Lighting Systems: Six Maintenance Tips
lighting, lighting controls, commissioning, commissioning agent, technicians, ballasts, lighting fixtures, dimming August 27, 2010
This is Chris Matt, Managing Editor of Print & E-Media with Maintenance Solutions magazine. Today's tip is maintenance tips for lighting systems.
Comprehensive maintenance of lighting systems can provide hidden treasures for institutional and commercial facilities. Managers can schedule technicians — not the commissioning agent — to perform several key procedures to ensure the optimum performance of the lighting system, including:
Use correct replacement lamps. While all four-foot fluorescent tubes might look alike, they can have different performance characteristics.
Clean fixtures annually. A fixture's output can diminish by 10 percent a year just from dust accumulation, even in a relatively clean environment.
Verify other replacement components match the original. New ballasts, transformers and drivers at least should have the same performance characteristics.
Ensure all ballasts have a published ballast factor. Maintenance and engineering managers can use it as a multiplier to determine whether a lamp actually will produce the predicted amount of light.
Check dimming pre-sets periodically. This step can help verify they meet original performance requirements.
Check scene pre-sets to assure they meet original requirements. Dimming systems have pre-sets that, once set, rarely need changing. If that is the case, locking them either mechanically or electronically will prevent system problems.
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