Fluorescent fittings

Hello all, hope everyone is keeping warm. Garage conversion done thanks to all the suggestions in this group -

2" esp & stirling board, under bench tool storage done & floor/walls painted white As an aside, my book/magazine storage has been sorted & I will post details of what I did early next year. It's now time to consider what type of light units to use & who to purchase from. Perusing various web sites, the following is recommended: 3 watts/sq ft general overhead lighting = 510 watt for 170sq ft garage, using 32W Octron T8 fluorescent lamps with Phillips F40DX 40W 5400K tubes. Suggestions/comments please, especially as to who to purchase from. Cheers GeoffH Norfolk
Reply to
halgat
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You cannot have too much light, and multiple small flourescents are a pain, so go for either 8ft single or 6ft singles. If your ceiling is white then leave the reflectors, but they can be useful for directing work downwards onto a lathe or drill area.

Our workshop is 27' X 22' and we have 6 X 8ft single with no reflectors.

Twins are usually a waste of light as you don't actually seem to get double the light out of them unless they are high up (higher than normal 8ft ceiling.

Peter

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Reply to
Peter A Forbes

Sorry Peter,

I agree with you can't have too much light but I have stripped all my

8 foot lights out and replaced them with those 4 x 4ft fittings you see in offices. In fact they came out of a canteen.

Whereas I was limited to only getting a couple of 8' tubes into my smaller shop and never getting light where needed.I can now get a pack over each lathe and two over the benches. As they are wired with twin ballasts and individual starters I have fitted a pull switch to the ones over the bench so I can choose between 2 or 4 tubes in use. The ones over the lathe only have two tubes fitted but I can fit extra's if needed.

I now have no dead spots of shadow where I'm working.

I'm also that plesaed that I have ripped the others out and fitted 6 packs to the bigger shop, again only running 2 tubes. I still need one extra pack but these are a great improvement over the previous 4 doubles in that shop.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Reply to
John Stevenson

Hello Peter,

Agree about quantity of light. Age is galloping up and the old eyes are not what they where 40 year ago :-)

directing work downwards onto a lathe or

Was wondering about reflectors, as they double the price of fittings in the Screwfix catalogue. Ceiling is white with wood joists. It's a flat roof garage with ceiling about 8ft.

My garage is 17'x10' so four should do, with machine lights for lathe, mill, drill etc

Ah that means I can fit more singles. Thanks for the info Peter. Regards GeoffH

Reply to
halgat

Hello John,

What height have you put them? Your ceiling is a lot heigher than mine if I remember correctly. Mine is only 8ft.

Hmm. Maybe I need to rethink my lighting layout. Was going to put them down the centre of the garage and over the bench. Will go with my original plan of having them on trailing leads and plugging into 3 pin sockets until position sorted then fix permanently. I do plan to put about 10 double 30A socket outlets spread around the walls.

What type of pull switch did you use? Was originally thinking of doing the same, as it will be so much more simple compares with wiring to and from a 6 gang wall switch. Good to hear the method works OK.

Makes me think I should use fluorescents controlled by pull switch as you did instead of LV machine lamps I was thinking of using.

Sounds good to me. Regards GeoffH

Reply to
halgat

My small shop is only about 7' to 8' max and it was this shop I has having problems with as regards the spread of light. The other shop has taller ceilings so spread isn't so much of a problem other then after a swap round I now have a mill with no lights above it.

Just a bedroom ceiling plastic pull switch from Wickes with about 8" of cord.

I still use machine lamps as well being blind and doing a lot of bearing bores don't help.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Reply to
John Stevenson

directing work downwards onto a lathe or

Two more points of reference:- My garage is 8'x18' with unpainted cement walls and asbestos cement ceiling. This has 6x5ft 58W tubes that provide adequate, but not exceptional, light.

My late father's workshop was 10'x16' with white painted ceiling and white ceramic tiles on all the walls (mother worked at the tile factory). This had

2x8ft 125W tubes and 1x5ft 58W tube. The 2 8ft tubes were enough to provide excellent light.

The moral is that walls and ceilings can make a big difference.

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

Hello GeoffH Two comments on fluorescent lamps in a workshop with moving machines. It is NOT good to use just fluorescent lamps due to the stroboscopic effect. Use incandescent spots lamps on moving parts, it lessens the chance of accidents. Other thing is disconnect the capacitors in you fluorescent lamps they are not needed, they were added to please the supply company to correct the power factor, and end up pushing your bill up. All the best Trevor

halgate wrote:

Reply to
trevatxtal

I've found that fitting full spectrum tubes gives a much better quality of light - a factor that's worth bearing in mind in terms of fatigue.

Regards,

Reply to
Stephen Howard

Whilst technically correct I have never found this a problem, in fact I have tried to duplicate this on a variable speed machine and have never managed it.

One job we used to do at a previous company was grinding freehand very small drills. To aid this they bought us a lab strobe supply where we could shine the light at the edge of the wheel and 'stop' the wheel so we could see better what we were doing. The lamp was rigidly mounted about 2" away and it worked OK.

When they packed in I scrounged the lamp off them with an idea to 'stop' the work when undercutting in interrupted bores. I set it up on the lathe just clear of the bore and adjusted the pot to the right frequency, stopped the outside of the job fine. However at the bottom of a 6" bore it was useless as the beam was out of focus and you couldn't get near enough.

I have been machining now for 40+ years and have never seen a strip light stop a job. Not saying it can't, just saying I have never seen it and can't do it properly with the correct equipment.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Reply to
John Stevenson

Correct!

Use colour 84 flu lamps and HF fittings [no strobe effect and more efficient)

Reply to
Clive Dive

That's because you need to jam it in there *really* hard..

Peter

Reply to
Peter Neill

No but I've lost a few tubes due to shrapnel

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Reply to
John Stevenson

The phosphors in modern tubes have enough persistence that flicker is not a problem. Even with white sectors on a black wheel you will struggle to get a useable stroboscopic effect with normal fluorescent tubes. LP sodium is a different case entirely...

Also _don't_ disconnect the capacitors. They were put there because some people pay a premium for low power factor loads due to the extra distribution costs. It will save you no money to run at a lower power factor than you need. Indeed, with a 300 ft^2 workshop at 3W/ft^2 you would have another 4.5 amps flowing in the lighting circuits if you disconnect those capacitors. This is not to be sneezed at.

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

Stephen Howard made the point about using Flourescents with moving machinery, John pointed out that in over 40 years he hasn't seen a problem.

Just to chip in my twa'appence worth... The problem of using flourescents with moving parts is that it can trigger a psuedo-stroboscopic effect which can trigger reactions from people who are sensitive to strobing light sources (epileptics, etc). It's not a problem for those of us without that particular issue, ... but we should be aware of the problem for any visitors to the workshop/s. During my training in the 70's we had a lad who appeared perfectly healthy until we were about 5 weeks into the course and the first day we were to use the lathes. He took up his position at a Harrison fitted with a Flourescent light rather than the lo-volt tungsten as normal, ... started out OK, ...but then after about 5 minutes he muttered something about not feeling well and then almost immediately collapsed on the floor with an epileptic fit. Scared the beegeehavs out of all of us, especially him.

So the fact that 'we' haven't had a problem with it doesn't mean that nobody else will.

Regards

IanB

Reply to
ticktock

Ian, It seems as if the concenus is that with modern fittings, electronic ballasts etc that this is now a thing of the past.

I have tried to replicate this using variable speed drives but have never managed to see the effect. Some of the better class of record turntables had strobes fitted shining onto a notched ring so you could get 33-1/3 rpm bag on. However if you move this away from the turntable by a couple of inches it ceases to work.

Perhaps for one of the older lights to replicate this they have to be close to the machine?

Timing lights are another example, as powerful as they are they need to be close to the pulley. One that is waving about in the air could cause a fit but that would be to blame the light and not a rotating source.

I know of one person who used to work at a supermarket cash desk and had to give it up because of the intense lighting. These type of people will suffer regardless of rotating machinery but they are usually aware they have a problem beforehand, headaches etc.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Reply to
John Stevenson

Perhaps this is a good subject to send up to that Myth Busters program. However knowing the Yanks crappy 110v electrical system they might have to involve the curse of Joseph Lucas [ Prince of Darkness ] to get anything to work anyway.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Reply to
John Stevenson

W'nt me! I made the point about full spectrum tubes..

I've never seen a tube 'stop' a machine either, and in any case you'd have to align the rpm with the frequency - which is no mean feat.

Regards,

Reply to
Stephen Howard

I have a tachometer designed for measuring the RPM of model aircraft engines (it senses the light differential caused by a rotating prop.) It is however useful for measuring the RPM of any item that has some light/dark marks on it and therefore is very useful around the workshop generally. It is sensitive enough to read the background flicker of the fluorescent lighting (which is a PITA!) So the phosphors aren't totally effective.

Having said that, I have never witnessed any strobe effect on spinning machinery, but, from this experience, I guess it could happen if you ever managed to get close enough to 50 Hz or multiple thereof.

Mark

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Reply to
mark.howard10

Thanks for all the help.

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ref D18616-49 a single 1200mm fittings appear to meet my requirement, multiple single units without diffuser. Now to decide what tube to use. Their standard is a T8 white. Any comments? GeoffH

Reply to
halgat

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