So I have some older fluorscent light fixtures in my home. The fixtures take two F20T12 bulbs, and for awhile now in one of the fixtures, only one of the bulbs would turn on. I tried replacing the bulb, and the starter, and I couldn't get that side of the fixture to work. One bulb lit the small room just fine, so I just lived with it. Now, neither side works. Tonight, the light looked like it wanted to come on, but it would not fully illuminate (like in the first picture below). The bulb was only a year old, so I thought maybe it was the old starter (pictured below). Well after replacing the starter, the bulb sort of blew when I turned the switch on. When I say the bulb blew, it sort of blew the way an incandescent light would. The light turned on, popped, I think there was a flicker of light, and then nothing. Now, no matter what I do, new starter, new bulb, neither side works. I used a FS-2 starter, that was compatible with 20 watt bulbs, so I don't think that's the problem. I've used the new fs-2 starters in other fixtures before without any issues. So I'm just looking for ideas, what do you guys think is wrong? The only thing I can think of is the ballasts, are the black boxes in the attached pictures the ballasts? Circuit breaker is fine, not tripped. The first attached picture below is from a second light fixture, which is now exhibiting the same symptoms the other fixture did before I replaced the starter, and blew the bulb. I don't like playing with electrical, especially older electrical, but I'd like to know what you guys think is going on. I think these fixtures use old aluminum wiring, so that makes me think maybe the wiring feeding them is aluminum too. So that's making me reluctant to try and replace the fixture on my own, if needed, since I'm not sure of the correct way to wire that. *Edit, I did google "cat. lc-14-20-C" like it says on the black boxes. It looks like those are the ballasts, but I'm still not sure about replacing them. I'm afraid new ballasts will have copper wires, and my wiring will be aluminum. [ATTACH]62425[/ATTACH][ATTACH]62426[/ATTACH][ATTACH]62427[/ATTACH][ATTACH]62428[/ATTACH]

I have an outdoor lighted snowflake (that uses the mini type sting light bulbs) and has burned out almost 1/2 of it's bulbs. I tried replacing them with some spare bulbs I had from an old light set, but those are no where near as bright as the originals. The tag on the electrical cord says to use 3v (.42amp) replacement bulbs. But I can't seem to find any with those specifications? There are about 42 bulbs in this light and the replacement bulbs I used were from an old 100 ct. light set (which my guess is why they aren't as bright?) Anyone know where I can find this size bulb or if I can use a different size? (Googling didn't return any in the 3v -.42 amp size). Thanks!