Failure Of The Phosphor

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The efficiency of the phosphor drops off during use.

In the region of 25,000 operating hours, the lamp will be approximately half the brightness of a brand new fluorescent lamp, although there are manufacturers that claim a much longer 'half-life' for their tubes.

A lamp that does not suffer either of the previous two failure modes (emission mix runs out, or failure of integral ballast electronics) will eventually develop this type of failure mode.

They don't stop working, but they do become dim and inefficient.

This process is slow and sometime you will only realise it is happening when a new lamp has been place in operation next to the failing one.