Milwaukee Fluorescent Light Bulb Tester

The following link Tim shows you how to use a voltage tester:

I am convinced hundreds of thousands of light bulbs are buried alive in landfills and/or broken at recycling facilities.

[athiker]

I retired from the electronic industry, and that piece of test equipment would have been nice to have in my tool bag. Thanks for sharing.

[askthebuilder]

@jobaecker You can still use it with magnetic ballasts!! The first thing to do is to just test the lamps. If you do what I did at the beginning of the video and BOTH lamps flicker as you push the test button, then you know the problem is with the ballast and/or it's an electrical connection. You can also do the pin test. Thus the tool absolutely helps you pinpoint the problem - even with old-style ballasts. Cool! When I saw this tool in July, I wanted to buy stock in Milwaukee.

[askthebuilder]

@chuckeggg I just Googled that. It appears we're mixing pumpkins with lemons. The stories I saw about this talked about traffic signals, not indoor fluorescent lighting. What am I missing?

[askthebuilder]

@freespeachrulez I don't know. The trouble is the massive capital expense to switch out or modify fixtures from fluorescent to LED. Anything's possible. At this point, fluorescent is time tested and there are perhaps hundreds of millions of fixtures. I can't see an owner switching out the fixtures unless there was a clear ROI.

[David-swon]

Thanks a lot Tim That Was Great And Actually Helpful To Me! Milwaukee is also my favourite of tools hands Down. Anyways I Purchased Something Similar to yours in an On-Line Auction Called The Discharge Lamp Tester LT-277 Made By BEHA...a company out of West Germany. It seems like a Really Good quality older Model, That Comes in a Leather Case with really great Alligator Leads, and a super long antenna(which thanks to your video I now know how to use) Best Part? I Only Paid $2 dollars! Now if I could only find an exact video on how this darn thing works! lol Thanks Again👍😉🇨🇦

[askthebuilder]

Fantastic tool. When I first saw it, I knew that they would sell hundreds of thousands of them to every maintenance man in every commercial building everywhere.

[askthebuilder]

@CanadianToolGuy1990 It takes regular batteries. I'm not sure of the cost. I'd guess between $100-200. Any maintenance man who works in an office building, university, ANY place with lots of bulbs is going to DROOL over this tool. It's amazing.

[tsif]

Hello Tim.
Nice presentation.Your video is really amazing.
This tool is very good and saves a lot of time.
:-)

[askthebuilder]

@jimwedeking I'm sure they'll have it available VERY soon, especially after they read your comment. They release these tools to people like me to review. I know they realize that some of us can get the review up in hours, so I would think they would have the tools out there ready for you rabid consumers to BUY. You'll LOVE this tool. I sure hope they've got strong patents on the technology.

[freespeachrulez]

Hey Tim, Do you foresee the day that municipalities will start using LED and replacing these bulb rows?

[markwoten]

How do you test a 8 ft T12 single post (pin) fluorescent bulb?

[chuckeggg]

Sorry for hijacking the thread - I was responding to freespeachrulz comment about LED's. 11/30/11. WSJ - "The Math Changes on Bulbs Modern LEDs, While Expensive, Save Companies on Labor" You'll have to Google the article because these comments don't allow links. Short version: "LED bulbs last 10 times longer than conventional bulbs, meaning less labor to replace them" GREAT info graphic when you Google the article.

[chuckeggg]

A lot of municipalities are starting to use LED's
Google this ->

[DRWebster]

If it was cheaper, I would buy one in a heart beat. Since I don't have too many fluorescent lights, I'll stick with guess and check for now. I could see how it would be worth it for someone maintaining a bunch of fixtures though.

[anthonytika]

i wonder though everyone is changing over to led bulbs, i guess the balast and pin features are still useful

[wangbungal]

I appreciate Tim for showing this tool, tools like this are invented because people become so lazy, just a plain fact, I worked as building maintenance, i always carry two flourescent bulbs, that how I test if the bulbs or ballast is bad, just sharing..

[konstantinivanov]

Man you acted like you discovered a new continent in the beginning of this comercial. Greenlee and Fluke has had those tools for quite a while and they are professional electrical tool companies that i can actually trust.

[RRomMSK]

Does this device work on rapid start ballasts?