Use of T-5 lamps
- Thread starter j rae
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K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
I saw a 4 x 54 watt T-5 on display at HD from about 50 feet away. Wow! FAR brighter than anything else on the display. I thought about getting one for my garage.
Fixture (no tubes) 90 bucks.
Tubes 20 plus bucks each.
200 bucks for a utility light??
No way.
Were the ones you installed more reasonable in price? I expected them to be pricey but, really now....
stevebea
Senior Member
- Location
- Southeastern PA
In what type of a fixture and what is your ceiling height?
hurk27
Senior Member
- Location
- Portage, Indiana NEC: 2008
Wow you need to shop around $20.00 a lamp for T-5 HO 54 watt Econo-light $3.70 a lamp
The last 2 lamp T-5 strips I installed were $46.00 and included lamps but that was awhile back.
Electric-Light
Senior Member
Standard output T5 (28W) is useless unless you need very low profile.
I'm seeing F54T5/HOs in use more and more in universities, but in recessed indirect fixtures. The lamp is placed inside a cover which bounces off a curved reflector. These are called volumetric fixtures. It is meant to provide for creature comfort. Although doesn't cast strong shadows, fixtures of this type don't provide efficiency anything near that of parabolic reflector type direct lighting.
F54T5/HO has a very high surface brightness (roughly twice the lumen output of F32T8 and 5/8 the size, so about 3x the surface brightness), so glare would be unacceptable where lamps are in line of sight of occupants.
One thing folks take for granted is even distribution. I go into places that seem dim all the time because the owner decides he needs super bright light over this desk or that work bench. But even light trumps bright light every single day of the week. If you get 100 footcandles over your work area but 50 everywhere else you'll find that you think the whole place is dark. But if you even everything out to forty footcandles (or whatever), you'll swear it's bright.
Don't buy bright fixtures because they're bright, try to illuminate your space evenly.
Don't buy bright fixtures because they're bright, try to illuminate your space evenly.
Electric-Light
Senior Member
That depends. If OSHA requires or the nature of the tasks make it desirable for the work area to have higher light level than the entire section of the building, it would be foolish to light up the entire place to the same level as the work bench.
If you do a retrofit and turn the existing compliant system into out of OSHA compliance, that project is a failure.
But if it's a resi or garage shop LED, any BS flies.
I'm not talking about eliminating task lighting. Task lighting is important, especially as we get older. I specialize in smaller projects (5k - 30k) and I see a lot of those small businesses nearly forgo general lighting entirely. A nice, even illumination and task lighting as needed is crucial.
Electric-Light
Senior Member
One F54T5 lamp on 1.0 ballast is about the same output as a pair of F32T8 on 0.87 ballast. I'm not sure why the T5 is 1.0 and T8 is 0.87 but those are the most common ballast factors in commercial applications. There's the F28T5 as well which is almost the same as F32T8 in output.
I wouldn't be surprised if T5s eventually take over T8s if commodity prices continue to go up. There is 5/8 as much phosphor blend used in a T5 compared to the same length T8.
As you guys all know, there's a dramatic size difference between a 30 pack of T12 vs 30 pack of T8. The higher density of lamps also allow for lower freight classification thus an opportunity for reduced freight cost both inbound lamps and outbound disposal lamps.
I wouldn't be surprised if T5s eventually take over T8s if commodity prices continue to go up. There is 5/8 as much phosphor blend used in a T5 compared to the same length T8.
As you guys all know, there's a dramatic size difference between a 30 pack of T12 vs 30 pack of T8. The higher density of lamps also allow for lower freight classification thus an opportunity for reduced freight cost both inbound lamps and outbound disposal lamps.
hurk27
Senior Member
- Location
- Portage, Indiana NEC: 2008
And T-5's come in a 40 pack, at least from most of my suppliers but even them were hit by the rare earth price change from China, as well as the CFLs but they were not hit as bad, I'm in the process of pricing out a fixture change out for a car electronic shop and the owner of the building who I have already done the retro-fit of all the other units (furniture store) with 4-lamp T-8 lay-ins that came with the GE high lumen output lamps (3200 lumen's per lamp) now want me to do this car shop, I'm installing 4 lay-in fixtures up in the small show room but he is wanting a price on 6 T-5 HO 4 lamp fixtures to be hung higher then the existing and moved so the line up between each car bays (4) two on each side of the shop so the light goes inside each car, and 4 T-8 59 watt two lamp single pin strips to mount on the wall in front of each car that will shine under the hood, all to eliminate the car electronic installers from having to drag around so many drop lights, the T-5 fixtures will have polished aluminum reflectors that almost triples the amount of light into the work area instead of shining everywhere. with the higher lumen output of Luma lamps (around 5800 lumen's per lamp) and the polished aluminum reflectors it will make for allot of light focused into the area needed without just sending light everywhere which the 8' T-8 single pin strips will do if I cant find the one with a reflector that will aim a little down?
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