Quote Originally Posted by CoryDude View Post
Bulbs will flicker when they get old or develop a short. A loose pin on the bulb can do the same. Unless the ballast shows signs of getting wet or excessively hot, I'd check the bulbs first.

Also, if a ballast is bad, it will usually work for a few seconds, and then a internal circuit will trip and shut if off completely. Just my experience in the matter.
I plugged in the hood before taking it apart and one bulb on each of the two main power switches was working fine with no flickering. The other two bulbs were not flickering or lighting up or anything. The weird thing is that there are two bulbs per switch but only one bulb per switch was working.

Then I took apart the hood, pulled the wires out to see where the were going and traced the switches to the two ballasts on each switch. I have a total of 4 ballasts, one for each bulb. Then I re-plugged the hood in, turned on the switches and a completely different presentation.

The two bulbs on one switch didn't come on or even flicker where previously at least one of them came on. The other two bulbs just faintly came on close to the plug part only and flickered slightly. So on this switch where only one bulb was working, now both bulbs just barly glowed and slightly flickered just at the plug section of the bulb.

I tried unplugging the hood from the wall, re-pluggin it back in, then switching the switches on and off, on and off. nothing changed.

The 2 bulbs that weren't working were on the same side of the hood along with their ballasts. The bulb that was badly corroded and had the plastic plug break off of the glass exposing the filaments was also one of those bulbs on that side that wasn't working in the beginning. The weird thing is that before I tried to unplug the bulb that wasn't working (and that ended up breaking the plug off) it was flickering slightly and glowing close to the plug end. The plug actually broke off after this when I tried to disconnect the plug to try and swap bulbs around in the hood.

Quote Originally Posted by Justahobby View Post
Wouldn't you need to replace the "reflectors" for reflectors, plus endcaps?
I'm no electrician but it sounds like loose wiring. Does the flickering change intensity when you move the wiring around?
I worked on each wire tracing it and at every wire crimp site jiggeld it to see if the bulbs did anything different but no change, nothing.

I priced out new fixtures and ballasts and bulbs leaving it all in the hood with the flat reflector and it is about $100 to get 2 each T5 54W bulbs with fixtures and ballasts.