I have two fluorescent fixtures that are exactly the same in my kitchen. They both went out the same day - I don't know if it was exactly the same moment or not. On one of them, I noticed a tube was black on one side. I replaced the tube and that fixture works fine now.

New tubes did not fix the other fixture, so I assumed the ballast was at fault, and being too lazy to swap the other working fixture's ballast in, I got a new ballast. Turns out the ballast wasn't the problem. I swapped the ballasts and tubes between the fixtures, and it didn't help, so I know it isn't the ballast or tubes.

The tubes in the faulty fixture are lighting up orange at the ends. The fixture takes two F20T12CW tubes. The Ballast is ADVANCE BALLAST HM-2SP20-TP 120 VOLT. The ballast is a rapid start magnetic type, and I don't see any starter, so I assume there is no starter.

I pulled out my multimeter to check the wiring. I checked the continuity of the fixture wiring to the tube sockets and it checks out fine. I then checked out the voltage across the AC feed wires and it was around 117 with switch on and 0 with switch off.

I also decided to multimeter the working fixture to see if there was any difference between the fixtures. The only difference was with the power switch OFF the AC feed wires had 11 volts.

So I would appreciate any help on fixing the faulty fixture, and an explanation why the working fixture feed wires have 11 volts when the power switch is off.

Thanks!

Is wiring done this way?

http://www.advancetransformer.com/eC...4830708461.pdf

The 11 volts is likely leakage current. It's low enough to be measured on your DVM. A DVM draws a certain amount of current, possibly 10 uA or less.

I do suspect a wiring problem. Sockets are problematic too.

I've gotten bad ballasts out of the box!