Posted by Don Klipstein on June 20, 2011, 9:02 pm
>Currently got a remote observation site (wildlife) with no grid fed
>power nor any prospect of it.
>Half the site has a few modified 4ft T5's (36W) retrofitted with 12v
>IOTA Ballasts (2D12-1-32) fed from a lead acid battery charged by a
>solar panel. The other half of the site has 5ft T5's with magnetic
>ballasts fed by a Honda EU20i generator which despite being a quiet
>suitcase model and loads of additional soundproofing is still way too
>noisy. Near silent operation is essential. Hauling fuel is also a
>PITA as its a long way from the road.
>So I need a way of powering the 5ft T5's (58W) from a low voltage DC
>supply. IOTA only make ballasts up to 40W and they need a circa 50v
>supply, realistically I need to keep to 12v to keep the solar array
>price down.
>So thoughts turned to an inverter fed from an uprated solar array and
>battery.
>A cheap modified sine wave inverter (circa 500W capacity) on a 100Ah
>brand new battery fails to even kick even one 5ft tube into life. The
>manufacturer says these inverters are not compatible with fluorescent
>tubes but doesn't elaborate any further.
>Does anyone have any ideas on how to get these lights working off
>grid?
>A change of ballast to an electronic type? (all indications are this
>could won't work?)
>Moving to a pure sine wave inverter (extremely expensive) ?
>A different inverter supplier rather than 'one hung lo china inc' ?'
>A ballast supplier that offers 12v ballasts that will drive a 58W
>tube?
>A homebrew 12V fluorescent inverter, running at high frequency that
>will drive 5ft tubes and costs not a lot? :)
I would replace the 5-footers with 4-footers. More 4-footers are made
than all other sizes of fluoros combined. Going with the flow will
greatly improve your ballast choices.
--
- Don Klipstein (don@donklipstein.com)
Posted by Andrew Gabriel on June 21, 2011, 9:04 pm
Don@DonKlipstein.com (Don Klipstein) writes:
>
> I would replace the 5-footers with 4-footers. More 4-footers are made
> than all other sizes of fluoros combined. Going with the flow will
> greatly improve your ballast choices.
Whilst that is likely in the US (I'm always somewhat surprised to see
large US supermarket lit with rows and rows of 4' T12 tubes), it's not true
here. 4' was a popular size in the home in the 1960's, but in supermarkets
and other similar installations, they tend to be 5', 6' or 8' tubes (8' is
becoming rarer now), but never 4', possibly because of their low loading
compared with the longer tubes.
In offices, you can find 4' tubes in 1200x600mm modular ceiling lights,
but 2' tubes in 600x600mm modular ceiling lights are much more common.
(These are giving way to externally ballasted compact fluorescents now.)
--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]
Posted by Victor Roberts on June 20, 2011, 11:02 pm
On Sun, 19 Jun 2011 23:52:29 +0100, The Other Mike
>Currently got a remote observation site (wildlife) with no grid fed
>power nor any prospect of it.
>Half the site has a few modified 4ft T5's (36W) retrofitted with 12v
>IOTA Ballasts (2D12-1-32) fed from a lead acid battery charged by a
>solar panel. The other half of the site has 5ft T5's with magnetic
>ballasts fed by a Honda EU20i generator which despite being a quiet
>suitcase model and loads of additional soundproofing is still way too
>noisy. Near silent operation is essential. Hauling fuel is also a
>PITA as its a long way from the road.
>So I need a way of powering the 5ft T5's (58W) from a low voltage DC
>supply. IOTA only make ballasts up to 40W and they need a circa 50v
>supply, realistically I need to keep to 12v to keep the solar array
>price down.
>So thoughts turned to an inverter fed from an uprated solar array and
>battery.
>A cheap modified sine wave inverter (circa 500W capacity) on a 100Ah
>brand new battery fails to even kick even one 5ft tube into life. The
>manufacturer says these inverters are not compatible with fluorescent
>tubes but doesn't elaborate any further.
>Does anyone have any ideas on how to get these lights working off
>grid?
>A change of ballast to an electronic type? (all indications are this
>could won't work?)
>Moving to a pure sine wave inverter (extremely expensive) ?
>A different inverter supplier rather than 'one hung lo china inc' ?'
>A ballast supplier that offers 12v ballasts that will drive a 58W
>tube?
>A homebrew 12V fluorescent inverter, running at high frequency that
>will drive 5ft tubes and costs not a lot? :)
I agree with Andrew about DC input. Most electronic ballasts will
work rather well on DC input power, and many ballast manufacturers
even rate then for DC input. So, you can either recondigure your
battery pack for high DC voltage (which I understand you do not want
to do); or try the electronic ballasts on the square wave output,
which they may like just fine; or rectify the square wave output to
produce DC and feed the ballasts with that.
Vic Roberts
http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com
http://www.cflfacts.com
sci.engr.lighting Rogues Gallery http://www.langmuir.org
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Posted by Dave Plowman (News) on June 22, 2011, 11:11 pm
> The other half of the site has 5ft T5's with magnetic
> ballasts fed by a Honda EU20i generator which despite being a quiet
> suitcase model and loads of additional soundproofing is still way too
> noisy. Near silent operation is essential. Hauling fuel is also a
> PITA as its a long way from the road.
> So I need a way of powering the 5ft T5's (58W) from a low voltage DC
> supply. IOTA only make ballasts up to 40W and they need a circa 50v
> supply, realistically I need to keep to 12v to keep the solar array
> price down.
My feeling is that magnetic ballast mains florries fed via an inverter
would be very little more efficient than 12 volt halogen lighting.
--
*Save a tree, eat a beaver*
Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
Posted by Tabby on June 23, 2011, 12:51 am
wrote:
> > The other half of the site has 5ft T5's with magnetic
> > ballasts fed by a Honda EU20i generator which despite being a quiet
> > suitcase model and loads of additional soundproofing is still way too
> > noisy. Near silent operation is essential. Hauling fuel is also a
> > PITA as its a long way from the road.
> > So I need a way of powering the 5ft T5's (58W) from a low voltage DC
> > supply. IOTA only make ballasts up to 40W and they need a circa 50v
> > supply, realistically I need to keep to 12v to keep the solar array
> > price down.
> My feeling is that magnetic ballast mains florries fed via an inverter
> would be very little more efficient than 12 volt halogen lighting.
electronic invertors get over 90% efficiency, the difference between
the 2 is huge
XML site map
>power nor any prospect of it.
>Half the site has a few modified 4ft T5's (36W) retrofitted with 12v
>IOTA Ballasts (2D12-1-32) fed from a lead acid battery charged by a
>solar panel. The other half of the site has 5ft T5's with magnetic
>ballasts fed by a Honda EU20i generator which despite being a quiet
>suitcase model and loads of additional soundproofing is still way too
>noisy. Near silent operation is essential. Hauling fuel is also a
>PITA as its a long way from the road.
>So I need a way of powering the 5ft T5's (58W) from a low voltage DC
>supply. IOTA only make ballasts up to 40W and they need a circa 50v
>supply, realistically I need to keep to 12v to keep the solar array
>price down.
>So thoughts turned to an inverter fed from an uprated solar array and
>battery.
>A cheap modified sine wave inverter (circa 500W capacity) on a 100Ah
>brand new battery fails to even kick even one 5ft tube into life. The
>manufacturer says these inverters are not compatible with fluorescent
>tubes but doesn't elaborate any further.
>Does anyone have any ideas on how to get these lights working off
>grid?
>A change of ballast to an electronic type? (all indications are this
>could won't work?)
>Moving to a pure sine wave inverter (extremely expensive) ?
>A different inverter supplier rather than 'one hung lo china inc' ?'
>A ballast supplier that offers 12v ballasts that will drive a 58W
>tube?
>A homebrew 12V fluorescent inverter, running at high frequency that
>will drive 5ft tubes and costs not a lot? :)