Benefits of Fluorescent Lights
Benefits of Fluorescent Lights
Fluorescent lights emit a lot of glare, which can lead to eye strain and headaches. They also emit harmful UV radiation, which can cause sunburn and fade fabrics and artwork. UV rays can also trigger health problems like solar urticaria and lupus flare-ups.
These bulbs are usually marked FxxTy, where the first number indicates the power (watts), the second number indicates the length in inches and the last letter indicates the color; WW for warm white, CW for cool white or DW for bluish daylight.
Energy Efficiency
Fluorescent lights require less energy to operate than their incandescent light bulb incandescent counterparts and emit significantly less heat. This helps reduce utility bills and maintenance costs, and it’s better for the environment as well.
The energy efficiency of fluorescent lamps is largely due to their ballasts. These devices use coils of copper wire to create a magnetic field that traps much of the current that flows through them. They also include a starter, which uses trivalent antimony and divalent manganese dopants to help the mercury inside the lamp start burning.
When you turn on a fluorescent light, the starter applies a low amount of current to the electrodes in the ends of the tube. This small amount is enough to cause the filaments to heat up and start exposing the mercury gas to electric charge, which causes the light to glow.
This process can be sped up by using rapid-start ballasts. These types of ballasts deliver a quick surge of voltage when the lights are first turned on, which warms up the filaments and mercury more quickly so the lights can become bright.
Other kinds of ballasts are available, including electronic models that do not need to pre-heat the electrodes. These devices can offer even more energy savings. These are often used in areas where lights are frequently switched on and off, such as warehouses and commercial spaces.
Long Lifespan
The lifespan of fluorescent lights is typically measured as Average Rated Life (ARL). However, this figure may not be indicative of the actual lifespan of your lighting device. For example, a light that is installed in an area subject to frequent moisture or vibration will have a shorter ARL than a similar fixture that is located in a more sheltered environment.
Since a home’s electricity has higher voltage than the fluorescent light needs to operate, a control gear gives the light a boost of power to get started and then provides just enough current to keep it running safely. The process of a fluorescent light working involves molecules of mercury gas being heated by electricity and made more conductive. Without the ballast to control this process, the mercury would take too much current and overheat.
The control gear also reflects heat into the light fixture, which causes the bulbs to degrade over time. This is a good reason to avoid frequently switching your lighting fixtures on and off, especially if you use motion sensors with a short activation delay or switch leg as a grounding conductor.
Lower Costs
For facilities managers, lighting costs are often a big part of overall operations. The higher upfront investment of LEDs may seem prohibitive for many properties, but these bulbs are more cost-effective than fluorescent tubes in the long run. They also save money in energy consumption and electricity usage, which is a major factor for properties that keep lights on 24/7 like parking garages and amenity rooms.
Another cost benefit is lowering maintenance costs. Fluorescent bulbs have to use heaters to get the gas they contain to the right temperature to jump electrons, and that wasted heat generates more light loss over time. LEDs do not waste electricity creating excess heat, so they remain bright for longer and require fewer replacements.
Additionally, fluorescent lights contain mercury, so they are a hazardous material and must be disposed of properly. This is a much more expensive process than simply throwing away a traditional incandescent bulb, and can add up quickly over the course of an entire warehouse or other facility. LEDs do not contain any hazardous materials, making them a safe and cost-effective alternative for businesses. LEDs also do not degrade over time the way fluorescent bulbs do, and they are not affected by cycles of being turned on and off.
Wide Variety of Fixtures
The wide variety of fixtures fluro lights available for fluorescent lights means that you’ll find one to fit any space. Most light fixtures accept either T12 or T5 bulbs and are rated for a certain wattage.
A ballast regulates the current going to your light fixture, taking the alternating electrical energy that travels up and down through your house’s wiring and turning it into a steady stream of electricity that is fed to your fluorescent lamp. This process is essential to the operation of your fluorescent light because if too much current was allowed to flow to the filaments inside your bulb, they’d burn out very quickly.
When you turn on your fluorescent light, the ballast will first send a low amount of current to the starter to heat it up and make the mercury gas inside the bulb more ionized. Then it will slowly increase the current to the filaments until they reach a temperature that allows them to glow brightly.
Some older fluorescent tubes use a different method of starting, called rapid-start. These do not need a starter and work by allowing the current to continuously flow through the filaments to keep them hot and ionized. This reduces energy usage but can cause your light to flicker. You can determine whether your fixture has a rapid-start ballast by using a multimeter, which is a device designed to measure electric current, voltage and resistance.
