Troubleshooting Fluorescent Light

Recently my room fluorescent lighting have kinda go strange on me. I took some time to trouble shoot and decided to share this with all of you.

Disclaimer: This is done with safety by switching the main power source OFF, do not attempt any of the troubleshooting unless you know what you are doing. If you can always have some one of age by your side to assist you in case any accident happen. If you are a child or elderly, do not do this by yourself. 

Here is my Fluorescent light bulb or ring in 32" and the issue was it can light up initally but it just will not stay light up after keeping on for some time.



Here are the parts of a standard Fluorescent Light which consist of the Fluorescent Light bulb, Starter, Starter connector and the Ballast.


Usually the Starter is use to trigger the fluorescent light to ON. If the starter is not working, the Fluorescent light will not light up. Some time the Starter connector play a part too since it is a separate part from the starters. So if you trigger your switch and the light up do not light up, then it could be the fault of Starters, Light bulb or the starter connector.

This is the Starter attached to the starter connector.


For my case, I have switch with a working Light blub and starter from another room and it can be on but after sometime it will off by itself. So I decided to switch to Ballast.


The purpose of the ballast is to convert the AC power to supply the right power to the fluorescent light. Since in my case it does ON but it cannot stay ON for long.

When changing the Ballast, please ensure your power is off the position of the wiring.


When all the wiring is done, you may ON the switch to see if it work. For me it did work!


Troubleshooting is easy if you have the necessary spare part and ensure the power is OFF when you are changing parts.

Normally there should not be fault of the wire connection or the switch unless they are more than a few years old. Sometime that may happen but it is really rare.

So here is my sharing. I hope in time to come I will share more D.I.Y stuff with you so you can save some money and have a better understanding how things in our home works.

Remember, safety first. OFF power when changing parts.

If you find this useful, comment and let me know.


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