Every once in a hundred turn-offs my 40w fluorescent tube fixture recently bought and installed in my hallway blows the apartment main breaker. Couple of times it even caused the safety door switch on the front load washing machine (operating at the time) to stick/weld contacts to the point I couldn't open the door thus necessitating a major washer disassembly job.
Seeing a choke in the fixture brought to mind a possible voltage spike if the tube is turned off at the AC peak. It 's just that I have never experienced such problem. Maybe it's a special balast design (made in Hungary and very cheap). I have some MOV's in the junk box. Any ideas if they would solve the spike problem? These were acquired some 30 years ago when GE brought them out (which I hope is not a problem) but they are rated 130V AC. Now I live in a 240V country - can I place them in series ( with a couple of say 50k equalizing resistors across)?
Tnx for ideas ( I know i should junk the thing but I like problems I can solve with stuff I hoard and never use).