T5 fittings

[Steve]

Brand new installation (December 08 )

Century lighting T5 fittings over a shop floor. Every week of so, another fitting stops working. Fittings have a single HF ballast and use four no. 14W tubes.

It seemed to be a particular area of lights that were failing - in the open area at the front of the store, no fittings failed, but down the aisles, 17 had stopped working by today.

Man came today to try and find the problem with them.

He started by simply unplugging them from the klik boxes above the ceiling and plugging back in. Some of them would then light briefly for about 5 seconds then go out again.

Most of the fittings came on by changing the tubes - some of the tubes that were in (and wouldnt light) were badly blackened on their ends. He tried some spent tubes (that looked ok) in brand new fittings but even then wouldnt light. Two fittings had to be swapped for new because even the new tubes wouldn't light.

He told me the lampholders were of very poor quality (bear in mind these fittings cost £100+ each, standard ones are about £35). The lamps had to be just so to be able to light. He re-lamped all 17 faulty fittings and said the spent tubes had been sent off for testing - it could have been a faulty batch of tubes (hence part of the store was still well lit - the original sparks worked from the back to the front of the store when lamping).

For now all the fittings are now working after relamping.

What do the resident sparks think?

Tube, caps or ballast?

Anyone used these fittings?

http://www.centurylighting.co.uk/products/commercial/president

 

[RF Lighting]

Sounds like a batch of carp tubes to me.

Not convinced by the lampholder explanation.

 

[thompsk]

I have this problem at a building I do maintenance in, same thing 14w t5 tubes sometimes flicker sometime go out, the ballast is 4x14w helvar electronic, ive found in nearly all cases ive gone to its been the ballast at fault, I could change the tubes in the fitting and within 5 mins it would be flickering again yet change the ballast they work fine, ive a good supplier for ballasts and they are very reasonable prices and normally next day del pm me if you want their details

 

[Steve]

Today two fittings are out (that were relamped yesterday). One is off, and one is glowing, but different brightnesses, left to right it goes bright, dim, bright, dim, but none are as bright as they are supposed to be. This fitting was doing this before relamping yesterday (it worked until switch on this morning).

So this rules out bad lamps in these two fittings at least. We'll have to see if any more drop . . .

The lamps are all Edison brand warm white. New and old.

 

[Spark123]

Phone your maintenance company and get them back to it

 

[Steve]

Phone your maintenance company and get them back to it

My manager has the mobile number of the project manager from when they built the place He's seeing to it under warranty like

 

[flameport]

Almost certainly it is the ballast/control gear.
If the ends of the lamps are black after only a few months of use, the control gear is not working properly.

The ends go black on switch start gear because at the end of the lamp life, the starter keeps the current flowing through the end filaments for long periods. This causes the filaments to overheat and the coating burns off causing the black ends.
This is also why the starter should be replaced at the same time as the lamp - a faulty starter will cause overheating and ruin a new lamp very quickly.

None of this should happen with HF gear - it should just switch off once the lamp is no longer usable. Lamps lasting for just 3 months is ridiculous - even cheap ones should last much longer than that.

 

[Click-Sure]

Sounds like the ballast to me, I've had a lot of problems with T5's over the past couple of years anyway, so for now I'll be sticking with T8 fittings and tri-phosphor tubes.