Abstract
We retrieved accident phenomena occurring at luminaires that end their lifetime from accident information published by the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation (NITE). We found out that main causes of such phenomena including deteriorated winding wires in a magnetic ballast, a power factor correction capacitor, an electrolytic capacitor in an electronic ballast, and a soldered joint. This article describes the mechanism how luminaires end their lifetime, and different phenomena observed at the end of their lifetime. It also makes discussions about the safety, and concludes that the risk of smoke- or fire-generating accidents, caused by aged luminaires, can be reduced by replacing the luminaire using a magnetic ballast to the luminaire using an electronic ballast.
