Eric, Trans questions??

Eric,
I've noticed you haven't been getting the usual number of questions on trans problems lately. In past years there always seemed be be 1 or more going on at the same time. What's up? Are you fixing those things too good?

the first thing to go Pete are the boats, no use, no breaking them, i dont want to make you cry but at least you noticed. business is down by half, overhead still the same.....its terrible out there, im sure some others will add on this great economy. Our best year was about three years ago and slid down hill since, thats why im always on the buy american band wagon out front blowing the horn. most of the people I use to deal with came out of the steel mills and car plants, cracking 6 figures and the latest go fast boats.

funny thing though, I thought about you today with the t-8 light fixtures, a salesman came in with sodium Phosphate bulbs?? he gave me 6 to try in one of the fixtures, they were twice as bright. the best line I ever heard came from this guy "I dont sell light bulbs, I sell light"
i told the guy you have a better line of Bulsht than me, I'll give you that. but anyways, I bought a box of 40, he started at 13.00 apiece, but i chisled him down to 8.00 apiece and i did let him know the 6 were free

Eric,
I hope those lamps work out in the long run for you. There are lots of light bulb salesmen out there that I wouldn't call real honest. Look to see if there's a color spec printed on the lamp. Considering you say they are real "white", the number should be 5000 or 6000 kelvin. The higher the number, the closer they are to daylight. Also, there may be a "CRI" rating. A higher number also means a better color rendering. See what they say - I'm curious!

The lamps/fixtures going in my planed shop are T5's and not T8's. They are the latest in fluorescent lamp technology. Banks of 6 or 8 four footers are replacing high bay metal halides with more light output with less watts. I've selected a wide distribution 3 lamp fixture with dual ballasts. This gives me the flexibility of having 1,2 or all 3 lamps turned on per fixture and row for 3 light levels. The calculated is 50, 100 and 150 fc per square foot. 16 3 lamp T5 fixtures are needed whereas 24 4 lamp T8 fixtures to get to the same level. I need to plan ahead when my eye's get to the point of not being the greatest!!

Metalux has a fantastic on line fixture calculator. Put in height, width and depth of the room as well as some other parameters and it gives you the fc and even the spacing of all the fixtures.

Eric,
Easy way to tell which lamp you have is the diameter. "T" stands for "tubular" and the number is in 1/8"s. A T5 will be 5/8" and the T8 will be 1".

All lamps pretty much use the same designation system. The common incandescent "A21" is 2&5/8" diameter.

eric lavine wrote: they are t-5s cause they are skinny

Does this look like the fixtures you have?

6 lamp T5 (F54T5/HO lamps)

Eric,
That's not a bad price for the lamps if they give you the life (25,000 to 30,000 hours) and are a decent color rendering (CRI). As the color temp goes higher closer to "daylight", the cost goes up. A normal color of 4K lamps go for about 12 each. 5K lamps 14 each!

Eric - Don't you also recommend snake oil additives in the tranny twice a year?    How about unhooking the cooling lines so it gets good & hot to dry out the moisture?

PS - Newbies - this is just a joke

if i was doing this out of my garage here at home, i could make a modest living on the second time arounders from the do-it your selfers, and the snake oil guys who like to add things that dont belong lol

Eric,

I just ordered 15 of the 4-lamp T-5 wide angles for my business, My electrician was really pushing these things hard! Looked at the 6-lamp fixture but it was overkill for my app. Just curious what kinda pricing you got on the fixtures themselves? I ended up at around 6 bucks a bulb (the electrician owed me one) These things made my product look amazing!!

The pic is our test, 4 lamp vs 6, I can only imagine what the 8's looked like! These two fixtures did the work of approx 5 of the old fixtures (metal hilides??)

at the time, i think 110 apiece with the bulbs, that was 6 years ago

6 per fixture btw, they really highlight areas, i was amazed at the new bulbs compared to the old