Weird Lighting at Kmart « on: June 14, 2022, 10:54:49 PM » Author: suzukir122
I have been meaning to talk about this in thread for a LONG time, but just never got around to it. Kmart's lighting... during the old school days before T8's and LED's popped up. Why is it that Kmart had some of the weirdest fluorescent lighting? I've seen F32T12's in use there from both GE and Philips, I could've sworn I've seen F30T12 energy savers (25w 3 footers) there as well, and weird single lamp VHO strip fixtures outside... (or were they HO? I don't remember) as well as possible VHO two lamp strips, I think, lighting up the front doors. Those were some of the brightest two lamp strip fixtures I've ever seen, as well as the biggest. I also remember possibly seeing 135w VHO T10 lamps in use in the garden areas, and many strange looking fluorescent fixtures as well, mainly in the employee back room areas, and the restrooms. This was in all Kmart stores. Another thing I noticed as a kid, in many Kmart stores... HPF Rapid Start fluorescent fixtures would take a very, very long time to successfully start. This includes four lamp troffers, as I found out, in the fitting rooms. Find the switch, switch them off and turn them back on... only two lamps fired up perfectly fine... the rest of those troffers... not so much. All the other troffers had trouble firing up. I will never forget that. Couldn't stay to watch them all start because... ya boy didn't want to get in trouble. I had to run before I got caught. But yeah... the start up issue happened in restrooms as well. What was up with that?? Anybody else remember all this?
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3. Severe Thunderstorms of all kinds
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Lighting has ALWAYS been a passion of mine. I consider everyone on here to be a friend

	Re: Weird Lighting at Kmart « Reply #2 on: June 15, 2022, 02:09:57 AM » Author: suzukir122
@Joseph_125, yep I know exactly what you mean with those T8 tandem retrofits. They had those in the Beavercreek Ohio Kmart, I think, before that Kmart shut down and got turned into a "Home" store. It did look very strange, and I wasn't really a fan of it. I forgot to clarify the fixtures that contained possible 135w T10 VHO's... those VHO's were definitely cold weather sleeve jacketed, and they were single lamp strips... I think I remember them being wired in tandem with one another based on EOL lamps. Not sure though. But yeah... the hard starting rapid start lights... there were far, far too many of them struggling to start. It was bad. That would have to be a lot of corroded lamp holders or corroded lamp pins. This situation occurred in a lot of the Kmart stores I went to with family as a kid, not just one particular Kmart store. Being in a large/tall fitting room with at least 30, maybe 40 Rapid Start troffers... all failing to start after you had just flipped the switch off then back on... that's really tough to forget. haha The only other things I can think of is that the people who wired them, as well as the bathroom lighting, didn't know what they were doing, at all. It's also possible that maybe the ballasts somehow couldn't handle the 32 watt T12's.
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Interests:
1. Motorcycles, Cars, Women, and Lighting (especially fluorescent)
2. Weightlifting/staying extremely athletic
3. Severe Thunderstorms of all kinds
4. Food and drinks. So gimme them bbq ribs
Lighting has ALWAYS been a passion of mine. I consider everyone on here to be a friend

	Re: Weird Lighting at Kmart « Reply #3 on: June 15, 2022, 10:01:59 AM » Author: Silverliner
The 32w T12 Watt-Miser Plus lamps and the VHO lights in the front and in the garden center right? I remember them well. Kmart also used 58w energy saver slimlines at one point.
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	Re: Weird Lighting at Kmart « Reply #4 on: June 15, 2022, 10:20:54 AM » Author: suzukir122
@Silverliner, alright so then I'm not going crazy.   ... there were also 32w Philips T12 lamps as well. So I'm wondering two things at this point: Why did Kmart have so many R.S fixtures that had start up issues? And why did Kmart end up being the store that had such rare fluorescent lamps and fixtures? Heck, even their main store Slimline fixtures seem rare. I've never seen other stores with those kind of Slimlines, other than maybe stores that had previously been a Kmart.
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Interests:
1. Motorcycles, Cars, Women, and Lighting (especially fluorescent)
2. Weightlifting/staying extremely athletic
3. Severe Thunderstorms of all kinds
4. Food and drinks. So gimme them bbq ribs
Lighting has ALWAYS been a passion of mine. I consider everyone on here to be a friend

	Re: Weird Lighting at Kmart « Reply #5 on: June 16, 2022, 04:47:48 AM » Author: Silverliner
The Kmarts in California I have gone in usually had conventional fluorescent fixtures. Plain strips. But one had turrets, it was originally a Grant City store. Another had 2x4 troffers in pairs. Some newer stores had recessed fluorescent strips, either F96T12s or F32T8 tandems, much like Walmart’s lighting. It’s only the energy saver T12 lamps they used that had strange wattages. I got some from a shuttered Kmart that got donated to a local ReStore. GE 32w Wattmiser Plus and Philips XEWs. I also got 25w ES versions of 30w tubes.
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Administrator of Lighting-Gallery.net. Need help? PM me.

Member of L-G since 2005.

Collector of vintage bulbs, street lights and fluorescent fixtures.

Electrician.

Also a fan of cars, travelling, working out, food, hanging out.

Power company: Southern California Edison.

	Re: Weird Lighting at Kmart « Reply #6 on: June 16, 2022, 05:27:25 AM » Author: suzukir122
@Silverliner, I just recently bought four 25w T12's (energy saver 30w) Watt-Misers as well, (I'm gonna be uploading pics of them soon once I start getting my big lighting project up and running) and looking at the etches of those 25w Watt-Misers, they look almost exactly like the ones I saw in Kmart, although the ones I saw in Kmart were definitely Triphosphor warm white, (very rare) and I'm hoping mine are Halophosphor. ... There was also a Kmart I went to as a kid, that had 2 lamp F32T8 fixtures with reflectors, as their main source of lighting throughout the store. Seeing pics of that store, it looks as if those were old school retrofits of fixtures that use to be Slimline...? This "Big Kmart" was in Ferguson Missouri, St.louis. That Kmart was the ONLY one to have those fixtures, because it was previously a "Venture" store. Apparently Venture made the switch to electronic T8 at one point, and those fixtures remained when Venture closed and got turned into a "Big K." At that point, that was the only Kmart store with electronic T8's. I'll add this as well:... those fixtures were WAY, WAAAHAHAAYYY better than the retrofit fixtures that recently took place before Kmart's permanent shutdown of all their stores. Granted, most of those T8 lamps had very heavy end blackening for some odd reason, but there was rarely any EOL lamps there, and they were bright. Anyways, not as awesome as the Slimlines and R.S fixtures Kmart typically had, but still pretty cool though
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Interests:
1. Motorcycles, Cars, Women, and Lighting (especially fluorescent)
2. Weightlifting/staying extremely athletic
3. Severe Thunderstorms of all kinds
4. Food and drinks. So gimme them bbq ribs
Lighting has ALWAYS been a passion of mine. I consider everyone on here to be a friend