I purchased a brand new fluorescent light fixture to replace my previous fluorescent light fixture (it was old and one of the ballasts was blown, so it half-worked).
After drilling the holes in the wall, mounting the fixture, plugging in the 3 wires (brown, yellow, blue into the appropriate sockets) and mounting the tubes, I turned on the circuit breaker to see if it was working right.
At the first second, there was a normal white fluorescent light. It then flashed and turned off.
I reset the wall switch to cut and restore power to the bulb, it then flashed an orange light very brightly on both sides of only 1 tube, the other tube was completely dark. It did this for about 3 seconds, then turned off completely.
Resetting the wall switch again did nothing. There was no visible light at all, maybe only for a split second after turning it on the 3rd time.
What could this be? Is the wiring in the fixture defective? It came pre-wired in the box, the only wires I connected were the 3 brown, yellow and blue wires.
Best Answer
It's most likely just a defective ballast in the new fixture. Failure rate of course varies brand by brand, but none of them are immune to having a wonky ballast fly through the QA process.
I keep replacement ballasts around just like replacement lamps. Since they are rather cheap in most cases, I'd buy one (to test), then keep a small stock for the various types of fixtures that you have.