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w00t! I'm saying good bye to old school lightbulbs for the most part, now I have PICS!

J

Jerboy

Banned
For a really long time, I had the usual round light on middle of my ceiling. You know, it's got a white glass cover resembling inverted mushroom top about 8" around that snaps on. The thing held three 60W lightbulbs. Despite having enough time, there was not much time left on my dial-up account. Rather than spending the time on the net, today I upgraded my light. Perhaps, upgrading my lighting system was something I would have never thought of if my DSL was still working.

Basically I ripped off that crap from my ceiling and installed a tri-lamp fluorescent. The system is so called highly efficient T8F32watt lights. Many school districts and government buildings are upgrading to this in order to save energy. You're probably thinking of the real harsh nasty lights oft. seen in schools. I didn't use the cheapest bulbs they use, so mine don't look like that at all. Got some color critical full spectrum bulbs for it. It doesn't look like yellowish white lights at school. This thing is supposed to be 98% the quality of real sunlight. It's lite looks pure white and I love it so far. My room is about four times brigher with much better colored light all while using 1/2 the energy.(96w vs. 180w). Having something this close to actual sunlight at night sure makes it nicer. If it sounds good, you should try it. I don't think you'll be dissappointed.

Even though it wasn't cheap, I think it was worth it.

cost:

three Philips TL90 lamps $47.25@ $15.75 each

three lamp instant-start electronic ballast, $45.00

four lamp fixture(I simply didn't use one space since there was no reason to have 4 lamps)=$40


and it was $117.25 all together. I'm sure it will be whole alot cheaper in contractor quantitity though 🙁

I can finally say good bye to that yucky yellow orange light of lightbulbs 😀😀😀😀. oooh I don't have to change the bulb every month or two either. This tube is supposed to last 20 times as long as lightbulbs.(20,000hrs). We are supposed to be the head of the technology. I don't understand why so many people prefer the short lived, bad color light, inefficient and hot light bulbs over such a great technology called full-spectrum fluorescent lighting
rolleye.gif


Edit: I got some pics of my second installation in our kitchen

the first three pics on top
 
What a riveting post. I can hardly contain my excitement for you. Thank goodness I read this before I left for classes today.
 
You should have used LEDs. They are a little more exspensive to install but they use less electricity and last a lot longer than anything else.
 
I've heard that strong lighting systems that more closely emulate sunshine can bring about an improvement in sleep cycle and in mood. It would be interesting if after a few weeks you can let us know if you've noticed any changes.
 


<< What a riveting post. I can hardly contain my excitement for you. Thank goodness I read this before I left for classes today >>



BUAHAHAHAHA
 


<< What a riveting post. I can hardly contain my excitement for you. Thank goodness I read this before I left for classes today. >>


LOL. Next up on Jerboy's to-post list: his daily bowel movement updates.
 
We have changed to these bulbs too. They last a lot longer and cut electricity costs. Most people don't buy them because of up front cost, totally not considering long term costs.



<< What a riveting post. I can hardly contain my excitement for you. Thank goodness I read this before I left for classes today. >>



I could pretty much post the same thing in any thread you have started
rolleye.gif
 


<< I could pretty much post the same thing in any thread you have started
rolleye.gif
>>



Hey hey. Let's not talk about me. This is Jerboy's thread 😛
 


<< It's amazing the amount of actual productive work that can be accomplished away from the computer. >>



*GASP* You mean there's things actually things away from the computer?!?!? :Q Not out THERE though, right? You know.....where the ghastly glowing sphere type thing is :Q
 


<< Who needs lighting when you can bask in the warm glow of a G520? >>



Exactly. Who needs lights when you have a 21" monitor 🙂
 


<<

<< It's amazing the amount of actual productive work that can be accomplished away from the computer. >>



*GASP* You mean there's things actually things away from the computer?!?!? :Q Not out THERE though, right? You know.....where the ghastly glowing sphere type thing is :Q >>



no, he's lying

Oh and here's my lit room at night
 
Pics???

I am remodeling my house and am looking for ideas for new lighting...

<edit>



<< I don't understand why so many people prefer the short lived, bad color light, inefficient and hot light bulbs over such a great technology called full-spectrum fluorescent lighting >>



Maybe because a light bulb costs .98 cents instead of the $16 you just paid? 🙂

 


<< What a riveting post. I can hardly contain my excitement for you. Thank goodness I read this before I left for classes today. >>

 
Hey cool; a home improvement post. My type of stuff. 🙂 It sounds like a very successful project. I'm big into "proper lighting" as well. In my apartment, I have room lighting, task lighting and mood lighting. Most folks think having one light bulb in the middle of the room is sufficient for everything you may do in that room. It's not.

You need task lighting (directional) for things like installing a CPU on a mobo or other close-up work. You need room lighting (ambient) for things like cleaning and entertaining. And you need dimmers and colored lights for um, OTHER entertaining. 😉

Congrats on your successful project.
 
Yakko wrote:



<< You should have used LEDs. They are a little more exspensive to install but they use less electricity and last a lot longer than anything else. >>



The current technology doesn't have LED's with as good chromaticity as high grade fluorescent lamps. They're actually less efficient than fluorescent too.

Sir Frederick wrote:


<< Do these have the flicker of regular flourescent bulbs? Even when it's not noticable it's still there, and it gives me a headache. >>



Although flicker is more noticeable on some bulbs than others, it is highly dependent on the driver. The driver is called fluorescent lamp ballast.

The cheapest ballast is just a piece of coil that connects in series with the lamp and you start by holding "start" switch. This type can be had for $5 or so and by far, this is the worst lamp killer and flicker machine. Your lamp will only last 1/3 the rated life on this.

I am using Universal lighting's three lamp electronics ballast that drives the lamps at about 45,000Hz. This is the key to flicker free fluorescent lighthing, but you will pay $50 for one of this .

A flicker is caused by 60Hz house current effectively flashing the lamp 120times a second. Fast enough to be not visible, but slow enough to cause stroboscopic effect when you run your finger across it(you'll see multiple images). At 45,000Hz, it is fast enough to prevent flickering completely.





 
Ok a few people have asked for pics. I finally have some pics. These are not the pics of installation in my room though. I didn't take pics when I installed it. Rather, these are pics of my second installation which is our kitchen.


the first three pics on top


And ofcourse more infos:

Specs are

lamps: 2 F32T8 Excella full-spectrum, 91.1%, 5765K color temp, similar to sunlight. more info on lamp here. They look pure white. These are rated at about 2,000lumens each.


about $8.50 each at local electrical distributor.

These lamps are although not nearly as good as my TL950 Philips, they're much cheaper. Philips lamp is 98% color rendering as opposed to 91.1% at cost of $15 each.


ballast: Sylvania electronic high frequency ballast. It runs two lamps at 90% output, instant lamp starting, absolutely no flicker and uses only 59watts.
$20.00 at Lowe's.

You also have an option of dimming if you are willing to spend $150 on dimmable electronic ballast.

Make sure to specify F32T8 ELECTRONIC ballast when you shop for one.

Fixture: Get anything you want except Lights of America. Their fixtures doesn't let you swap ballast out. You'll remove the already installed ballast and install your new electronic ballast. If you're lucky enough to find aF32T8 two lamp fixture with electronic ballast already installed, you don't need to buy a ballast.

Mine was $20. It depends on how fancy you want to go cosmetically.


System efficacy

two x 2,000lumens x 90% operating power=3,600 lumens

3,600/59watts=61lumens/watt. Rather low for fluorescent, but it will look better and beats any lightbulb fixture by a great margin.

It should be brighter than a 300W halogen torchiere. Even though 300W halogen lamp produces 5,200 lumens, 3,600lumens of ligthing from ceiling is perceived much brighter than 5,200lumens of indirect lighting.

If you already got some kind of light on ceiling, this is a really easy retrofit. Otherwise, you'll have to somehow come up with a way to power up the fixture.



Basically with only 59W of power, you get a light much closer to sunlight that is as bright as 300W halogen bulb that lasts 15 to 20 thousand hours before replacement.
 


<< The current technology doesn't have LED's with as good chromaticity as high grade fluorescent lamps. They're actually less efficient than fluorescent too. >>



The newest offerings by Nichia best most fluorescent lamps in both efficiacy AND colour rendering. Trichromatic fluorescents suchs as Colortone75 have very high CRI of 95, but rather poor conversion efficiency.

I like white LED lamps for their ruggedness and long life. Very simple driving circuitry is needed, in some cases with battery driven torches, no driver is needed!

If you need to light a large area, Metal Halide is still the way to go. Venture has a nice 5600K 1.8 kW bulb that does quite nicely in high hat fixtures!

Cheers!
 


<< What a riveting post. I can hardly contain my excitement for you. Thank goodness I read this before I left for classes today. >>



Sums up what I was going to say. 😀
 


<< The newest offerings by Nichia best most fluorescent lamps in both efficiacy AND colour rendering. Trichromatic fluorescents suchs as Colortone75 have very high CRI of 95, but rather poor conversion efficiency. >>



I'm not sure how efficient that Nichia LED is, but as far as I can tell from here LED's are not very efficient. They're great at illuminating spots, but no more efficient than lightbulb in full-room illumination. I'd question their spectral power distribution too.





<< I like white LED lamps for their ruggedness and long life. >>



White LED is more or less a fluorescent lamp. It's a blue LED in the heart. Phosphor converts blue light into white light. Like fluorescent lamps, phosphor degrades and light output is decreased with use.




<< Very simple driving circuitry is needed, in some cases with battery driven torches, no driver is needed! >>



In a small setup such as flashlight, LED's are great. When you have to use 100's of LED in a cluster you need a PWM driver since adding a resistor bank to limit current greatly reduces system efficiency.





<< If you need to light a large area, Metal Halide is still the way to go. Venture has a nice 5600K 1.8 kW bulb that does quite nicely in high hat fixtures! >>



I'm sure they make a good stadium lighting. Not sure about lighting up your room though 🙂
 
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