Basic lighting design resources

[Seamus]

I've been out of lighting design for some years. I am looking for recommended resources to help refresh my memory regarding basic lighting design. In particular, where can I find the amperage of different fixtures and the "standard" amp value for receptacles so I can size my breakers and wires etc... I am lighting commercial buildings with 120 incandescent and 277 fluorescent. I threw away my "Electrical Design Guide" about 10 years ago :-(.

 

[k1366758]

Seamus
1.Check the library or used book stores for publications to replace your lost one you might even get lucky and find a copy of your old one.
Remember ,specifications and standards do change.
2.Most receptacles are marked by the manufacture as to the rateings.
3.Check the fixture supply house as to the Rateing,specs. etc. for the paticular fixture your'e interested in.Get a copy of the Product literature.
4. Once a year they have a "LightFair" which brings together most of the Manufactures in the industry.This year's will be in San Francisco, Mascone Covention Center
June 3-5 404 220 2221
5. Go to

http://www.lighting.com

,

http://www.nema.org/

or other websites to check out. Good Luck

 

[welshwizard]

For tungsten GLS lamps & tungsten halogen luminaires the current taken will be the lamp wattage divided by the circuit voltage

For Fluorescent luminaires & any fittings with contol gear i.e chokes capacitors ignigtors etc try "as a rule of thumb method" (lamp wattage x 1.8) divided by the circuit voltage

My source of information is BS7671 - On-site guide appendix 1 page 84 Maximum Demand & Diversity Table 1A Note 2

However most maunfactures will provide technical data sheets on their products which will give you accurate information

 

[advidana]

Try Taking a NEC 2002 code class, a Lot has changed in 10 years. Contact your local lighting rep and check with your the local building department for local codes. Reading a book just does not cut it in todays market.

 

[hbendillo]

One book to recommend is the "Handbook of Practical Electrical Design" by Joseph McPartland. Look at your lighting catalogs for load information. A good web site is

http://www.cooperlighting.com.

They have a large variety of fixture types for which you can look at spec sheets to give you the load information. If you can get a hold of a copy of the Application and Reference Volumes of the Illumination Engineering Society of North America, commonly know as IESNA, those would be helpful. Expensive to purchase though. I suggest you talk to a lighting rep and the engineers you work with for load numbers. You will probably use a lot of fixtures with 4 foot long, T8 fluorescent lamps. A rule of thumb number for these fixtures where electronic ballast are used area as follows.

1 lamp - 32 watts
2 lamp - 65 watts
3 lamp - 95 watts
4 lamp - 125 watts

These are a bit on the high side but good numbers to use. If you use any other lamp and/or ballast combination then the number will change.