Hello,

I've been having an ongoing debate with several people for quite a few years now over whether the "fluorescent startup myth" is true or not. The legend is that although fluo's consume less power than incandescents while running, fluo's consume a lot of power when you first start them up - one person even went so far as to claim that turning on a given light will make it consume in the first few seconds as much power is it would consume over the course of three hours once running.

Can anyone confirm/debunk this?

Thanks,
Moishe

I say Urban Legend. I see it both proposed and denied on a few different sites... but no one proposing it can offer anything to base the idea on... and the opponents explanations seem far more believable.

http://tafkac.org/science/fluorescent_lights.html

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&cd=18

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&cd=27

... I was, though, disappointed to not be able to find any math that proves or disproves it...

Any ballast that draws more starting current when first energized, and then lowers for normal operation, will have this information published in the manufacturer's technical spec sheet.

The typical common ballast is for two F40 lamps, and I have attached a cut sheet for one brandhttp://www.advancetransformer.com/eC...3140958971.pdf

THis information is very important for electrical designers and electricians, since the load would need to be know and calculated properly so that circuits would not be overloaded because of too many fixtures on a circuit.

Electrical circuit do not allow for guessing and maybes. Electricity strictly follows the laws of physics.

There are some HID ballasts that do draw more when starting, and we need to know this actual data to design the circuit so that it will opereated each time with no problems.

The best method to save energy is to leave it off when not needed. If you go in a room and need the light, turn it on to use it, if you are done, then shut it off. You will not incur more energy costs simply because you needed to to turn it on again a few minutes later.