High Bay Lights Gone Wild!

Bubbles

If you show up at a warehouse at owners request to look at high bays some not working (says new bulbs are in) and most are burning dim is it really worth the time to rent a lift to go 30 ft to start inspecting each fixture to tell him when your done they are bad or do a visual with binoculars with insight from owner to determine how old they are and go for a total relamping. (Ex. 20 plus years old and 70 high bays total)

Anyone out there do massive relamping jobs?

Is there a way to test transforer to see if its ok and how? Check output voltage?? What if stickers are so old you don't know what output should be?

Thanks in advance my friends

mdshunk

I have a feeling that they put in the wrong lamps. Yes, I think you need to veryify that the ballast/lamp combination is correct. They may well have put metal halides in mercury vapor fixtures, etc.

mahlere

or another issue we've been seeing a lot is the use of the wrong tap on a multi-tap ballast...ie- it's 208V from the panel, but whoever replaced the ballasts used the 240V tap.

if there are sporadic dim ones, could be the ballast is wired wrong on those

MechanicalDVR

It's like the lottery, you have to be in it to win it. Tell the guy you have a troubleshooting charge before you ever show up. I would check the fixtures but it would cost, labor rate plus lift rental.

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frenchsparky

The other thing is that with older HID's that the capaiator can be shot if shorted out the light will stay dim but if open it will not light up.

genrally any hid over 25 year old it will be wise idea to get new unit all the wires and related parts is pretty much done end of usefull life unless you rewire the whole thing with new ballast kit but the issuse is the wires is the socket to the ballast they can be hard and brittle so IMO you have to check the cost to this vs getting new luminiare there are new one is somehow more engery effectacy than the old ones

I done quite few massive relamping each area is diffrent nothing is the same and you have to preprared for replace some bad luminaire as well [ it will happend anyway ] ditto with flourscent luminaires. [ flourscent tombstone is #1 curpit some are so well cracked and cant even install new tubes in there ]

the most imporat part when you check the exsting system make sure the bulb match the ballast some case you can ask them if they have a spare unit on hand if so you can see the spare one and check the label info [ half of my time i dont bother check the label i just crack open the housing and get the numbers from the ballst itself because sometime they change to diffrent wattage and type what it dont match the exsting label info ]

most high bay useally are 400 watters [ not all are 400 watters ]

Merci, Marc

Bubbles

Well, since yesterday. We decided after looking at 2 and determing that they were 25+ years old to go with a total relamping. We put all new 400 watt wallpacks yesterday then the lift had to go back. Have you ever installed the new flourescent 6 bulb luminairs? We have 54 to do next week. Mostly 33ft up. He wants to drop some on chains to get a little more light out of them. I have never installed them. Just looking for a ballpark per fixture on time so I can come up with a number??

Thanks in advance

Magnettica

Not sure on the pricing, but I have done some of the 6-lamp fixtures. Are the ballasts rated for T5's or T8's? They are bright as hell and your customer will be more than pleased. Me and a helper did 8 of them in 25' ceiling on a lift including mounting the fixtures with 1/4" drop-ins, installing conduit, pulling wire, making connections, reflective lens covers, lamping etc, in 2 days (7:30-4:00). That includes 45 minutes to and from the job, 1/2 hour for lunch, 2-15 minute breaks, cleaning up etc.

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K2

If the hid has a cord we just reuse the cord or put the plug end on a new cord. We have two ground guys making up fixtures with the chain on them, lamps in, leses on. One guy in the air pulling down the old and putting up the new. Generally 3 guys can do at least 30 a day.

K2

There is a graph on this page of hid depreciation.


http://www.hubbell.com/thinkagain/th..._LH_Hi-Bay.pdf

But the way. I shopped and found a scrapper to give me 20 cents a pound for the old halides= about $4.50 per fixture. Copper bearing transformer and cast Al housing.... pre 1978 probably has a pcb capacitor and those should be pulled.

Bubbles

Thanks K2 and Magnettica. I'm thinking we (3) of us will shoot for that number K2 gave us. I'm gonna assume a little slower just in case. Were you pulling all the wire in pipe to jbox's mag. Your number time wise is way off k2s? I'll plan on 20 day to be safe. And yes they are T-5's. His warehouse is probably under 1 watt/ft I'm betting right now. need to get a lumen meter and measure before/ after to show customer. This info helped. Thanks

Magnettica

Fixtures we used (2'x4') had been used previously and were mounted to a poured concrete ceiling. Then we had to install 3/4" conduit, straps, connectors, couplings, to each of the fixtures, and then finally wire and tap off from an exisiting 277v circuit. The total load added was just a bit more three amps.

I believe K2 had a different type job. Each one is different. He had male/ female cords and I worked with conduit. Besides, there's no way my helper could figure out how to wire and attach a safety chain to a single lamp HID fixture without me showing him how its done 30-40 times first. LOL.

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