Residential vs. Commercial Ballast.

Gronon

Hello,
I recently replaced a ballast in a light fixture at home and everything works great. The problem is that once I was done with everything I noticed on the instructions the following message "For commercial use ONLY. Do NOT use in a RESIDENCE". Should I be worried? I honestly didn't know there was a difference. Do I need to run out and buy a residential ballast and get rid of the commercial one?
After some research it appears the commercial ballasts are actually more efficient but could find no reference indicating they were any more dangerous.

Thanks for any help!
Brian

spark plug

Same here. I wasn't aware of any safety precaution in Residential vs. Commercial. As far as I'm concerned, it goes by the type of fixture and size of lamps. (And T-12 vs. T-8 compatibility.) What I did (unwittingly) install, is an outdoor rated compatible ballast in an indoor fixture. No dire consequences. But, if there is a warning by the manufacturer about not mixing res. with comm., then you should at least investigate on what basis their concern was.

Billy_Bob

That means the ballast may cause interference with your TV/radio and this is a FCC rule...

"The current Part 18 rules for RF lighting devices specify AC power line-conducted emissions limits between 450 kHz and 30 MHz and radiated emissions limits between 30 MHz and 1 GHz. Part 18 specifies different emissions limits for consumer and non-consumer RF lighting equipment. Consumer ISM equipment is equipment that is used or intended to be used by the general public in a residential environment.2 Non-consumer ISM equipment is equipment that is used in commercial and industrial environments."

From...
http://www.cclab.com/cclnews/OnlineN...3/fcc99135.pdf

Gronon

Good info, thanks for the link!