T5 Tombstone Problems.... - Electrician Talk - Professional Electrical Contractors Forum

St8Shooter · 05-13-2012, 01:04 PM

Hey Guys, first time poster. I was wondering if anyone can help me with a problem we are having with our T5 High bay lights. The tombstones are just disintegrating in less than 6 months in our press area of the plant. We have actually had bulbs fall out of the fixtures because of this. I think they were Sylvania fixtures and they have already replaced the holders once. I suspect our warranty is up now and we will be faced with not only the maintenance nightmare, but the cost of the new holders every few months. Does anyone have any recommendations for some high quality holders than can stand up in an industrial environment?? The ones being used are the twist lock type, which makes sense with no lenses.......except they keep falling apart!! I'm interested in anything that will last for years rather than months.
Thanks for any responses!

macmikeman · 05-13-2012, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by St8Shooter

Hey Guys, first time poster. I was wondering if anyone can help me with a problem we are having with our T5 High bay lights. The tombstones are just disintegrating in less than 6 months in our press area of the plant. We have actually had bulbs fall out of the fixtures because of this. I think they were Sylvania fixtures and they have already replaced the holders once. I suspect our warranty is up now and we will be faced with not only the maintenance nightmare, but the cost of the new holders every few months. Does anyone have any recommendations for some high quality holders than can stand up in an industrial environment?? The ones being used are the twist lock type, which makes sense with no lenses.......except they keep falling apart!! I'm interested in anything that will last for years rather than months.
Thanks for any responses!

SkotchCoat.

St8Shooter · 05-13-2012, 01:19 PM

SkotchCoat on the Twist Lock Holders doesn't seem advisable. Have you actually had success with this??

macmikeman · 05-13-2012, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by St8Shooter

SkotchCoat on the Twist Lock Holders doesn't seem advisable. Have you actually had success with this??

Its all I could think of... Oh wait, they have them 3d printers now, maybe you could get somebody to make some for you.

chicken steve · 05-13-2012, 01:22 PM

contact the Sylvainia rep ?

~CS~

St8Shooter · 05-13-2012, 01:33 PM

The project Engineer was supposed to be working on that (contacting Sylvania) , but in the mean time the lights are falling apart. I was just hoping someone has had some experience with this type of environmental effect and what was done to address it. I suppose coating the ends with something may help for a while, but it would do little to prevent the environment getting to the inside surfaces.

HARRY304E · 05-13-2012, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by St8Shooter

The project Engineer was supposed to be working on that (contacting Sylvania) , but in the mean time the lights are falling apart. I was just hoping someone has had some experience with this type of environmental effect and what was done to address it. I suppose coating the ends with something may help for a while, but it would do little to prevent the environment getting to the inside surfaces.

This sounds like a bad batch of fixtures themselves.

But also there may be parts missing such as end plates that should be holding the socket's in and tight to the lamps.

Welcome to the forum..

wildleg · 05-13-2012, 01:44 PM

it sounds like the lights aren't suited to the environment. whoever specified them made a mistake. you need to obtain fixtures that are suited to the environment. If you can't determine that, you need a lighting expert to help you. The lights might still be under warranty, and even if they aren't, having the manufacturer who you bought them from see the problem might at least get you a better price. So, I second the post "get Sylvania Rep out there".

Cletis · 05-13-2012, 01:49 PM

You either have 1 or 2 problems. Bad batch of tomestones not making a solid contact creating a high resistance connection AND/OR (fancy grammatical conjunction) high ambient heat problems.

How high are fixtures ? Temp?

St8Shooter · 05-13-2012, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wildleg

it sounds like the lights aren't suited to the environment. whoever specified them made a mistake. you need to obtain fixtures that are suited to the environment. If you can't determine that, you need a lighting expert to help you. The lights might still be under warranty, and even if they aren't, having the manufacturer who you bought them from see the problem might at least get you a better price. So, I second the post "get Sylvania Rep out there".

There was a supposed expert that came to the plant to spec things out. Maybe he didn't realize the environmental differences, I don't really know. The fixtures are a basic 4 bulb high output T5 type. The tombstones snap in with no back supports. They don't appear to be having an issue due to contact problems as they don't look heat stressed at all. They just start crumbling as the plastic is clearly not able to stand up to something in the air (soluble oil?). Other areas of the plant have not exhibited the problems.....yet.

My thoughts were to just replace the ends with something of better quality or of a formulation that can handle our environment. I guess we will just have to chase the project engineer to get something done. Even if it's to replace these fixtures with something else. Thanks for the reply!

St8Shooter · 05-13-2012, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cletis

You either have 1 or 2 problems. Bad batch of tomestones not making a solid contact creating a high resistance connection AND/OR (fancy grammatical conjunction) high ambient heat problems.

How high are fixtures ? Temp?

They don't appear to have a high resistance connection as there is no appearance of heat stress. The heat is pretty high in the summer months, but not worse than other non-affected areas of the plant. The problem from my perspective is the soluble oil that we use in the press area. It appears to be breaking down the plastic post haste. These things will literally crumble in your hand when taking the bad ones out. They exhibit a yellow tint to them, but as I said earlier not brown or black (as in burnt or heat stressed). Thanks for the reply!

magneticpersona · 05-13-2012, 10:16 PM

how about outfitting them with plastic shielding? most lights of this kind have a shielded and non-shielded version. This will prevent whatever is killing your tombstones from affecting them.