designers being wanky

[adularia]

Argh.

Naively, I think: sourcing and buying parts - not finished fixtures, mere parts, because I don't want finished fixtures, because I'm trying to prototype one, that's the point - is going to be half of the hard part of getting all this off the ground

Comments

[ilmarinen]

uh, forgive my ignorance, what kind of thing are you doing? I mean, understand you have to be all mums-the-word about details maybe, but category?

-B.

[adularia]

I don't have to be cagey about it. :) What prompted this post is that I've been designing a lot of lamps lately, some of which I want to try prototyping/getting manufactured, and I would like to be able to throw together a sample light unit that shows my intent for the finished product.

In this case, it has to use T8 fluorescent tubes. I'm tempted to just buy and gut a commercial fixture, but I'd rather find out where the socket bits come from. ("China.")

[ilmarinen]

Ballasts and sockets for fluorescents aren't really hard to find. Ballasts are service items (can buy those at home depot) and I think I've seen sockets somewhere. Alternately, buying a bare-bones utility light fixture for tube fluorescents is basically a ballast and sockets in a metal housing (that is recyclable at least).

-B.

[ilmarinen]

Hrm, yeah, quick web search shows places one can buy the sockets and ballasts direct, sans case/frame, etc. Not wholesale, but assume you are just prototyping at this point, not looking to economically order 1,000 of them.

http://www.lightbulbsdirect.com/page/001/CTGY/SocketsFlT8T12
http://www.lightbulbsdirect.com/page/001/CTGY/T8+BA

[adularia]

Woo, yay. I wasn't having any luck finding the sockets, though ballasts weren't any trouble to find. (I was searching for "end caps", not sockets...)

Eventually I'd like to economically order about 100 of them, but not yet. Thanks.