We have a customer who owns a series of 24 and 30 unit apartment
buildings. Presently on each floor as per local requirements there are
several self contained emergency lighting units. Some of these are
equipped with a small 6V battery and just two low voltage lamps that
aim in different directions down the hallway, while other larger units
having larger batteries sometimes might have as many as six 12volt
lamps wired remotely. These all are equipped with sealed lead acid
rechargeable batteries which need to be replaced every few years. Two
of his buildings are exceptions though and don’t have this type of
lighting. In these buildings, the hallway lighting circuit is wired
through an inverter system. This system, which was built by a company
in Massachusetts many years ago is installed in the boiler/electrical
room, and consists of two 12VDC to 120VAC 450W solid state inverters
operating in parallel and two group 24 size wet cell automotive
batteries. There is a built in charger and a huge contactor which
drops out upon loss of AC and applies 12VDC to the inverters. Loss of
AC will cause the load to toggle over to the inverter outputs and the
hallway lighting circuit remains powered. Maintenance on these two
buildings is minimal and his ultimate cost savings projection becomes
significant when multiplying installing this type of system into the
100’s of buildings which he presently owns. He has asked me to look
into finding this type of equipment for him to retrofit his other
buildings. The typical load is about 400W CFL and will probably never
exceed 550W. I don’t know how picky these particular 13W CFL units are
to anything other than sine wave AC. I know sine wave or even modified
sine wave will probably increase cost somewhat. Does anyone have any
ideas for inverter systems equipment they might be able to share with
me? Thanks, Lenny.

On Jun 4, 8:13 am, "
wrote:
We have a customer who owns a series of 24 and 30 unit apartment
buildings. Presently on each floor as per local requirements there are
several self contained emergency lighting units. Some of these are
equipped with a small 6V battery and just two low voltage lamps that
aim in different directions down the hallway, while other larger units
having larger batteries sometimes might have as many as six 12volt
lamps wired remotely. These all are equipped with sealed lead acid
rechargeable batteries which need to be replaced every few years. Two
of his buildings are exceptions though and don’t have this type of
lighting. In these buildings, the hallway lighting circuit is wired
through an inverter system. This system, which was built by a company
in Massachusetts many years ago is installed in the boiler/electrical
room, and consists of two 12VDC to 120VAC 450W solid state inverters
operating in parallel and two group 24 size wet cell automotive
batteries. There is a built in charger and a huge contactor which
drops out upon loss of AC and applies 12VDC to the inverters. Loss of
AC will cause the load to toggle over to the inverter outputs and the
hallway lighting circuit remains powered. Maintenance on these two
buildings is minimal and his ultimate cost savings projection becomes
significant when multiplying installing this type of system into the
100’s of buildings which he presently owns. He has asked me to look
into finding this type of equipment for him to retrofit his other
buildings. The typical load is about 400W CFL and will probably never
exceed 550W. I don’t know how picky these particular 13W CFL units are
to anything other than sine wave AC. I know sine wave or even modified
sine wave will probably increase cost somewhat. Does anyone have any
ideas for inverter systems equipment they might be able to share with
me? Thanks, Lenny.

How bout salvaging some old computer UPS from the local dump or
advertize to relieve folks of their defunct units for recycling

al

wrote:
On Jun 4, 8:13 am, "
wrote:
We have a customer who owns a series of 24 and 30 unit apartment
buildings. Presently on each floor as per local requirements there are
several self contained emergency lighting units. Some of these are
equipped with a small 6V battery and just two low voltage lamps that
aim in different directions down the hallway, while other larger units
having larger batteries sometimes might have as many as six 12volt
lamps wired remotely. These all are equipped with sealed lead acid
rechargeable batteries which need to be replaced every few years. Two
of his buildings are exceptions though and don’t have this type of
lighting. In these buildings, the hallway lighting circuit is wired
through an inverter system. This system, which was built by a company
in Massachusetts many years ago is installed in the boiler/electrical
room, and consists of two 12VDC to 120VAC 450W solid state inverters
operating in parallel and two group 24 size wet cell automotive
batteries. There is a built in charger and a huge contactor which
drops out upon loss of AC and applies 12VDC to the inverters. Loss of
AC will cause the load to toggle over to the inverter outputs and the
hallway lighting circuit remains powered. Maintenance on these two
buildings is minimal and his ultimate cost savings projection becomes
significant when multiplying installing this type of system into the
100’s of buildings which he presently owns. He has asked me to look
into finding this type of equipment for him to retrofit his other
buildings. The typical load is about 400W CFL and will probably never
exceed 550W. I don’t know how picky these particular 13W CFL units are
to anything other than sine wave AC. I know sine wave or even modified
sine wave will probably increase cost somewhat. Does anyone have any
ideas for inverter systems equipment they might be able to share with
me? Thanks, Lenny.

How bout salvaging some old computer UPS from the local dump or
advertize to relieve folks of their defunct units for recycling

al
Whatever he gets will need to be inspected and approved. The regs in
most municipalities are much more stringent in commercial buildings. I
don't think he's going to convince Codes that a solution based on
salvaged, repurposed pc hardware is going to do the trick.....

jak

wrote:
We have a customer who owns a series of 24 and 30 unit apartment
buildings. Presently on each floor as per local requirements there are
several self contained emergency lighting units. Some of these are
equipped with a small 6V battery and just two low voltage lamps that
aim in different directions down the hallway, while other larger units
having larger batteries sometimes might have as many as six 12volt
lamps wired remotely. These all are equipped with sealed lead acid
rechargeable batteries which need to be replaced every few years. Two
of his buildings are exceptions though and don’t have this type of
lighting. In these buildings, the hallway lighting circuit is wired
through an inverter system. This system, which was built by a company
in Massachusetts many years ago is installed in the boiler/electrical
room, and consists of two 12VDC to 120VAC 450W solid state inverters
operating in parallel and two group 24 size wet cell automotive
batteries. There is a built in charger and a huge contactor which
drops out upon loss of AC and applies 12VDC to the inverters. Loss of
AC will cause the load to toggle over to the inverter outputs and the
hallway lighting circuit remains powered. Maintenance on these two
buildings is minimal and his ultimate cost savings projection becomes
significant when multiplying installing this type of system into the
100’s of buildings which he presently owns. He has asked me to look
into finding this type of equipment for him to retrofit his other
buildings. The typical load is about 400W CFL and will probably never
exceed 550W. I don’t know how picky these particular 13W CFL units are
to anything other than sine wave AC. I know sine wave or even modified
sine wave will probably increase cost somewhat. Does anyone have any
ideas for inverter systems equipment they might be able to share with
me? Thanks, Lenny.


CFL's _Shouldn't_ be picky about power. They are usually always
rectified to DC inside.Sine,Square,sawtooth even-it doesn't matter to
the rectifier.

" wrote:

We have a customer who owns a series of 24 and 30 unit apartment
buildings. Presently on each floor as per local requirements there are
several self contained emergency lighting units. Some of these are
equipped with a small 6V battery and just two low voltage lamps that
aim in different directions down the hallway, while other larger units
having larger batteries sometimes might have as many as six 12volt
lamps wired remotely. These all are equipped with sealed lead acid
rechargeable batteries which need to be replaced every few years. Two
of his buildings are exceptions though and don’t have this type of
lighting. In these buildings, the hallway lighting circuit is wired
through an inverter system. This system, which was built by a company
in Massachusetts many years ago is installed in the boiler/electrical
room, and consists of two 12VDC to 120VAC 450W solid state inverters
operating in parallel and two group 24 size wet cell automotive
batteries. There is a built in charger and a huge contactor which
drops out upon loss of AC and applies 12VDC to the inverters. Loss of
AC will cause the load to toggle over to the inverter outputs and the
hallway lighting circuit remains powered. Maintenance on these two
buildings is minimal and his ultimate cost savings projection becomes
significant when multiplying installing this type of system into the
100’s of buildings which he presently owns. He has asked me to look
into finding this type of equipment for him to retrofit his other
buildings. The typical load is about 400W CFL and will probably never
exceed 550W. I don’t know how picky these particular 13W CFL units are
to anything other than sine wave AC. I know sine wave or even modified
sine wave will probably increase cost somewhat. Does anyone have any
ideas for inverter systems equipment they might be able to share with
me? Thanks, Lenny.


news:alt.engineering.electrical would be a better place to ask.


--
http://improve-usenet.org/index.html

If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in
your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm

Sporadic E is the Earth's aluminum foil beanie for the 'global warming'
sheep.

"PhattyMo" wrote in message
...
wrote:
We have a customer who owns a series of 24 and 30 unit apartment
buildings. Presently on each floor as per local requirements there are
several self contained emergency lighting units. Some of these are
equipped with a small 6V battery and just two low voltage lamps that
aim in different directions down the hallway, while other larger units
having larger batteries sometimes might have as many as six 12volt
lamps wired remotely. These all are equipped with sealed lead acid
rechargeable batteries which need to be replaced every few years. Two
of his buildings are exceptions though and don’t have this type of
lighting. In these buildings, the hallway lighting circuit is wired
through an inverter system. This system, which was built by a company
in Massachusetts many years ago is installed in the boiler/electrical
room, and consists of two 12VDC to 120VAC 450W solid state inverters
operating in parallel and two group 24 size wet cell automotive
batteries. There is a built in charger and a huge contactor which
drops out upon loss of AC and applies 12VDC to the inverters. Loss of
AC will cause the load to toggle over to the inverter outputs and the
hallway lighting circuit remains powered. Maintenance on these two
buildings is minimal and his ultimate cost savings projection becomes
significant when multiplying installing this type of system into the
100’s of buildings which he presently owns. He has asked me to look
into finding this type of equipment for him to retrofit his other
buildings. The typical load is about 400W CFL and will probably never
exceed 550W. I don’t know how picky these particular 13W CFL units are
to anything other than sine wave AC. I know sine wave or even modified
sine wave will probably increase cost somewhat. Does anyone have any
ideas for inverter systems equipment they might be able to share with
me? Thanks, Lenny.


CFL's _Shouldn't_ be picky about power. They are usually always rectified
to DC inside.Sine,Square,sawtooth even-it doesn't matter to the rectifier.

I'm not too convinced by that argument. The inverter squeezed into the base
of these lamps, is by necessity very small, which only allows for a filter
cap of around 10uF. It is often this cap that fails in these lamps, so
clearly, it is stressed already, by the heat, and the job it's trying to do
filtering the raw DC from the reccy. I reckon that if you start hitting it
with a real bad shaped waveform, it might be just a bit too much for it.
Bear in mind also that these things are inherently electrically noisy, and
only just about squeeze by the RF emission regs - at least here in the UK -
with a sine wave going in. With a rough wave being supplied, they might just
kick up enough radiation, to cause a problem.

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote:
"PhattyMo" wrote in message
...
wrote:
We have a customer who owns a series of 24 and 30 unit apartment
buildings. Presently on each floor as per local requirements there are
several self contained emergency lighting units. Some of these are
equipped with a small 6V battery and just two low voltage lamps that
aim in different directions down the hallway, while other larger units
having larger batteries sometimes might have as many as six 12volt
lamps wired remotely. These all are equipped with sealed lead acid
rechargeable batteries which need to be replaced every few years. Two
of his buildings are exceptions though and don’t have this type of
lighting. In these buildings, the hallway lighting circuit is wired
through an inverter system. This system, which was built by a company
in Massachusetts many years ago is installed in the boiler/electrical
room, and consists of two 12VDC to 120VAC 450W solid state inverters
operating in parallel and two group 24 size wet cell automotive
batteries. There is a built in charger and a huge contactor which
drops out upon loss of AC and applies 12VDC to the inverters. Loss of
AC will cause the load to toggle over to the inverter outputs and the
hallway lighting circuit remains powered. Maintenance on these two
buildings is minimal and his ultimate cost savings projection becomes
significant when multiplying installing this type of system into the
100’s of buildings which he presently owns. He has asked me to look
into finding this type of equipment for him to retrofit his other
buildings. The typical load is about 400W CFL and will probably never
exceed 550W. I don’t know how picky these particular 13W CFL units are
to anything other than sine wave AC. I know sine wave or even modified
sine wave will probably increase cost somewhat. Does anyone have any
ideas for inverter systems equipment they might be able to share with
me? Thanks, Lenny.

CFL's _Shouldn't_ be picky about power. They are usually always rectified
to DC inside.Sine,Square,sawtooth even-it doesn't matter to the rectifier.

I'm not too convinced by that argument. The inverter squeezed into the base
of these lamps, is by necessity very small, which only allows for a filter
cap of around 10uF. It is often this cap that fails in these lamps, so
clearly, it is stressed already, by the heat, and the job it's trying to do
filtering the raw DC from the reccy. I reckon that if you start hitting it
with a real bad shaped waveform, it might be just a bit too much for it.
Bear in mind also that these things are inherently electrically noisy, and
only just about squeeze by the RF emission regs - at least here in the UK -
with a sine wave going in. With a rough wave being supplied, they might just
kick up enough radiation, to cause a problem.

Arfa




A lot of these low wattage CFLs where the ballast is part of the fixture
still use magnetic choke ballasts. In my experience they do still work
on inverters, but they tend to buzz and are more reluctant to start.

snipped story about inverters for emergency lighting

You might find it helpful to look about RV supply places. There are a
number of (often somewhat spendy, unfortunately) inverter/charger units
available that do it all automatically and have decent sine wave
outputs. Basically, they just hook up to the AC input, battery, and
output, and will charge the battery as needed when AC is around and
automatically switch over to inverter mode when AC is
removed--essentially a UPS circuit, really. I'd trust them to work
reliably in an emergency more than I'd trust a cheap no-name inverter.

--
Andrew Erickson

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot
lose." -- Jim Elliot

wrote:
We have a customer who owns a series of 24 and 30 unit apartment
buildings. Presently on each floor as per local requirements there are
several self contained emergency lighting units. Some of these are
equipped with a small 6V battery and just two low voltage lamps that
aim in different directions down the hallway, while other larger units
having larger batteries sometimes might have as many as six 12volt
lamps wired remotely. These all are equipped with sealed lead acid
rechargeable batteries which need to be replaced every few years. Two
of his buildings are exceptions though and don’t have this type of
lighting. In these buildings, the hallway lighting circuit is wired
through an inverter system. This system, which was built by a company
in Massachusetts many years ago is installed in the boiler/electrical
room, and consists of two 12VDC to 120VAC 450W solid state inverters
operating in parallel and two group 24 size wet cell automotive
batteries. There is a built in charger and a huge contactor which
drops out upon loss of AC and applies 12VDC to the inverters. Loss of
AC will cause the load to toggle over to the inverter outputs and the
hallway lighting circuit remains powered. Maintenance on these two
buildings is minimal and his ultimate cost savings projection becomes
significant when multiplying installing this type of system into the
100’s of buildings which he presently owns. He has asked me to look
into finding this type of equipment for him to retrofit his other
buildings. The typical load is about 400W CFL and will probably never
exceed 550W. I don’t know how picky these particular 13W CFL units are
to anything other than sine wave AC. I know sine wave or even modified
sine wave will probably increase cost somewhat. Does anyone have any
ideas for inverter systems equipment they might be able to share with
me? Thanks, Lenny.

There are going to building codes issues that will mandate some sort of
purpose-built commercial solution to your problem. IME, you won't be
able to home-brew something of this sort. The potential liabilities if
someone is hurt in an emergency situation are too great...even if it
can't be directly attributed to the performance of the system.

I'd just google 'emergency lighting' or 'backup lighting'; see which
companies supply such things and bite the bullet. In fact, having just
done so ("emergency lighting"), I got 1,940,000 hits. I'll bet there's
an answer there somewhere. For instance,
http://www.emergencylighting.com/category/Inverters.cfm is one of the
top results. Clicking that site, then category 'inverters' shows about
40 different products.

jak

jak