Is this a Luminaire?

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Is this a Luminaire?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 58 95.1%

  • No.

    Votes: 3 4.9%

  • Can't tell.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    61
  • Poll closed .
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al hildenbrand

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
charlie b said:
Not that it will change my vote, but what (if anything) turns it on and off?
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Thanks for the assist with the Poll, Charlie.

This simplest form of the Hallway light is controlled somewhere else, by some form of a switch.

There are also Hallway lights that have a internal photoeye that runs them.
 
LarryFine

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
al hildenbrand said:
Is this a Luminaire?
Click to expand...
Absolutely.

It just happens to be one that mounts in a box like a device does, rendering that box a lighting outlet.

The box could have originally been a receptacle outlet (hopefully, not a required one), or a switch box.
 
joebell

joebell

Senior Member
Location
New Hampshire
At first I was thinking along the lines that this may qualifiy as a device considering it had a yoke. After looking up the definitions in Art. 100 I believe this is a luminare. A device has nohing to do with a yoke and it "carries or controls electrical energy as its principal function"
 
W

wwhitney

Senior Member
Location
Berkeley, CA
Occupation
Retired
al hildenbrand said:
This group of light creating assemblies on a yoke have the properties of both a Luminaire and a Device.
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I disagree. It is not a device, as it is not "a unit of an electrical system that carries or controls electric energy as its principal function." The principal function is to create light.

Cheers, Wayne

P.S. The outlet at a receptacle is the interface between the receptacle wipers and the utilization equipment's plug.
 
W

wasasparky

Senior Member
Is a pilot light on a starter a luminaire?
An LED part of a GFCI recept?
Anything that produces any perceptible amount of light?
 
al hildenbrand

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
wwhitney said:
It is not a device, as it is not "a unit of an electrical system that carries or controls electric energy as its principal function." The principal function is to create light.
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2008 NEC Handbook
Article 100 Definitions

Device. A unit of an electrical system that carries or controls electric energy as its principal function.

Handbook Commentary: Components (such as switches, circuit breakers, fuseholders, receptacles, attachment plugs, and lampholders) that distribute or control but do not consume electrical energy are considered devices. Devices that consume incidental amounts of electrical energy in the performance of carrying or controlling electricity are also considered devices. Some examples of these components include a switch with an internal pilot light, a GFCI receptacle, and even a magnetic contactor.
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Thanks for that point. I was paying to much attention to the "consume incidental amounts" part of the phrase, and not giving the emphasis to "carrying or controlling". That's what confused me, and caused me to ask this poll question.

wwhitney said:
The outlet at a receptacle is the interface between the receptacle wipers and the utilization equipment's plug.
Click to expand...
Yup. That's what I think, too.

As Glennis77 notes, an Outlet is a concept, not a physical thing. It is interesting that it's location changes on a physical Device, depending upon what the Device actually does, or is.

A receptacle Device has the Outlet at the contact faces (the current travels all the way through the Device to get to the Outlet.)

A switch Device, used as a Controller, has, in my opinion, an Outlet that occurs at the point that the current enters the internal current path of the Device (the current only goes through the beginning of the device, pigtails or external terminal connector.)

A luminaire Device has an Outlet at the end of the branch circuit conductors that the Device is connected to (the current passes the Outlet at the first point of contact with the Device.)
 
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al hildenbrand

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
cowboyjwc said:
how did the question come up Al?
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Well. . . .

Wish I had some interesting thing that happened in the field to have spurred this, but. . . .

It's really, simply, that the Device is listed in the catalog pages along with a lot of other Combination Devices, and it's this glaring exception. It simply makes light. Nothing more. It has no photoeye or other kind of control in it so it's this oddity of a Luminaire and a Device-in-one.

It is the simple case that seems to prove a rule.

Over in the AFCI Myth thread, a quote from Mark Ode seems to equate that Devices can't be or have Outlets.

I've been chewing on that bone for a bit now.

So, after some thinking, it became apparent to me that the Outlet is in different places, with respect to a Device, depending upon what a Device does.

I actually raised this question a short while after the Big Oops thread was closed, but everyone was so exhausted by me then, that I couldn't get a discussion of it.
 
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480sparky

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
al hildenbrand said:
.........It's really, simply, that the Device is listed in the catalog pages along with a lot of other Combination Devices, and it's this glaring exception...........
Click to expand...

What difference does it make where in a catalog it was listed? If it was listed with the telephone jacks, would that change anything?
 
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