Nice find, rather vintage looking too! Gearwise, being a foot long, I would try the slightly underdriven option on a normal 8w ballast and I would be tempted to have a go at running a series pair from a 2' 20w ballast! Running all 3 with the above circuits would make for a good threesome!

I'll try an 8w ballast later I wonder if it would also be possible to have a threesome with all 3 in series on a 30W choke? I suppose starting would have to be manual swichstart or quickstart, if only I had some suitable quickstart transformers!

Just had a go with an 8W ballast, no luck, I can get it to cold start but with a starter in the circuit it just keeps blinking, shorted the starter out in the dark and there's no cathode heating at all. I got it to run on a 13W one earlier but checking now that doesn't do much more preheating than the 8W does so I'm thinking 15W? Unfortunately I don't have any single 15W ballasts left now

3-on-a-ballast! Now that's worth a try as I've never seen or known of a three-lamp series circuit! But I think there'll be starting difficulties like you said, manual starting via push button switches may be the only option but you may get a slow response from low voltage starters! EDIT Looking at the above results, I'd give the 2 in series on a 20w ballast a try! They may go a little overdriven on a 15w. I've only seen these tubes in those cheap 12v inspection lamps!

Nice! I think thats a good ballast to use, I didnt realise that they were so vintage!

these 13in 10w Fluorescent Tubes can be safely lit using the 21 in 13w T5 Ballast as the Lamp Voltage and Current (92 volts / 0.17 amps) is the same the only difference is these are T8's

All the Best

Colin

Nice finds .. I'd love to find a few 1' T8's -- or even better some 1' T12's

Thanks, You've got a fitting for these haven't you Jay?

I don't, but I could build one I probably have all the parts (except the proper ballast, so I'd just put 2 in series on a 1-lamp 2-foot electronic) LOL

Hmmm I could of swore you've got a little Japanese 10W fitting with screw in starter switch, must be confusing you with someone else! I haven't really tried these out properly yet, just managed to fire one up on a 21" 13W ballast to see what the colour was like.

Oh yeah LOL, I do have that Japanese fitting which is 10w, but its an oddball size - 13.5 inches. I was actually able find some blacklight lamps for it on eBay (don't have a starter yet, but there's a few online places that sell 'em)