Today I had some fun at one of the older church buildings out of 17 that I help look after.  The building was converted from T12 to T8 about 7 or 8 years ago after a failing 40 year old ballast got a little too hot and put on quite a smoke show that scared a few folks.  At the time it was converted, they put in Sylvania 3000k T8s.  Sadly though- The warm whites just don't do well in this building, because the coloring of the carpet and walls and ceiling don't favor the warm white color and makes it look a sickly yellowish color.  So today- I took it upon myself to swap over to 4100k.  New Sylvania 4100k XP or whatever the new thing is.  These tubes are much nicer vs the previous generation from Sylvania as these are not super dim in the middle when first turned on.  The white is a bit nicer too, so Sylvania has done a good job with their new XP generation of T8s.  I've so far done 2 out of 3 hallways and the two primary entrance ways and I gotta tell you.. it looks gooooooooooooood.  I only had 2 cases of lamps, and this building is a bit out of the way, so I'll return when I have some more free time and get the last hallway, and start changing out the classrooms.  I am confident that the church goers will be quite pleased with the new look and brighter light in this case.  One side of the walls are of a dark brown colored brick and the the carpets are a dark red/blue type, with the other side of the wall being white glossy painted cinder-block, and ceilings are white as well, so the colors pick up and reflect nicely with the 4100ks.  I replaced a few broken original sockets/tombstones as well.  When they retrofitted these from T12 to T8, they didn't run the new wires from the ballast straight into the sockets, but rather spliced them in to some of the old wire remaining.  I don't like that personally so if I pull the ballast cover/reflector off to get to the ballast and sockets, I always pull the sockets out and can usually work the old wires out of there and then run the wires from the ballast into the sockets.  It allows me to pick up 3 orange wire nuts too, per fixture!  <evil grin> 

I also replaced 2 HPS 70 watt bulbs in wall packs at another building near the one above, and had to pull out a bad ballast/capacitor/starter from another wall pack at that same building.  Replaced it with a Universal brand 50 watt HPS Capacitor/Ballast combo (all out of 70 watt ballasts and won't have any until sometime next year due to budget) I really like these things vs the big bulky suckers

What I put in:

Nice and simple, everything combined together.  These things also last quite nicely.  Haven't had to replace one yet and we've used them for replacements for going on 20 years now.  Long before i started helping out. 

What I took out that was bad:



I am saving the old one as I plan on testing to see if it was the capacitor or the starter that went bad.  Yeah it's a 20 watt loss by going with the 50 watt but the area this particular wall back is at isn't too critically needed for lighting, just an emergency exit more or less and the 50 watt will do fine. 

I didn't do anything today lighting-wise, but I did help someone out with fluorescent tubes at Home Depot a few weeks/months ago.
Also, this should be in General Discussion.

Coincidentally you were relamping a big church that have study halls and classrooms, i was saving some Ice Packs that were replaced in a big synagogue that have study halls and classrooms

Ice Pack is a sort of very basic Fluorescent luminaire that was common in the 90s, made of a flat Metal tray on which tubes and gear are mounted, and vacuum formed textured PMMA cover reminding of a block of Ice

But they tend to deteriorate very badly over the years and have many failures because of the tubes and gear being in the same space, exposing all the Plstics to to UV

One of the ones i got allready had marks from a short circuit bang, and all of them are in the condition of imminent short circuit, as the wire isolation crumbles away when they are disturbed, but somehow they still worked. Most of them are missing the cover, as it fell off as result of brittling and cracking from the UV as well

So i saved about 20 Ice Packs, 2 x 40W Switchstart (now all lamped with 36W tubes), made in 1990. of them 2 also have battery powered emergency module

They were replaced for LED luminaires of different types

Today I changed out about 120 F32T8s in the cove areas above the chapel in one of my church buildings.  Pulled out the mixture of Philips/Sylvania/GE mostly 4100ks with a few 3000ks, and replaced em all with the blasted "http://www.superiorlampinc.com/product_line/fluorescent.htm" (aka Philips) "XTRA BRITE" (5000k) And it actually looks pretty nice, believe it or not.  That is because the pendants are still 3000k which balances out the color in the chapel.  My feet are super sore from the ladder and I am worn out.  Inhaled so much dust I am probably going to get sick too.  

Had a busy evening.  Converted 2 175 Watt MH RAB wall packs over to 150W HPS, and re-lamped a number of classroom fixtures, taking out some F40T12 WW bulbs that I kept in the fixtures when I converted them to T8 a few years back, and also took out some F32T8 3000ks, replaced with new Sylvania 4100ks.  Much better light in these rooms with the cool white vs warm whites.  Saving the warm white T8s as they are very low hour and will have use for them elsewhere.  The T12s are being saved for the hallway fixtures which are still T12 ballasted. 

Had a busy evening.  Converted 2 175 Watt MH RAB wall packs over to 150W HPS, and re-lamped a number of classroom fixtures, taking out some F40T12 WW bulbs that I kept in the fixtures when I converted them to T8 a few years back, and also took out some F32T8 3000ks, replaced with new Sylvania 4100ks.  Much better light in these rooms with the cool white vs warm whites.  Saving the warm white T8s as they are very low hour and will have use for them elsewhere.  The T12s are being saved for the hallway fixtures which are still T12 ballasted. 

Did you convince them not to use LED?

These RAB 175 MH packs were installed back around 01. The fixtures/housing are still in good shape so no need to replace those.  No need to go LED.  They'll start installing LEDs in the new buildings sooner or later but these old buildings will stay HPS for many more years to come unless the church HQ tells us otherwise.  But given that they are still putting in T8 Fluorescents in the new buildings and not LEDs, (save for floodlights) I think we'll be safe for awhile.  If the buildings were being used on a daily basis with high demand, it would be a different story.  But save for all day Sunday and a few hours here and there during the week, converting EVERYTHING over to LED just wouldn't be practical.  At least inside the buildings.  We also keep most of our parking lot poles on timers so that they are on from dusk until about 10:30-11:30 at night and then go off.  The exterior building lights will stay on dusk to dawn. 

Why convert from MH to HPS though? It's a step backward as far as appearance goes and you aren't saving a lot of energy.

Why convert from MH to HPS though? It's a step backward as far as appearance goes and you aren't saving a lot of energy.

I was wondering the same thing. Maybe so the lamps last longer? Although these fixtures are probably mounted low enough to easily relamp so that shouldn't be a problem.

Life is the main reason.  Those low wattage MHs only last a year or two at best. Rated for about 10,000 hours but we never see them last that long. The HPS gives us 5-8 years. While the HPS may not be as energy effecient at MH, if you think about it, with us going from 175W MH to 150W HPS, we're probably about breaking even cost wise for energy use and getting longer life.  Oh, and HPS bulbs don't explode when they go EoL. MH does, even the so called "protected" ones.  Regardless of brand.  I love the white light that the MH puts out, but this building is more of an orange/brown color so the HPS really picks it up nice and reflects the color nicely vs the MH.  

Wow, I didn't think the life difference would be so big!

Is that indoors ? Outdoors ? Are 3 Phases used to reduce flicker ?

Now it sounds like low-wattage PSMH Yardblasters have a short lamp life!

The best MH's have deent life, but not so much for the "more affordable" lamps. HPS is consistently long lasting if good lamps are used - That is something like 10+ years for older lamps here

All outdoor wall packs.  Single phase, no flickering issues, we have a very nice and sound electrical grid out here so never have flicker issues, except when we have high demand such as every air conditioner unit in the building operating at the same time, which only happens during the daytime They are all low demand circuits, no more than 2 wall packs per circuit.  Parking lot lights are on a 3 phase circuit.