my stands in my fishroom.

Just replaced and lengthened the wires to the lights.

I used broom stick holders to hold the lights.

Spring steel "U" shaped.

[alanmin4304]

I have a completely enclosed cabinet with the tubes in the hood and everything else in a draw underneath and it has been working well for about 25 years.

[richms]

Watch it with electronic ballasts tho, they have a length limit to cut down on interference because of the higher frequancy. All you gotta do it trash some old biddys analog tv1 reception or am reception and you will have the MED people around to discuss it. Guy i knew a while back had that issue with a switching power supply on the end of a long cable to run a wireless access point.

If they are magnetic and have starters then be aware that there will be quite a strong field come from the cables when it starts. Try to keep the cables parallel to minimize this, and if you are runnign the starters back to the remote equiment then dont use a seperate 2 core for each end, have one that comes back to the starter, and one that takes care of the power to/from the tube. Run them parallel to the tube in the hood and exit all at the same point.

Then again, since it only happens when you start the tubes, you could just accept that its going to make pops and clicks from your stereo when it starts.