Electrician Talk - Professional Electrical Contractors Forum - Lighting Design

Interesting Lighting Problem

MDShunk — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:08:29 GMT

The video below is from the Maintenance Geeks website. It's what happens when you have a dead leg on 347 lighting. I imagine the same thing would happen with 277.

YouTube Video
ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.

Best Landscape light fixtures ?

Rich R — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 02:13:31 GMT

What do you guys think gives the best effect for landscape lighting ? I usually put in Metal halide floods for the big trees and then accent the brush/shrubs with low voltage.

I'm looking for other ideas, sick of just half assing it. Any lighting programs out there or maybe some books ?

Tired of the lawn guys taking our work

Using 3-way switch as 2 single pole switch legs

nick.pei — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:59:10 GMT

I was just thinking about lighting for a building I am planning to build. There is only going to be one entrance and I am planning on having a lamp on all the time when unoccupied for security.

Have any of you ever used a 3 way switch to control the single lamp and all the main building lighting. When flipped in down (traditional off position) the single light will be fed and then when flipped on, the single light goes off and powering the T8's?

Worth retrofitting 8ft T12's to 8ft T8's?

kevmanTA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:07:27 GMT

Hey guys, in our shop we've got 2 rows of 6 8 ft T12 strip fixtures.. They've been in there for 20 years so most of them don't work anyway, what I've been doing is slowly changing them over to the 8 ft T8, but for $25 for the ballast and $9 for 1 bulb, am I better off just removing them and putting in new?

We pulled a bunch of 8' 4 lamp T8's from a job we just did, but the ones in the shop are a nightmare to take down.. I mostly want to know if anyone has had trouble with the 8 ft T8's, I know they sag, and if you look at them wrong they crack, but are they worth the money.

Embarassed Myself: Splices Came Apart

Frasbee — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:23:16 GMT

So I was wiring these recessed cans yesterday, and using smaller wirenuts than I'm used to, they don't leave a lot of room for error as the "skirt" of the nut doesn't extend very far down. I was cutting the copper a little more than I typically prefer.

Otherwise nothing out of the ordinary, twisted the 12 g. together then wrapped the 14 (or 16?) aluminum wire around the copper and twisted.

I recall having a few issues when I'd yank them the aluminum would pull away, so the wire nut wasn't catching. So I'd skin more back, and wrap even more aluminum around the copper twists and put the nut back on.

I thought I had my bases covered, but today the owner called me out and said that he had someone double back and check my work and about 20% of the cans were coming loose (I guess that makes 3-4). :eek:

I told him exactly how I was wiring them, and as received my lecture I realized that they don't twist their wires in situations like that. I've always been told to twist my wires so I never thought to not twist my wires. He told me to just take the wires, put them parallel and even with each other, then put on the wire nut, twist on, then tug. Guaranteed they won't pull apart.

It's a big deal to me because I've only just started working, so they will be watching close at everything I do.

Well, at least I can guarantee that's something I'll never forget.

250 watt metal halide high bay equivalent

Rich R — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:06:22 GMT

What fluorescent high bay type light fixtures would be equivalent to an existing 250 watt metal halide high bay, I have a warehouse with 25' high cielings and want to install fluorescents to replace them

CF and T5 faluires

Shockdoc — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:14:18 GMT

I have an account that has widespread failure of ballast , and sockets throughout the main chapel. These are dimming T5 ballast(7 out of 24) , CF40 bi pin ballast and sockets. My main idea of these for these failures is poor manufacturing. The building has a 1200 amp u/g service, is properly grounded with its own Transformer pad 15' away. There are no mw neutrals feeding these lights. I'm recommending these fixtures all be changed to T8 fixtures.

Going from 220volt to 480.. Is it Cheaper?

jman — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 06:21:51 GMT

I Currently have 20 HID 1000k lights wired at 220volts single phase in my shop. I have just had and interesting conversation with a friend who is an electrician.

He states that if if I use a step up transformer that goes from 120volts to 480v, I will actually save on monthly electricity cost. Is this true?.. I have searched the internet, but can not get a concrete answer to this.

What he suggest is to wire all 1000k HID ballast for 480 volts, (which is possible cause the ballast for the lights can be wired in either 120, 220, 277, 480 volts). Then run all ballast off the transformer or a set of transformers.. The other end of the transformer would just plug into a standard 120v outlet.. So essentially from a standard 120volt outlet into the transformer that would convert out to 480volt and all lights would be wired to plug into the 480volts.

We have 220volts coming into the shop from the utility company. I highly doubt this will save me any money on my monthly electricity cost, any input will be appreciated..

T-8 Dimming ballasts

Dnkldorf — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:34:05 GMT

Just out of curiosity, how many of your customers actually use them?

POCO is offering rebates for installing them, but I doubt if anyone would actually use them, Most of my customers just take a bulb or two out if they want less light. I can't see them spending money, to get a little rebate. The ballasts and dimmers ain't cheap.

CFL vs metal halide vs hps

nrp3 — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:37:41 GMT

Whats the best way to compare these three within a similar fixture, say a wall pack. I have a customer who basically says I am a idiot for choosing anything other than cfl for any application and that basically hps or metal halide are totally obsolete. I look at lumens per watt, but I guess it must be more complicated than that. Bulb life, fixture spacing, etc. Are there any good websites or resources that will compare these? He loves those dreadful Lights of America fixtures they sell at Home Depot. I figure that if CFL was the way to go in all applications, we'd all be putting them in mall parking lots. I like seperately ballasted cfl in some situations, but don't see where they can totally take the place of the other two. I have looked at some of the higher end LED parking lot fixtures and at 2 grand a pop and long lead times to get them its a tough sell.

Lighting Design Programs

BobBob — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:57:17 GMT

Looking for free or $$ lighting design programs that would cover following to determine Photopic and Scotopic lumen levels at user level in these facilities

Arena's (All types)

Indoor Pools

Variously shaped structures, colors, material, etc....

Thanks in advance

BobBob

TPI industrial ceiling fans

burndy — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:31:43 GMT

First post here, just wondering if anyone knows if these fans (specifically model IHR-56) will mount to a traditional ceiling fan box? They ship with a 3/8" diameter steel J-hook. Any help you could offer up would be appreciated.

Metal Halide Spot Light

Big John — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:16:48 GMT

This may be silly, on the side of a building I have to mount some lights very similar to this:

The only attachment point is that 1/2" nipple on the bottom of the fixture. They're 175W MH and they probably weight 10 or 15 pounds. It seems like a heck of a lot of weight to cantilever off of a box cover, which is really the only way it can really be mounted. And this is also an area that gets frequent strong wind.

I'd have to modify the fixtures to add any additional mounting brackets or chains, and that would risk allowing water in.

How would you do it? I just ask because I can see myself or someone else coming back to repair these stupid things in a couple of years if they break off the box, or break the box off the building.

-John

Special lighting arrangement for Church

MDShunk — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 07:21:42 GMT

This is a little job to do something special for the lighting on the exterior of a historical church. The present exterior fixtures are equipped with 100W 240V incandescent lamps. The church desires to have them illuminated at full brightness during occupied nights, and lit only dimly when the church is not occupied.

The control arrangement proposed will light the lamps with 240 volts during the occupied times, and only at 120 volts during unoccupied times, giving about 25 watts of incandescent output during that time.

K1 is a double pole, double throw relay
T1 is a regular 7-day mechanical time clock
L1 is the 240 volt lamp

No particular reason for posting this. Just haven't started a thread in a while.