Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Workshop: Color-accurate fluorescent lighting

Researched and selected the Philips F32T8/TL950 fluorescent tubes for lighting the shop.  They have a high CRI (color rendering index) and look like natural sunlight.  Purchased these from bulbs.com for $8.25 each.

Specs:

Watts: 32
Bulb: T8
Color Temp: 5000K
CRI: 98
Lumens: 2000
Length: 48"
Life: 20,000 hours

Installed them in fixtures from home depot.  Over areas where I might hit the bulbs with a workpiece I hung fixtures that have plastic lenses/covers protecting the bulbs.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Workshop: 110/220 volt outlets

Installed some great outlets by Leviton, model number 5844.  110 and 220 volt, 20-amp outlets in one standard duplex outlet.  220-volt equipment starts up smoother, but I'm not 100% sure where everything is going to be located.  So I am installing these every four feet or so along the perimeter of the shop and at each overhead drop.

I've run four wires down the conduit to pass through each of these: ground, neutral, hot #1, hot #2.  I decided to alternate which hot each 110v side of the outlet uses on every other outlet.  To tell them apart I'm using the brown color outlet (5844) for every outlet where the 110v outlet uses hot #1 and the ivory color outlet (5844-I) where the 110v outlet uses hot #2. It's doubtful I'll ever run more than one tool at a time but you never know.