fluorescent lighting
 

I quite fancy the idea of fluorescent tubes on top of kitchen cupboards, as
suggested on here over the years. Are there non-flickering types that will
not be noticeable on start up?
I'm also a little concerned about the coldness of the light bouncing off a
white ceiling. Can anyone suggest a tube that might be closer to daylight?
TIA

Are there non-flickering types that will not be noticeable on start up?

Yes. You are looking for a type that has a high frequency electronic
ballast.

I'm also a little concerned about the coldness of the light bouncing off a
white ceiling. Can anyone suggest a tube that might be closer to daylight?

Daylight is actually quite cold. You want a much warmer tri-phosphor tube if
you want to match tungsten bulbs.

Christian.

In article ,
stuart noble wrote:
I quite fancy the idea of fluorescent tubes on top of kitchen cupboards,
as suggested on here over the years. Are there non-flickering types that
will not be noticeable on start up?

Absolutely. Electronic ballasts don't run at 50 Hz. Decent tubes have
higher persistence phosphors. That combination will give no noticable
flicker at all - as well as good starting, very long life and high
efficiency.

I'm also a little concerned about the coldness of the light bouncing off
a white ceiling. Can anyone suggest a tube that might be closer to
daylight?

Genuine daylight is about as cold as you'll get. Did you mean a better
match to tungsten?

For my under cupboard lighting, I used dimmable Osram high frequency
ballasts, and Philips tubes matched to tungsten. Not the cheapest option,
but the results are stunning.

--
*Stable Relationships Are For Horses. *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
"stuart noble" writes:
I quite fancy the idea of fluorescent tubes on top of kitchen cupboards, as
suggested on here over the years. Are there non-flickering types that will
not be noticeable on start up?

Any with electronic control gear.
There are generally two types, preheat and instant-start, but it's
very difficult to know which type you are going to find in a fitting
before you buy it. In neither case with electronic control gear will
you get the multiple flashing at switchon, flicker whilst operating,
or continued failed attempts to light a dead tube. Personally, I go
for instant start if I can find a choice, even though it slightly
reduces the tube life.

I'm also a little concerned about the coldness of the light bouncing off a
white ceiling. Can anyone suggest a tube that might be closer to daylight?

Real daylight is just about the coldest colour you can get.
When will you be using the light, and how bright is your kitchen?

If the answer is only in the evenings (so you are looking only at
standard evening lighting levels), and you want to mix with filament
lighting and have the same colour, then you want 2700K tubes.
For a brightly lit kitchen and where you might use the lights
to supplement daylight, then 3000K or 3500K would be more appropriate.
For a very brightly light kitchen, you could go up to 4000K.
I wouldn't recommend anything higher than than though. The real
daylight tubes are up in the 6000K area, but unless you get the
lighting level up to that of the midday sun, which would probably
mean covering the ceiling in fluorescent lamps, it will look very
cold and food in particular will look washed out in colour.

--
Andrew Gabriel

In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
The real
daylight tubes are up in the 6000K area, but unless you get the
lighting level up to that of the midday sun, which would probably
mean covering the ceiling in fluorescent lamps, it will look very
cold and food in particular will look washed out in colour.

Surely this depends on the colour of the food? True that reds will look
rather less bright than under tungsten.

Some would say that if the food looks ok under 'daylight' it can only look
better in candlelight...

--
*Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 14 Oct 2004 "stuart noble" wrote:

I quite fancy the idea of fluorescent tubes on top of kitchen cupboards, as
suggested on here over the years. Are there non-flickering types that will
not be noticeable on start up?
I'm also a little concerned about the coldness of the light bouncing off a
white ceiling. Can anyone suggest a tube that might be closer to daylight?

Yes. For kitchens the best tubes to use are Philips Colour 85.
They are slightly warmer than daylight and won't make food look off.
They are a bit more expensive that ordinary white (35) tubes.

Flourescent tubes generally flicker once or twice on startup if you use
a normal starter switch. You can get instant starting chokes which
don't use switches but they are less efficient.

--
Richard Porter
Mail to username ricp at domain minijem.plus.com
"You can't have Windows without pains."

Richard Porter wrote:

Yes. For kitchens the best tubes to use are Philips Colour 85.

Do you mean 835 (3500 K)?

--
Andy

In article ,
Richard Porter wrote:
Flourescent tubes generally flicker once or twice on startup if you use
a normal starter switch. You can get instant starting chokes which
don't use switches but they are less efficient.

Electronic ballasts don't flicker - well not in the same way as switch
start - and are at least as efficient.

--
*How can I miss you if you won't go away?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 13:51:59 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
stuart noble wrote:
I quite fancy the idea of fluorescent tubes on top of kitchen cupboards,
as suggested on here over the years. Are there non-flickering types that
will not be noticeable on start up?

Absolutely. Electronic ballasts don't run at 50 Hz. Decent tubes have
higher persistence phosphors. That combination will give no noticable
flicker at all - as well as good starting, very long life and high
efficiency.

I'm also a little concerned about the coldness of the light bouncing off
a white ceiling. Can anyone suggest a tube that might be closer to
daylight?

Genuine daylight is about as cold as you'll get. Did you mean a better
match to tungsten?

For my under cupboard lighting, I used dimmable Osram high frequency
ballasts, and Philips tubes matched to tungsten. Not the cheapest option,
but the results are stunning.

Hi,

Any details on the tubes?

cheers,
Pete.

In article ,
Pete C wrote:
For my under cupboard lighting, I used dimmable Osram high frequency
ballasts, and Philips tubes matched to tungsten. Not the cheapest
option, but the results are stunning.

Hi,

Any details on the tubes?

They're 31, but I'm not sure if this code still applies. They're rather
old now, but still going strong.

--
*My dog can lick anyone

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:
In article ,
Richard Porter wrote:
Flourescent tubes generally flicker once or twice on startup if you use
a normal starter switch. You can get instant starting chokes which
don't use switches but they are less efficient.

Electronic ballasts don't flicker - well not in the same way as switch
start - and are at least as efficient.

The tubes themselves also operate more efficiently if driven with
an AC supply of around 5kHz or more (around 5-10% more efficient).
Electronic control gear tends to be in the 20-50kHz range, and
hence well above this 5kHz boundary.

Note that you can still get some 100Hz flicker from some electronic
control gear due to ripple on the internal DC supply rail.
However, with old traditional ballasts, it is the 50Hz flicker which
some people can see either from the tube ends (more so in peripheral
vision than direct on), or from the whole tube if it conducts better
in one direction than the other (common shortly before end-of-life
failure). This 50Hz flicker is not produced by electronic control
gear at all, and 100Hz flicker is not visible by humans unless you
have something creating a stroboscopic effect with it.

--
Andrew Gabriel

Many thanks for all the suggestions. I'll go see what my local wholesaler
stocks. Once the decorating's done I'll have a better idea of how light
natural light will be.

"stuart noble" wrote in message ...
I quite fancy the idea of fluorescent tubes on top of kitchen cupboards, as
suggested on here over the years. Are there non-flickering types that will
not be noticeable on start up?
I'm also a little concerned about the coldness of the light bouncing off a
white ceiling. Can anyone suggest a tube that might be closer to daylight?
TIA

Mount the tubes so they cant be seen, and dont overdo the wattage. 2
very common errors with fl lighting. Unless youer sure about wattage,
dimmable fittings would be good.

Fl is about 4x as efficient as filament, so the powers needed are very
different.


NT

On 14 Oct 2004 Andy Wade wrote:

Richard Porter wrote:

Yes. For kitchens the best tubes to use are Philips Colour 85.

Do you mean 835 (3500 K)?

Could be Colour 83, now you mention it. I haven't bought one for a long
time as my presemt kitchen has downlighters. I use compact flourescents
in place of the reflector lamps.

--
Richard Porter
Mail to username ricp at domain minijem.plus.com
"You can't have Windows without pains."

N. Thornton wrote in message ...
"stuart noble" wrote in message
...
I quite fancy the idea of fluorescent tubes on top of kitchen cupboards,
as
suggested on here over the years. Are there non-flickering types that
will
not be noticeable on start up?
I'm also a little concerned about the coldness of the light bouncing off
a
white ceiling. Can anyone suggest a tube that might be closer to
daylight?
TIA

Mount the tubes so they cant be seen, and dont overdo the wattage. 2
very common errors with fl lighting. Unless youer sure about wattage,
dimmable fittings would be good.

Fl is about 4x as efficient as filament, so the powers needed are very
different.
This kitchen is about 12 ft x 8ft with a 4ft wide window on one side, and
units down the other. There is currently a 3x25W halogen centre light.
Customer wants under cupboard lights, so I guess 4 x 350mm x 30W would cover
the 12 ft run.
How much wattage to put on top of the cupboards is the question. Would be
nice to maybe get rid of the centre light altogether, but I guess it'll be
trial and error.

Richard Porter wrote:

On 14 Oct 2004 Andy Wade wrote:
Do you mean 835 (3500 K)?

Could be Colour 83, now you mention it. I haven't bought one for a long
time as my presemt kitchen has downlighters.

Colours 83 and 84 are now known as 830 and 840, and they've added 827,
835 and 865 to the range:

http://www.prismaecat.lighting.philips.com/LightSite/Whirlwind.aspx?eca=LEPPLG&cpf=GBEPEN&stg=ACT&lan=E N+&ecu=LMP|PHL|EP&cnt_key=TLD8++++|PHL&t=1&tree=0& scr_md=1111&leftnav=1_1_1_5_2_3

--
Andy

In article ,
N. Thornton wrote:
Mount the tubes so they cant be seen, and dont overdo the wattage. 2
very common errors with fl lighting. Unless youer sure about wattage,
dimmable fittings would be good.

Yes. My tiles and work surfaces are a dark colour, so the 'standard' 1"
tubes I've used over the entire length are fine - a good match in level to
the downlighters above the other surfaces. And I can dim them when not
needing the full amount as working light. With light coloured surfaces it
may be different.

--
*One of us is thinking about sex... OK, it's me.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"stuart noble" wrote in message ...
N. Thornton wrote in message ...

Fl is about 4x as efficient as filament, so the powers needed are very
different.
This kitchen is about 12 ft x 8ft with a 4ft wide window on one side, and
units down the other. There is currently a 3x25W halogen centre light.
Customer wants under cupboard lights, so I guess 4 x 350mm x 30W would cover
the 12 ft run.
How much wattage to put on top of the cupboards is the question. Would be
nice to maybe get rid of the centre light altogether, but I guess it'll be
trial and error.

If you eman 4x30w fl, thats 120w, about equivalent to 480w of filament
bulbs. Youre customer'll love you :)

NT