Emergency egress lighting problems 2

[jimioy]

We have about 45 facilities each averaging about 30 emergency fixtures - predominately 2X4 T8 Troffers and as of late, T5HO pendants. Our problem is that 90% of them aren't self diagnosing so we do the yearly 90 minute burn test. We have about a 20% failure rate, about half of those battery issues and half chargers. I am beginning to think I need to seriously look into an invertor type system or anything to get away from having to spend all my man hours on changing out Bodine ballast. I know they are a lot upfront - equipment and pipe/wire reconfiguration, but I know what I'm doing now is killing me. Any thoughts?

 

[davidbeach]

Unit emergency lighting isn't worth it for more than about 2 or 3 luminaires for the whole facility. Some sort of central system is almost always a better bet. Cheap first cost, and you get what you pay for.

 

[EEJaime]

We have had quite a few failures in these types of installations, many due to improper wiring not allowing the fixtures to properly charge and discharge only with loss of power and application of testing.

There are some great smaller systems out there that are very reasonable in cost, of course you need to isolate the egress lighting onto specific circuits fed from these, but with as many facilities, you will realize a very quick payback with your labor savings. The ones I like for an application such as you have will even email you an alarm for power loss, battery failure, etc....

Look at

http://www.myerspowerproducts.com

I don't know your location, but they are out of Bethlehem, PA and available throughout the US.

 

[peebee]

I agree that a central inverter could make sense. Just make sure you check the kW (vs. kVA) rating of the unit, some of them have rediculously low power factors, meaning the real power you'll get out of it is only 50 or 60% of the kVA rating. And the power factor and kW ratings are always down in the fine print somewhere if stated at all....