How to repair a choke for a fluorescent lamp

In the article, the author shares his experience in the restoration of chokes, which are part of industrial devices for supplying linear fluorescent lamps. Prices for these chokes can be higher than for fluorescent lamps. Unfortunately, acquiring the required copy of the inductor can be difficult, especially in the "outback. Yes, and it is not always possible to place the product that is offered on the market in the chandelier (shade) of a fluorescent lamp. It can be cheaper, easier and faster to restore an old defective inductor than acquiring new.

In fluorescent lamps with AC power, chokes are used that are used as ballast elements. These chokes fail quite often, especially with an increase in mains voltage, which is typical for rural areas. The inductor overheats, the insulation of the enamel wire is broken, and the inductor fails.

The easiest way, of course, is to replace a failed inductor with a new one, but the prices of these products are comparable to or even exceed the prices of the fluorescent lamps themselves. And the larger the overall power of the throttle, the more expensive it is.

Consider the restoration of the example of a choke for a domestic fluorescent lamp with a power of 80 watts.

First of all, remove the protective cover and two L-shaped steel halves of the core. Removing the winding also does not cause complications. If it is not possible to unwind the turns, then you can speed up the process using a hacksaw for cutting metal. Such a choke has a simple plate magnetic circuit of size 26x26x134 mm.

Removing the old winding, we get to this iron. In such chokes, the winding is wound in layers round to round, interlayer paper insulation is used.

The inductor is wound with an aluminum wire, but if we use copper, this will reduce its diameter from 0.8 to 0.64 mm. Thanks to this, the new winding is easily placed instead of the old. 1000 turns are wound in bulk and without interlayer insulation. It is possible to increase the number of turns, which is especially important for supplying a fluorescent lamp with direct current, since an increase in the inductance of the inductor can reduce the ripple of the rectified voltage.

It takes less than two hours to rewind the throttle. I had to rewind different types of chokes. The greater the power of the throttle, the easier it is to disassemble and restore. Small-sized chokes for fluorescent lamps are filled with a special compound, which complicates the recovery process.