On 25 Mar 2008 10:38:53 GMT Andrew Gabriel wrote: | In article , | Salmon Egg writes: |> |> This gets me back to a subject I posted on several years back. |> Fluorescent glow tube starters, if you can find them, need ambient light |> to start. They certainly would be useless in a totally dark environment! | | That would seem to be a 120V mains problem. | Doesn't exist in 240V mains countries.
They should have connected fluorescent lights line-to-line in North America.
That way it would be 240 volts. And 240 volt ballasts are available. But people were just too cheap to spring for a double pole switch, so they put in those starters instead. Which was cheaper? Adding the starter or the difference between a single pole and double pole switch.
For those outside North America (and those inside who don't understand the electrical system), we do have 240 volt service. But it comes as two sides of a transformer which is tapped in the middle for ground reference. So there are two line wires coming into the house, along with the neutral.
And the voltage relative to ground is only 120 volts on either line wire.
Wiring things like the screw in bulb socket line-to-line would be unsafe. But most other things would be fine wired line-to-line as long as they are able to handle 240 volts and have a double pole switch to interrupt both wires at the same time.