Occupancy switching 18w compact low energy circular fittings

[Welchyboy]

I have a new toilet block in a school which has 10 stalls, each to have its own sensor and circular compact fitting, it has been left to me to design the lighting, has anyone had any troubles switching these by PIR sensors?

I didnt think there would be any issues but a mate said he had trouble with the lamps repeatedly failing when used on compact low energy fittings and had to change them to 'warm start' fittings

I planned to set the timers to at least 10-15 mins so they wont be going on and off too quickly but am i missing something, i dont want to install them and have problems afterwards

Thanks

 

[HandySparks]

If they're on PIRs, and spend most of the time off, I'd use good ol' GLS if I could. Or the halogen replacements. No warm up time. No problem if it's cold. No excessive failure rate due to repeated switching.

 

[Welchyboy]

yes i have found some gls fittings that are similiar and a bit cheaper too but will still need to use low energy lamps, which will still not be good for pir switching

AAAGGGGGHHH!!

 

[telectrix]

how about LED lighting. no problems with PIRs. low energy and long life.

 

[HandySparks]

Welchyboy, if your brief is to fit low energy then definitely consider LED as tel says. Too many people wanting to appear "green" are going for low energy compact fluorescent, 2D, or similar without really thinking it through. They're fine for lights left on for long periods, but not good on PIRs. The extra cost of running something less "green" is, in many cases, trivial.

 

[Welchyboy]

Thanks for the input, I don't think they will cover the budget for led lighting, bit of a pain really, the main area of the toilets are 600x600 fittings too

 

[mogga]

we had a client who wanted pirs on 28w 2d fittings 3 weeks after fitting gaffer got a call re the lights not coming on till the guys have finished peeing just warm up of 2d fittings Your asking for more paiin in the bum calls

 

[Flyingsparks]

We fitted some 38W 2D fitttings with PIR control on a corridor at a school and the lamps had to be replaced after about every 3 months.

I was told by the fitting manufacturer that frequent switching causes the cathode to be stripped which leads to premature failure of the lamps.

They advised us to increase the timer on the PIR to at least 15 mins and now the lamps seem to last about 12 months before replacement is needed.

I think that LED lamps will definately be the way forward, but the price needs to be reduced significantly before customers will consider using these as their prefered lighting choice.

 

[i=p/u]

why not use a contactor of some sort

 

[HandySparks]

why not use a contactor of some sort

What benefit will this be?

 

[Welchyboy]

i have potentially found a solution, apparently the electronic starting of the CFL lamps on some fittings are not compatible with the electronic switching of some photocells/PIRs coupled with the lamps turning on and off too often, this causes the lamps to fail easily


I have found a decent PIR from TLC that you can switch up to 750w fluroescent Including CFL's

And as said above set the timer to at least 15-20 mins and hopefully all should be cool

cheers guys!