Iv'e got all my fixtures cleaned and repainted. Wired up the first one the other night. Using 8 brand new sockets and one 4 bulb electronic T8 ballast. I'm using 4 daylight (6500K) 34 watt Phillips bulbs. Wired everything according to the diagram on the ballasts, installed the bulbs, and fired up the fixture. I had one bulb that didn't seem to be working too well, but I swapped in a new bulb and that problem went away, That "bad" bulb in a different position still had problems, so I concluded I had one bad bulb out of the box, no big deal.
With the fixture powered up and sitting face up on a pair of saw horses, it just didn't seem all that bright to me. From the boxes in the Big Box stores, each bulb should have 2700 lumens versus about 2100 from the old T12 bulbs. This is the first time I've used these 6500 K temperature bulbs (or any kind of T8 for that matter), so maybe the bluer light is throwing me a bit. Also I'm working by a double halogen work light (craftsman special), so maybe all that acrid white light is throwing off my evaluation. Does any of this sound like my lights are not working as they should? I guess my expectation from four of those daylight 6500K bulbs was to be hammered with light with the fixture pointing up at me from those saw horses. Were my expectations just off? I'll have a total of eight of these fixtures about 10 feet off the floor (32 bulbs total). Just wanted to try to be sure all was well before I got them all mounted.
Thanks!