How to wire up a Simple Fluorescent Light

These days when we buy a set of florescent light, all the internal wirings have been nicely wired up for us. All we have to do is to snap in the required parts and we will get a working fluorescent light. To the technically inclined, this will not be a problem, for the less inclined, let me show you just how easy it is.

What you will see when you open up the set of fluorescent light.

On one end, you will find  the tube holder and the starter holder.

On the other end, there is the ballast and another tube holder.

Check properly that all connections on the various pars are tightly fitted in.

Slowly, push the tube holder into it’s slot.

Do the same for the starter holder. This might need some care as this holder is sometimes very brittle.

Push in the starter and give it a slight twist. It will snap into place.

Now look at the ballast, there will be an empty slot for you to connect your power supply. There will be another empty terminal near the ballast.  That’s for your power supply too.

Bring in your cable through the provided opening, strip the wires carefully.

Connect the red wire (sometimes can be brown) which is always the live wire to the ballast, and the black wire(sometimes blue) to the other terminal. The light will still work if you wrongly connect these wires, but when it comes to maintenance, it will not be so easy to check for faults in the ballast. 

Strip the green wire, the earth wire, a little bit longer so that you can twist it into something  that looks like this. It’s important for a fluorescent light to have an earth wire because it ha a metal casing. Should there be any leakage, and there is no earth wire, you might get electrocuted if you touch the casing.

Tie the Earth wire to any part of the lights casing. That way, if there is any leakage, electricity will be channeled into the Earth, preventing mishaps.

After making sure all connections are tightly screwed on, cover back the light’s casing.

Slot in the tube equally on both sides, give it half a twist until you hear a small click.

You are done!

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