yes, since most TV studios have switched to electronic ballasted fluorescent tubes for much if not all of their lighting, why shouldn't you do the same. Area lighting with fluorescent, spots with incandescent/halogen.
linear tubes are available with 98% color rendering accuracy, see this one for example
When the home was purchased (not custom), the exterior garage/workshops was offered as an option. When you ordered one of the optional builings, your service box on your house was automatically upgraded from a 200 service box to a 400 service. Another option that was offered was toadd 220 60 amp in the structure, we odered two of the 220
60 amp options. So, 1) I would have thought If they were upgrading the home service from 200 to 400, the would have then installed a 200 on the exterior building. 2) If they saw there were two 220 60amp options purchased they would have planned what the needed requirements would be and if there was a red flag, contact the builder and inform them of the situation. Additionally in the builders contract under electrical options it is stated "Electrical Options for detached structure will be reviewed by electrcal contractor. There may be additional costs to the buyer due to the number of electrical options selected". If this was out of the norm and needed a larger service box or larger guage wire, it should have been noted.A rep from electrical contractor was out today, and he admitted there was mistake but wouldn't admit who should be at fault, the sales guy, who took the order, the electrical contractor, or the builder. Basically he said it wasn't caught because the garage was speced to them to use a 100 service box, so one guy installs the box, one does the rough in, one guy, does the final wiring, and no one looked at the whole picture or questioned the amount of amps or there usage. So they are now sitting down with the builder and figure who is at fault and who will pay the extra expense to correct.
As far as other questions and comments:
1) We tried to get a seperate service meter to the building, power company couldn't do that. 2) As far as business run from home, these homes are all on 1 or 2 acre lots, a # of people are running smal business from the home or back yard structure. The main thing is you don't have a traffic of customers or a parking situation, which we don't. 3) The type of videos we produce are 1) a talk show on natural health care geared towards chiropractors and 2)DVD's aimed at offroading and automobile customizingYes your right, it's in our plans. One thing is we own all these lights now, they are moved over from our old studo and all payed for. The lights you are talking about are called KinoFlo, they are great, but very expensive. We are going to move i that direction, but for we need to use what we got. Also Kinoflos are great, but not always the answer, for certain lighting they are too soft and flood the set too much. Within in the next few years we arelooking at opening a bigger studio off my property, this we would utilize mostly Kinoflos.
about the only way to find out the wire size is to measure the actual conductor size where the wire is stripped so you're not measuring the insulation at all. You would need to use a caliper to get this reasonably accurate. You would do this at the branch panel when you are very sure the feed breaker is off (double check with a meter).
When this is known, the wire gage can be looked up in a number of places, or post the info here. Then the ampacity of the copper or aluminum conductor can be determined.
You would then at least know if the circuit is safe as far as the breaker size at the main panel.
bill
Or you could just grab two or three samples of known size, and compare them by eye.
Slow down there BSmith...
The original question seemed to be "is my wire undersized for my panel, given that the wire size is not known?" to which the answer is "who knows? what's the wire size?".
There was also a side question about if 100A breaker at the main is okay for feeding a panel with more than 100A of cumulative breakers, to which the answer is "yes, it is fine and completely typical." Just take a look in any home's main breaker box. My house, e.g., has 100A feed and 100A main breaker, but about 300A worth of breakers in the main panel.
Two 2-ton AC units on 220 should gobble up about 30A or so. That gives you 70A * 240V = approx 17 kilo-watts worth of illumination, which (to my non-photographer mind) seems like a hell of a lot of light.
Now if you do actually need more than 100A, you really needed to tell your electrician that upfront, and pay extra for a much heavier circuit. At this point nothing can be done but rip the whole thing out and start over. I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed (and for very good reason) to just add a second circuit to get more power.
-Kevin
Stan was right on. This is not a garage, it is a video production studio You don't seem to have told the electricians what you wanted... you just sort of quietly implied it by ordering some extra breakers for your "garage" and expecting them to figure out that this is not a residential garage at all, but something very different. The whole mess could have been avoided very easily by just telling them upfront that you need 200+ A in the separate building because you are not going to be using it as a garage.
And, I don't understand about "the power company couldn't do that". Are you trying to say that you explained the situation... "I am building a video productoin studio on my property, can I create a separate new account for this business and get a separate service entrance for a separate building?" (of course the answer would probably be "dude, this is _so_ not zoned for that")
Or is it more like "Well, do you think you could put a second service drop to my, ahem, garage?" to which the answer is "no".
So you really just have to put in new wires. If you have 400A at the house, go ahead and put in 200 or more to the studio. Otherwise you will need to upgrade the house drop too.
High wattage lights? Grow lights for pot?
High wattage lights? Grow lights for pot?
It sounds like this thing is built already. Why not start using it and see what happens?
You didn't answer his question. Go back and look for it.
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