I had a customer of mine replace all of there T8 lighting with LED retrofit in his office. They removed all the ballasts and installed drivers for the lights.
Next time you're at your van, take a look at between the wheel and the vehicle. You'll see a coily thingy with a rod in the middle. This is called a suspension and it isolates the vehicle from all the daily bumps of the road. It's a practical necessity, because you're not going to drive around all day on a hockey rink. As you can imagine, the kind of vehicle affects how much of the bumps will transfer to the occupant.
So, visualize the elevation/altitude of road surface as the line voltage. Problem is that many light emitting decoration apparatuses assume 120v means you'll be driving on a glass top smooth and omit the equivalent of a good suspension, so the slight normal roughness and bumps get directly transmitted into the light output.
The highest quality power supply is comparable to suspensions that would shield you from bumps and let you drive on the warning strips on the shoulders and you wouldn't know it until you drive into the ditch and flip over. The power supply typical of some light emitting decorations is equivalent of wooden wheeled wagons.
These lights were sold by a sales men and not by me. I happened to be installing a new 100 amp sub panel at the time. Now I get a bemoaning phone call from him stating that they are constantly having problems with the fixtures doing what I would call a ?quiver? down the length of the bulb. Maybe its more like a wave traveling down the length of the bulb to repeat several times for about 30 to 60 seconds. It stops and then does it again about 10 to 15 min. later. Has anyone heard of these problems before?
Also there are issues with lights flickering in the bathroom while someone is using the printer in the hall. I am almost positive they are not on the same circuit.
I am greatly encouraged that I was not the one to sell these to them. But I would like to help them. To promote more business. :happyyes:
The solution of the salesmen is to replace the Driver. ?:blink:
Any help is greatly appreciated!
The solution sounds right, although if it was properly negotiated to include retainage, put down in specification requirements such that "light output pulsation and output variation shall not exceed that of the existing F32T8 fluorescent system and the vendor shall be responsible for corrective actions, and testing expenses if it should find that lol LED failed to meet specifications", the customer wouldn't have to eat the cost. The vendor is motivated to fix it so the retainage gets released. If they don't fix it, retainage is applied to fixing it, and if that doesn't cover the expense, it would be clawed back from the vendor through the admin and legal team.
Call technical support at the manufacturer for the LED retrofits and see what the suggested voltage drop is. If it is over 5%, you may have a problem.
It's generally not the level of voltage. It's the depth of notch and fluctuations. The customer should b* out the sales vendor. If the customer has to do the calling, the cost of support staff should get taken out of retainage.
