Hi Ron-
Thanks for your post. The fixture/bulb is around a meter long. Unfortunately I'm not at the house today, so I can't measure it and say exactly. But something around three feet, maybe four feet. And the tube itself is skinny, I'm guessing around 3/4 inch if you pinched it between your fingers. I live in Thailand, and these tubes are skinnier than the ones I used in the States. But beyond that, they look like very plain, inexpensive, everyday fluorescent fixtures (and tubes).
In the "home store" here- like a Home Depot in the States- I found the same little boxes that I think are ballasts at the house in question, and the electronics department people at the "home store" confirmed that they are ballasts, one for each fixture's electrical line. The guys there also confirmed that the ballast will interfere with the incandescent fixture and make the bulb glow dimly unless removed. But I was kindof busy with something else, so I forgot to ask them if I could just remove and join the two wires that go into the ballast (there are no outgoing wires) instead of trying to physically remove the ballast from the wooden board it's attached to.
Let's see- what else... the fluorescent fixture in this case has been completely removed. There is nothing of it remaining. But the ballast is a separate unit that was put down near the switch for the light, not near the light itself. Nothing is hidden behind walls- this house looks like an unfinished house does in the States. Putting the ballast further down the electrical line may be standard practice in Thailand. Anyway the hardware store guys acted as if this configuration was completely normal here. There isn't, or rather wasn't, anything sounding like a "screw base tube" in the originial fixture. It's just a regular fluorescent fixture, i.e. slide both sides' pins into the slots on each side and rotate the tube.
Concern for my well being is appreciated. Thank you. I have no expertise, although I have replaced a few identical broken incandescent fixtures at my old place. Only the ballast is new to me in this case.
But of course I know to turn off the master switch for all the power in the house, and make absolutey sure it IS off, before I do anything. I already err on the side of paranoia- I mean, in Thailand I turn off the whole house's power just to change a blessed light BULB.
Anyway, normally I would not mess with wires I'm unfamiliar with, and that's why I'm asking. But here is my- perhaps incorrect- logic for wondering about joining the two wires: If there were two wires going in and two wires going out of the ballast, then of course I would not cross those wires- that would be like crossing a black wire with a white wire. But there are only two wires. Does that mean that this is like a single, interrupted black (or white) wire, and the other one is running uninterrupted behind the wooden mounting board? Or are those two wires indeed one black wire and one white wire. Right now they both are the same color- white. The regular wiring here is always divided into a black strand and a white strand.
So this is why I am here: Does anyone know how a ballast works? When hooking up a ballast, do you cut only one (black or white) wire and insert both cut ends (of the single-color wire) into the ballast? (That's what I'm guessing and hoping.) Or when hooking up a ballast does one black wire end and one white wire end go into the ballast?
If it's just two parts of the same, interrupted wire, then it seems like I should be able to simply remove and rejoin them (easily done), conveniently removing the ballast from the whole equation. But if a ballast works with one black wire end inserted and one white end wire inserted, then I obviously can't do that.
Does anyone know how this ballast most likely works?
Thank you for reading.
-Paul