how do you argue that a fluorescent lamp ballast is good or bad
Remove the glow and turn off the power and test the ballast. I don't know if your ballast is the kind of older inducer that you can use to test the coils in this way. This kind of old-style ballast is broken, usually the coil is burned, causing no voltage on both ends of the tube, causing the lamp to burn. There will be a lot of cases for electronic ballasts, but let's take a look at the books and get the circuits out of the way. It is possible to measure the resistance of the three ballast and see whether the ballast is damaged. You can also change the glow and see if the burner is not disconnecting, and it's always on the path. So let's do substitution.
The short circuit of the ballast turns is very common, and it is very difficult to make a lamp with a new lamp, which is not measured in the multimeter. Our experience is to use a leaky bad lamp tube (the filament is good, because the old is not bright) put on, want to burn also only burn bad lamp tube, you might as well try.
Using the multimeter ohm to measure the connection of the ballast two terminals, the coil is burnt out.
For inductive ballast, can turn on the switch, electricity pen for measuring the output of the ballast whether there is electricity, if electroprobe neon bulb does not light, ballast coil open. The electric pen measures the ballast housing, and if there is electricity the ballast insulation damages the leakage. Using the digital multimeter 2K, the resistance is about 200 ohms. If the resistance is infinite, the coil opens. The meter coil is measured against the shell, and if the resistance value is zero, the leakage of electrical insulation is damaged.