Koz wrote:

Just lookin for some better ideas before I plunk down my money.

Shop is about 1500 square feet, 14' ceilings and lighted with several
sets of 8' flourescents. Last year I replaced one unit in the shop and
one in the storeroom with high output fixtures. What a difference! They
seemed to put out twice the light and at that time I felt they were
worth every penny.

However.....

Within a month the storeroom fixture (on most of the time) began
randomly going off for 10 or so minutes at a time then coming back on.
The ballast seemed to run a little hot so I tried running it with no
cover plate etc to see if cooling would help. No help. On 15, off 10
for a week or so (and I turned it off most of that time..then dead
fixture. The shop fixture worked ok (on most of the time) but also
exhibited the same "off" sessions, except only about 1 ten minute
session every 2 weeks or so. Shop fixture appears dead today. New
bulbs glow in the filaments but nuttin else.

So, although I LOVED the extra light, the cheepie fixtures just keep
going and going whereas the "better" fixtures both died, one in short
order and one after about a year.

Anyone else have this experience? Where would you go from here if you
were me? More of the cheepie fixtures (I need LOTS more light) or risk
the more expensive high output fixtures again hoping it was just a fluke
in the production lot? I suppose I could replace the ballasts but that
would cost as much as a new fixture and probably be a pain in the neck.

Any other suggestions for light that won't break the budget? (120v by
the way...underpowered shop and no 220v available up there for the
commercial lighting fixtures often available surplus).


Koz (Who is getting too old to work in the dark)

You might want to look at the Cooper/Regent WQ300 300W wide angle outdoor
halogen floods Lowe's sells for about $10 for area lighting. They can be
mounted within 1.5" of a flamable surface. The output is 6,000 lumens and
the coverage area is 70'x70' when mounted at a 45 deg. angle 12' up. Bulb
life is 2,000 hours. There is also a 500W version that puts out 10,500
lumens (according to the box). They are cheap and may be interesting for
certain situations.

For what it's worth I picked up nine four-tube 4' standard start fixtures
from Western Electric surplus around 1967. The ballasts started failing
about five years ago; About then I found a bunch of solid state industrial
ballasts at a hamfest and replaced the standard start units as they failed.
The electronics haven't held up well at all.1've used about six of the
electronics so far and four of them have failed 8o(.
--
Keith Bowers - Thomasville, NC