Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M
No my family is too cheap to change the fluorescent bulbs in the garage when they fail(and after a few years the ballasts failed from trying to run dead bulbs) and my phone sucks in less than bright lighting.
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Could there have been any way you could have externally illuminated the area in the garage where you were using your phone? This would have made up for the lack of lighting in there if the fluorescent tubes were dim or outright dead. Also, trying to power dead (or nearly dead) bulbs is a very good way to shorten the life of the ballast transformers, which never were meant to operate fluorescent tubes which are on their last legs; it is no wonder the ballasts failed when they did.
Fluorescent bulbs last a long time, but they will fail eventually, as do any kind of light bulb. Case in point: I have replaced all but one of the incandescent bulbs in the light fixtures in my apartment with LED bulbs, which are supposed to last at least ten years. I now only have one standard incandescent bulb in the chandelier-type light fixture below my ceiling fan; the other three are LED bulbs, with yet another in the light fixture in my bedroom, but for some reason, the one remaining incandescent bulb just keeps going--hasn't burned out yet, and it's probably been at least a year since I replaced the other three (not to mention the one in an end-table lamp) with LED bulbs; they are still going strong. I also replaced the incandescent lamp on my desk with an LED lamp a couple years ago. The bulbs in this lamp, LEDs of course, are still going even after, again, at least a year (I don't remember anymore when I replaced that lamp).