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T5HO orientation inquiry

wingfootedgodhead

Active member
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
41
Location
Oregon (dry side)
Apologies if this has been covered in another thread

80 x 40 pole barn, trusses spaced 10 foot apart, 18 feet off the deck.

This winter I finished a single run of conduit down the center of the pole barn and installed 100W equivalent CFL's. The conduit is filled with two pairs of 12 gauge plus a ground, one wire pair for the CFL's and one pair for future expansion. It's really a quite nice setup, much neater and cleaner to 'do things right' and run conduit versus romex.

This coming fall, I want to complete the job and install 4' T5HO fixtures with either 4 or 6 lamps each. The very easiest thing for me to do is flush mount the T5HO fixtures off the existing trusses and T off the existing conduit run using the spare wire pair. (figure 1).


ms+electrical+plan1.jpg


Alternatively, I could run a pendant arrangement and orient the T5H0 fixtures parellel to the long axis the machine shed. (figure 2). Would be a lot more work and more materials. Also exposing the fixtures to mechanical damage as I do spend some time above the tusses on one project or another using a scissors lift.

ms+electrical+plan2.jpg


Is there any appreciable difference in lumen distribution at the shop floor between the two T5H0 orientations ? Enough to justify the additional work required to implement orienting the fixtures parallel to the machine shed axis ?
 
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Highbeam

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Feb 15, 2011
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2,292
Location
Mt Rainier foothills, WA
Not at 18'. Bolt to the trusses as in option #1. I did it that way with my 12 foot truss spacing and 14' ceiling height and had no significant bright and dim spots.
 
OP
W

wingfootedgodhead

Active member
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
41
Location
Oregon (dry side)
If it were me, I would do the first setup with the lights mounted to the bottom of the trusses, but then for each branch off of the main center line I would install 2 separate 2 tube fixtures one right after the other. You would get more light to the floor with the same total wattage, that would help your light coverage stay much more even, and shadowing at floor level would be minimized. A side benefit is that switching to 2 lamp fixtures might prevent the fixtures from overhanging the sides of the trusses giving you more room between trusses for the scissor lift.

Great suggestion.

And a two light, eight foot fixture would give about the same benefits at lower cost / lower installation effort.
 
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68rustang

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Mar 25, 2008
Messages
134
Location
Cleveland, OH USA
where are you getting your lights? When we relit the shop at work my distributor ran a couple different layouts through the computer. It gave us all kinds of pretty pictures showing the amount and distribution of light based on fixture type and mounting arrangements.

I would bolt them to the trusses only because it looks cleaner.
 

FDNY-L107

Member
Joined
May 30, 2011
Messages
8
I run T5HO in a commercial high bay fixture with zero degree electronic ballasts. I love them. My bulbs are 4300K range and I have 10.5 foot ceilings. Plenty of white crisp light that provides outstanding dispersion. I highly recommend the T5's. I flushed mounted them without any issues.
 
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