Asteroids Marquee repair

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I thought I would throw out some info on fixing my old marquee light. When I was searching, I did not find anything on this topic so now I have something to contribute.

Asteroids.

Mine used these loose florescent tube end pieces that snap onto each side of the tube. The tube snaps onto the cabinet via some metal clips. Pretty basic.

The light didnt work.

Changed starter. Didnt fix.
Changed Tube. Didnt fix.
Changed ballast. Didnt fix.

Ok, so what next? Most people say, change the whole light fixture.

I went to Ace Hardware, bought a $15 enclosed tube light, cut off the end, and started wiring it up to the Asteroids cabinet.

This is where I started experimenting...I wasnt completely sure what wire was what...tried tracing them first by color and to what it attached but I kept guessing wrong...

I wired up both wires from the new fixture to one white wire from the game...Didnt fix.
I put my meter on this and it read 6v.

Then my electrical basics came to me....and I am elementary school here, when it comes to wiring but I am getting better...

I needed two hot wires...so then I found a green one attached to the ballast..Didnt fix...when I connected that to the fixture...I am like, hmmmm where is this other AC hot wire.....then I found it...someone had cut it off right at a zip tie holding all the bundle together...small black wire tucked away....WTF....so I pulled that out, stripped the wire, tied into it with the new fixture, and boom, FIXED....I had light! So now I think I know how to fix the original fixture and save my new one.

I thought my little story here may help someone..if nothing else, it passes the time for some funny reading...thanks for watching the show ;)
 

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By the way, just for future reference:

Black = Hot
White = Hot
Green = Ground

Most people probably know all this, but this is how my marquee light was wired so sometimes, its just nice to see this spelled out if you are doing this for the first time.

For my test fixture, I didnt need to connect that ground wire to it..just the two hot wires, using the twist on caps.

For the old setup:

one hot wire goes direct to the ballast.
one hot wire should go to the starter, then that goes to the ballast.
Green wire screws onto the middle screw direct onto the ballast as a ground.

From the ballast, black wires tie direct into the tube connectors for each side. (the colors changed on me too...thus causing some confusion and made me trace)
 
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