Re: Fluorescent shop light retrofit questions

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:03:56 -0400, Bob Engelhardt
<bobengelhardt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm going to treat myself to new fluorescent shop lights. I currently
have a motley collection, with fixtures from garage sales and the dump.
No telling what the ballasts are and whatever tubes I could get on sale.

I'm thinking that it will be easier and cheaper to just replace the
ballasts and tubes, keeping the existing fixtures. Is this reasonable?

No - No, it isn't. You can get simple strip fixtures new for the
cost of the ballast (okay, a buck or two more) and get new metal and
lampholders too.

The only reason to rebuild existing fixtures is if they are mounted
in a fairly complicated manner to remove the old one - like shot into
a concrete slab ceiling with powder-actuated nails.

I'd get T8's & electronic ballasts. But which ones? There's a huge
selection!

Is there a difference between brand name & no-name ballasts? If so,
what are the good brands: GE, Sylvania, Motorola, TCP, Sola, Advance, Sasi?

Not a whole lot of difference betweeen them, past going with a major
company so if one dies prematurely they will warrantee it. Not sure
who TCP and Sasi are, but another big name in electronic ballasts is
Fulham.

Over anything rotating like a lathe you want an electronic ballast -
a plain magnetic fixture can cause strobing at 120 Hz and make the
workpiece look like it is stopped, but the electronic ballast at 20
KHz won't.

What about tubes: GE, Sylvania, Phillips, LITETRONICS, Panasonic,
Westinghouse, TCP, Sola, Advance, Sasi?

Are "temperature" and lumens something I need to pay attention to?

The first digit is the Color Rendering Index, and the last two is
the Color Temperature in Degrees Kelvin - the spectrum spread of the
light. 741 is the standard "Cool White" used in offices - 4100K.

5000K "Daylight Deluxe" lamps are a good analog for sunshine - I use
them in my office so I can trust the colors on a printout. This is
all the "Ott Lite" lamps are, 5000K compact fluorescent.

2700K "Warm White" is an analog of incandescent lamps.

They make 6400K lamps for use when filming movies in rooms with
fluorescent lighting - it's almost bluish, but comes out white in
print and movie film.

The main reason to watch the colors is a room looks funny when the
lamp colors are all different in each fixture.

--<< Bruce >>--

.

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