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Re: Is this enough light?
On Fri, 28 Jan 2000, Wayne wrote:
> One of the worst ones I found is a trigger start ballast with (2) 2'
> NO F20 T12 CW lamp. This system as near as I can figure is rated at about 41
> lumens per watt and produces a total of 1470 lumens with a nominal wattage
> of 40 watts. One of the best systems uses a Sylvania HL electronic ballast
> with (1) 4' NO F32 T8 841 lamp. This system produces 91 lumens per watt for
> a total of 3540 lumens.
If you limit your selection of systems to a comparable price range, then I
think you'll find the range in performance is much smaller. Also, in most
instances we can limit our advice to systems that are either prebuilt or
easily rigged up (like shop lights), because most of us don't have the
knowledge or the tools to DIY a fluorescent system from scratch.
Ivo Busko might have something more to say about this, but I think if you
were making your comparison based on PAR rather than lumens you might find
that the variations are not as great.
As an aside, the 2' lights with the standard preheat ballast may cost a
third (or less) of the price for the high efficiency alternative, giving
4410 lumens at the same cost as the best system. This would come with
greater flexibility from being able to place the tubes in a variety of
different configurations and from being able to mix and match different
lights to get exactly the appearance you want. The low-end system would
cost more to operate and tube replacement would probably be more
expensive, depending on your choice of bulbs.
Roger Miller