Fluorescent lighting

All I know is the lighting was replaced in the mid 90s. with new florries. All teh electrics of the lab were redone.

And far more don;t get the choice we haven't the choice. When the florries go dim or start flashing we call maintaince (we wait until a few are on the blink) and within the month they come over and change them.

But we didn't have them installed here, I doubt we considered we had a need for dimmable, I didn't think we needed them, but it;s not like we were asked. All we wanted was better lighting than the 1980s lighting we had.

Good for yuo all we have is 2 panels with 8 rocker switches on each to control the lights, not sure I could have replaced those 'rockers' with 16 pots just like that.

If they're the old type that flash during starting, just loosen the starter on a fitting & it doesn't start. Easiest way to dim the room.

Why dim? IME nearly all commercial & school fluorescent installs are heavily overpowered.

NT

I'm not allowed to just replace the lighting in a teaching lab with something I did at home. I also have about 45 double tubes in the lab.

Good for them but I leave that to those designing the spaces in the lab.

Just has a academic asking for a 96V or higher PSU I politely laughed.

I've been asked to suggest the purchase of some new bench supplies for the lab but I doubt I'll get permission to order ones that got up 96V. I'm not looking at anything about 30V at the moment.

Yes we have that problem witout dimmering, 3 faulty in the lab at the moment with 1 or 2 on their last legs.

Makes me think that perhaps LED tubes are better. We did ask for them rather than florries but the cost would have be over £3k so was rejected.

why not use LEDs ?

I think that's what our new LED tubes in the new lab do, on walking over to them after a few seconds they come on whether wanted on or not.

WHich is going to be fun when they want the light out when using photocells in a lab experiment can't wait to have to explain that one the the 'designers'

So I go around with a ladder messing about with upto 20 tube starters not thanks.

When the projection system is being used or they want to show slides or whatever I assume. I don't think we asked for dimmable lights. well it wasn't part of the things I wanted in the lab.

I'm really not surprised given your replies to questions on here. ;-)

I'm quite sure you couldn't. But this is a DIY group, so many obviously can.

Why? The need to dim lights in a domestic setting easy to understand. But even then why make them more powerful than ever needed?

Well I was asked my views, but I never said I wanted auto lights I did say we wanted a section of the lab that could be made dark for visual experiments we had this 30 years ago for opto electronics experiments with lasers. I wanted a room where students could work on audio projects doesn't need to be completley soundproof. They ahve partly done that with a bit of sound proofing and an extra thick door.

I asked for the lab to be a heated one and have got that with overhead heaters for some reason. I wanted indicidual cupboards for the desks, and got that. We even have temperature readouts and settable to 0.1C (I believe that once I're tried it)

We didnlt want the expensive AV desks that are about £5k but apparenty that is the default now. We wanted second monototrs for AV as we have them in the old lab. They said we must have the newer 4K ones. We got to chose the carper and tiles too, the chairs and stools. They tried to get us to buy the expensive chairs that are adjustable at £200+ each we settled for the OK ones of about £45. We even thought about the opening ceromony and I said we should get Maggie Philbin to open it and they think that's a good idea and looking into it.

Sometimes they listen to me/us other times they don't.

But couldn't. Even our maintance staff aren't allowed to install new instalations. I doubt you could manage it , you can't even tell AC from DC.

if you're stupid enough to do it that way

1. Ignorance. Some installers don't fully know what they're doing.
2. For cleaning some people want extra bright lighting
3. Variations in eyesight & perception cause variations in desired light level.

NT

I assume that if several people are waiting to go to different floors they can all press different buttons, so why can't one person press all the buttons that go to all the floors on the way to the one he wants?

Indeed

And we swapped all candles for LED battery operated ones. I have worked on to many fire damaged houses where the fire was caused by a candle.

I remember, aged about 12, doing experiments with a CRT tube during physics. The tube was made with male banana plugs sticking out directly from the glass on each side, so you had to connect up a 3500V supply (IIRC) using reverse stacked banana plugs, still leaving the live pins sticking out on each side - while 3 ft away, the next pupil was doing experiments with water!

SteveW

Very handy to have much brighter than normal lights when working on fiddly objects. I'd love to have multiple fluorescent lights in the living room (best place to fix things in comfort) - but only if they could be completely hidden when normal lighting was in use.

SteveW

trough fittings

NT

I'm not that's why don't do it. That's the way a gross amateur might do it, but not me.

Is that the way you dim you're lights at home by removing the starter ?

Why would you want the lift stopping at every floor ? If a studetn want to go to the 7th floor then why would they press to go to floor 1 ,2 ,3 ,4 5, 6, ?

When I use the lift I just press the button for the floor I want to go to.

How do you use a lift ?