Fluorescent DIY ballast

[Polaroid22]

Hello,

I am looking to buy some fluorescents (all different ones). But I am not an electronical wizard, and have no experience with it. But should every ballast work on each fluorescent(so I buy one decent ballast and reuse it on every fluorescent bulb?).

How and where can I buy connectors to connect the ballast to the fluorescent bulb(just the wires and connectors, so it is more portable, as I want to hang them up with velcro)? Or is that included in the ballast? Sorry for the noob questions. A good DIY tutorial would be great aswell!

 

[Chris Santucci]

Just buy cheap fixtures from a home store, remove (and use) the components, and build a new housing. I'd recommend using Coroplast. As for tubes, source the 5,000K "natural" Philips tubes. You might be able to find high output versions of these. You should be able to buy sockets from Kino Flo if you need them.

 

[BarryLichtner]

Just beware, if you go with fixture from Home Depot, etc., there are some things to watch out for. Firstly, they don't dim, which for some people is a big deal. They will also flicker if you shoot at an incompatible frame rate. And last, since most household fixtures are meant to installed once (and usually on the ceiling) creating reliable mounts for use in different locations could be difficult.

I remember seeing a couple tutorials in YouTube that explained how to buy the components that would go into a light like the Kinoflo, but at a significant discount. Just search YouTube for "DIY fluorescent film kit" (or similar. If you're willing to do some work yourself, you can save a lot of money. But the one place I wouldn't try to save a lot of money is the Fl tubes. There are some "cinema grade" tubes that are cheaper than the brand names, but they still cost more than your average Phillips daylight lighting. The color rendering index on some standard office fluorescents can be really low, like a CRI in the high 60's/low 70's, which can give you terrible results.