Thread: Workshop lighting around lathes.

Originally Posted by Jim Carroll

All my lighting is fluros with a couple of spot lights for direct lighting.


I think and I may be wrong but the strobing may have been caused in the early days of the fluro lights when the efficiency of the ballast and starter were not so good.

Originally Posted by Jim Carroll

With the progress in this area the efficiency of the light is such that it does not really occur any more

G’day,
As an electrician we wore taught never to put florescent or high discharge lighting over rotating machinery except for general lighting and to use incandescent as the work light due to the 50 cycle strobing effect, however that was about 50 years ago and lighting has made quite a few advancers since then, so as a backup I have just consulted with a Lighting Engineer of good standing and a long time friend who confirms my thoughts that modern florescent with electronic ballasts are no longer a problem (so Jim is correct but old stories never die), however high discharge lamps could still be detrimental. I have fluorescent general lighting plus 3x150W incandescent spots (hot, hot) but I am about to change the spots to the latest technology because of the heat generated If they strobe I can use them elsewhere but shuld be OK. I will let you know how they go.
Cheers, Les.

Philips have a 'look-a-like' replacement for the 150W bulbs used in the porta flood lamps.
They are a 23W low energy sealed in a good solid glass housing.
They are available in Cool Daylight & Warm White.
The Warm White ones look very much like the old 150W floods (Some people call the spots but there are a very wide spot.)

Tried again tonight for an hour, could not get the job to "stand still"
Jim

As an apprentice fitter and turner at GM Fishermans Bend I once asked the toolrrom foreman why there were two different types of lights placed next to each other throughout the toolroom and machine shop. I was told that they operated on two differend frequencies and because of that the "cartwheel" effect was cancelled as no matter what RPM a tool/lathe chuck etc. was running the different frequencies of the lights cancelled each other out. I can onlt say that I have seen the "cartwheel" effect in many machine shops, but I don't ever remember seing it during my 15 years at GM.

Yeah.... I'm one of the older types... I have quite a few older fluoro lights throughout my shop (not enough, either) and I also have a few newer ones, and some incandescent lights to really see with. I have seen the strobing effect a few times; the cartwheeling type... and if I remember right that is because I didn't have the little incandescent spots on at the time. It don't matter to me, though, either way... I'm still stupid enough to stick my hand in the way and get the knuckles knocked by a spinning handle or something... ::eek:

I have posted this before on an earlier thread on strobing effect. When I was in the army with the Royal Australian Electrical & Mechanical Engineers unit a Technical Bulletin was posted on strobing and the bulletin stated that Single florescents should not be used in workshops around spinning machinery because they would cause strobing.

The bulletin stated that double floros should be used because they would cancel the strobing effect.

Now I don't know if this is fact or not but please read my disclaimer at the bottom of my post.