My kitchen fluorescent ceiling light does not come on and another (smaller) fluorescent over sink is dim. Both come on later. Now my dishwasher won't come on. When the lights came on, the dishwasher lights came on for a few seconds. I checked the breakers, and I turned them on and off. They seems to be okay. What gives???
Electrical – Ceiling lights (fluorescent) takes too long to light
electrical
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Best Answer
First, a little bit of a slow start is a good thing -- that is a better-quality ballast "soft-starting" the bulbs. They light up pre-heaters in the ends of the bulb before striking the arc. The best programmed-start ballasts actually measure performance, so they know to give the bulbs longer to start. But this is not that. To troubleshoot this:
Change the bulbs, unless you have tested the bulb good in another fixture.
look around for a "starter" and change the starter if it has one.
Replace the ballast with a modern electronic ballast. In this case, if there's a starter, it will be bypassed. You can leave it in place to avoid an ugly hole.
Far better to get an LED "tube" which fits in the fixture you have. I recommend getting "direct wire" LED tubes, in which you rewire your fixture to bypass the ballast. (Don't use "ballast ready" or "drop in" types, because they require you to keep the ballast in the fixture, and it must be working, and it must be a very particular type 0 which is more trouble than it's worth.)