Florescent lighting

wallysue · Oct 13, 2002

Poorboy, I think if you look on the label on the ballast transformers it should say what lamps to use.
Doesn't cold starting and operation shorten the lamp life? I used to work where there were HO florescents in a unheated warehouse, they never seemed to last long and got changed out to metal halides. Coldest was probably -20 F. The lamps were 8ft power grooves or some thing like that. In winter we used to turn 'em on and come back later or bring a flashlight, the halides made that a year round deal.

Anonymous Poster · Jan 4, 2003

I had a shop built several years ago and the builder installed regular, 8 foot lights. The temperature around here generally stays above 30F but sometimes dips a little below that. I wish I had known about the high output types. My lights are very dim when it is cold and they flickered terribly. I used to get headaches because of it. (For a while, I thought the headaches and fatigue might be a carbon monoxide problem with my heaters so I bought a CO monitor...) I had (9)-2 Lamp fixtures and I was replacing about 4 lamps per year.

I bought new ballasts and lamps. I also put up a few regular incandescent bulbs sprinkled between the 8 footers. The theory being that the regular incandescents don't flicker and I get a baseline brightness. The flicker is much improved with the new ballasts/lamps and I have not replaced a lamp in a year. No headaches either. Don't know if the incandescent anti-flicker theory holds water though since I changed both at once..

alan40 · Jan 5, 2003

I finally decided on 4 sets of four foot florescent lights with the cold weather ballasts. They put out alot of light and no flicker yet. I do get some buzzing but usually I have a radio on anyway. So now my garage is complete except for building a good workbench. It's nice to get out of the house and have a heated garage w/coffee pot and little refrigerator to go to./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

justractors · Jan 5, 2003

In the new 40' X 48' golf course equipment maintenance shop we are going with 12 of the 8' HO units on the 11' high ceiling.
There will also be one of them about 5' above each of the 2 workbenches.
Can never have enough light especially when the days are long and the workload is high. Seems like every year I need a little more light to do the detail work.

Bill

Anonymous Poster · Jan 5, 2003

The usual source of noise in magnetic flourescent lights is a loose ballast.
Cheap manufacturing techniques & magnetic characteristics of ballasts generally turn the entire fixture into a banjo.
Electronic ballasts have a whole set of problems of their own such as RF emission.
Also, be aware thanks to the inventor of the internet, many of the new flourescent tubes will not work in older fixtures.

alan40 · Jan 5, 2003

Have to agree with you on the lighting. A friend helping me told me I didn't have enough lights to do a good job painting cars. Of course that may just be a hint since that what he likes doing. I will be putting in one more light over the work bench and my garage door opener also has 2 bulbs that can be selected to stay on.
Take care

Argee · Jan 5, 2003

<font color=blue>Have you considered regular socket fixtures and putting in the new florecent bulbs instead of the long tube fixtures?</font color=blue> I have to agree with dmccarty on this one. Bought the 150 watt units for my shop. <font color=yellow>WOW</font color=yellow> are they bright, once they're on for a few minutes you can't look at them. Have 4 of them and they draw less than 170 watts.

BAC · Jan 7, 2003

I just installed 17 of the HO 8' magnetic ballast fluorescent fixtures in my barn. One thing to remember is that these fixtures can draw as much as 2 plus amps and on a 15-amp circuit they add up quickly. I had 9 of them on one circuit and discovered that was too much as it tripped the breaker. I then read on the ballast the number of amps these things draw (should have done that to begin with) and installed additional circuits. All is fine now but they do hum in the cold.

weedsportpete · Jan 8, 2003

Can you tell us the brand and model of those 4' CWHO fixtures ? I assume the ballasts come with the fixtures, and you had to buy the bulbs separately??

Pete