For starters, I have been replacing ballasts in fluorescent fixtures since 1968 before I retired and now still do some at my church. I don't recall ever doing one with an 8 foot fixture. My friend asked me to help her with one in her garage and of course it's an 8 footer. I thought, no problem, how difficult can it be. I tried to do the job yesterday and it didn't work. She took the old one out and took it to an electrical supply house for a replacement and they gave her the newer, smaller, and lighter type to replace the one that has been in since 1982. The fixture has a red wire and a blue wire on the one side that connects to the tube holders. On the other side all that comes from there is a black wire and a white wire. It looks like the hot (black) and the neutral (white) from the main feed connects right to the black and white wires at the tube holders and then come down and connect to the black and white on the ballast. That's fine except the new ballast has TWO blue wires and one red wire. I tried all kinds of combinations with the red and blue wires but nothing worked. I suggested to my friend that it might be easier if she (or I) just took down the 8 foot fixtures (she has 3) and replaced them with some shop lights from Home Depot or Lowes. That still wouldn't allow me to know why I couldn't get that ballast to work. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Go Cubs! Rich

Hello, I am trying to install a new light fixture and have a question about the ground wire. The old mounting bracket (picture 1) is the same as the new one (picture 2), so no need to replace that. However, reading the instructions for the new light fixture (picture 3), there seems to be a difference with how the old light fixture (which did not have a ground wire) was installed. Old installation: the ground wire from the house is connected to the green screw on the old mounting bracket. Instructions for new fixture: Connect ground wire from new mounting bracket (picture 2) to house ground screw. Then connect house ground wire and new fixture ground wire together. Question: I do not see a house ground screw. Is it OK to: (a) Connect the both house ground wire and the new fixture ground wire to the green screw of the old mounting bracket? and (b) Do not use the ground wire from the new mounting bracket (seen in picture 2). A separate question: Why are there caps in the middle of the black and white wires in the new light fixture (picture 3)? I believe I should connect the end of the black wire with the house black wire (and same for the white wires), but is there any reason to have these additional caps in the middle of these wires? [ATTACH]72241[/ATTACH][ATTACH]72242[/ATTACH][ATTACH]72243[/ATTACH]