Before this purchase, I have had great luck with VivoSun products. I bought these bulbs to replace the old ones in my seed starter. I turned it on expecting a good bright light, but the bulbs almost didn't light up. At first I thought I somehow managed to install them incorrectly, but after removing and replacing all four, the result was the same. My next thought was that the ballast had died so I took one of the old bulbs and replaced it and it lit up. to the point where the others didn't even seem to be turned on. The first thing I noticed when I first opened the shipping tube was that the onion packaging looked very yellowed and old. The bulbs didn't look used, but I wonder if they were so old that some of the petrol leaked out. Since there were five bulbs in the set and my fixture uses four, I tried the fifth bulb and it was at least as bright as the one I removed. So a minimum working lightbulb out of five.