Fluorescent fixture ballasts. Safe to disassemble?

Notice I did not ask if it was worth it to disassemble them... I just want to know if it's SAFE to do so. I read a bit on wikipedia, and it appears there used to be PCBs in them (poly-chlorinated biphenyls... not printed circuit boards!) until about 1979. This fixture appears to be more recent than that, but I can't be absolutely certain. My yard pays .20# for ballasts as is. I want to see what's in them, and how long it takes to extract whatever IS in them, and how much THAT'S worth, then do my own calculations on whether or not it's worth it to do so.

THANKS!

I'll go ahead & post pics & commentary here of the disassembly if the consensus says it is safe to do so.

Yes, safe if it's marked non-pcb. May be copper or aluminum inside.

I heard that ballasts are potted. So its filled with tar or a similar type of material. So basically you would have to cook it out or burn it out. I always like to take stuff apart to see whats in it. I am curious to see how you are going to go about it.

The first and only time I did one, i used a sledge, chisel, and small crowbar. Big mess.

What a mess that will be, Remove the ballast from the fixture, get all the copper wire, and the ends have brass tabs in them. The case is steel. Sell the ballast whole and save a lot of hassle.

Check the label to see if it's marked with any of "no PCB's" or "PCB free" or anything similar. If its not marked, and thus contains PCBs; I was told the PCBs are only contained in the capacitor inside the ballast, same big aluminum can style as you find inside a microwave. The tar encasing everything is apparently PCB-free. This is according to a couple of old-timer electricians who were working during the years they switched over. Myself, if they're not clearly marked PCB-free, I'm health conscious enough and lazy enough to just ship them out as-is.

Edit to add; there seems to be 2 common sizes I run across, the smaller are approx. 2"H x 3"W x 10"L, larger are about 2 1/2"H x 4"W x 12"L, both sizes are a guess as I'm going off memory. The larger ones 1 break down as you get about 1.5 lbs of #2 copper. The smaller ones I'll set aside until I have nothing to do, or sometimes I'll hire a friend who needs a few $$ to do some. Smaller ones average just over a 1/2 lb of copper. Like Mick said, sometimes you can get alum windings instead of copper. If you check one set of windings and it's alum, check the 2nd set as well. Having one copper and one aluminum isn't uncommon.

Having a bench vise to work on these makes it many times quicker and easier. I do them like an assembly line. Take a bunch out of the housings, then de-tar that batch, and then finally beat/slide/cut the windings off the steel. This is what I've found works easiest for me. I can get about 12-15 an hour doing it this way. Good luck!

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Originally Posted by rawresale

The first and only time I did one, i used a sledge, chisel, and small crowbar. Big mess.

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I usually have to learn things the hard way, but I think I'm going to go with the consensus & leave it whole.

Thank everyone for the input!

If you throw them in the freezer and then in a bag and beat them it's a whole lot less of a mess and easy I just did about 30 for me it's worth as my yard only pays 6# for them whole

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Originally Posted by jghilino

I heard that ballasts are potted. So its filled with tar or a similar type of material. So basically you would have to cook it out or burn it out. I always like to take stuff apart to see whats in it. I am curious to see how you are going to go about it.

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They cut one open for me at the yard and Jghilino is correct. There is some copper (not a lot), but it was caked in a tar-like mess. I think it's worth it for you to take one apart and decide for yourself, but for me, a lot of work for very little reward on the one I did. They kind of remind me of 3-4 small transformers off low grade boards in a row covered in tar.

I'd really encourage you to tear one apart and see what you think. I got about 30 four feet long a couple years ago. The "tar" was brittle and easily beat off the copper windings. I forget how much copper I wound up with from the as I got other ballasts and aluminum cases at the same time but it was a nice check. I did like zito said. Lined up a bunch of the and opened the cases with the grinder. Then peeled them open like they were on a hinge. Then there was two chunks of connected copper that just lifted out.

I do ballasts. I get about 100gms each, so I save them up.

Most I have found are 'no PCB's & after wrenching off the metal plate that holds everything together its pretty easy.

The older ones with the tar potted around them are messy to work with. After taking off the backing plate I grab one end & smack the other end on something solid & the ballast transformer falls out.
They have a thin tar & really thin paper in them, so its messy.
Normally I do those when I need just a few hundred grams to make my pile up to a little over the ?Kg mark. (We measure in Kg's which means that I can be 2Lbs over the Kg mark & loose the 2kgs of value in $$.)

The others, the white painted ones, are easy except yah end up with thousands of tiny 'tile like' metal plates everywhere.

Since they normally come from shop fitouts & maintenance theres mostly 10-50+ at a time.

Don't forget the wires attached to the unit, they are normally single strand solid copper wire.

My shop just converted all the 8 ft tubes lighting to the new high efficient 4 ft tubes. I was able to get all the ballast and wires. We have 4 gaylords full now. They are all marked "no PCB's" We are still parttime scrappers so we tear the ballast down. We have found at least 3 differant sizes of ballast and some that is not tar filled.

We have never cared how much each teardowm netted in cash. We sell when the buckets get full

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Originally Posted by unitsngold

If you throw them in the freezer and then in a bag and beat them it's a whole lot less of a mess and easy I just did about 30 for me it's worth as my yard only pays 6# for them whole

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Very timely advice. I just got one of these. I put it in the freezer last night, and today broke out the transformers in about 30 seconds.

I broke down about a 100 one time got pretty good at it ended up with 5 gallon bucket full of copper all is needed is a hammer

I picked up a smaller ballast from a restore thrift shop the other day. It had a $3 price tag on it, said as-is, they had 7 of them, I tried to offer them $2 a piece for all 7 but they wouldn't budge, so I bought on to take apart and see if its worth the $3 or not, In the end, It took a half hour of my time, and it only came out to be worth roughly $3.75 torn apart...I think I'll pass on the smaller ones, If I score some big ones however I believe they would be worth it.

Note to self: $3 ballast= hard lesson learned...

Air chisel is a helluva lot quicker...10 seconds