Great save! Glad you got it and not the crusher/shredder! Yeah, the T8s look unnatural in the wide reflectors.

Thanks! Yeah, I've managed to rescue a lot of stuff from the destined for trash area at my school. Including a couple of EXIT signs that showed up once. I'll have to find a place for this too, it's huge and I have it with the reflectors off to save space.

Even though T8s look odd in them I do like the fact that they kept them in service instead of putting up modern fixtures.

Agreed, there's lots of T8 retrofitted lights on my campus that are otherwise quite vintage/cool. But there's still lots of HPS and even some mercury still in use on campus too, they didn't retrofit EVERYTHING. But everything incandescent is LED now or those awful reflector CFLs.

Glad to see you back on GOL! Been awhile since we talked last!

Nice save Joe!

Heh, mine's like that too. There's a lot of lights that got retrofitted to T8 along with new ones that got replaced. Fortunately when they removed lights at my school they either left the one lights disconnected but still installed or reused them in other places so there's still examples of all the old lights still in use on campus. The majority of the mercs got removed in the 90s here but around 22 100w MV cans are still in use (10 inside and 12 outside). There used to be a lot more but they got disconnected and replaced by wraparounds. This was done in 1994 so the original mercs lamps were still largely still use at the time they replaced them. I saved one of the original lamps from 1974, quite dim after 20 years of use. Anyway of the 22 left operating, the 12 outside have fairly recent lamps while the ones inside have the original lamps or have been relamped in the 90s at best. T12 is pretty much gone though, I see a lot of lights there were T12 but none that are still T12.


Thanks Darren!

Awesome! Glad you were able to save this! There's some fixtures that used to be F96T12 turrets, but they converted them to 4X F32T8 with regular sockets and it looks stupid. All the reflectors are put on with tek screws because the original clips no longer line up due to the fact that they had to make a space in the center of each fixture for the extra sockets. IMO it would have been a lot less work (therefore cheaper) to just retrofit them to F96T8. I don't get the big beef against 8ft T8s. Are they more fragile than F96T12s?

Thanks Mike!

Yeah I never really liked those F96T12 to tandem T8 retrofit kits. Personally F96T8s are the way to go when refitting those. I've also heard that F96T8s are more fragile but they don't seem that much more fragile to me, I mean regardless if it's T8 or T12, if you go around smashing a 8' long glass tube it's gonna break lol. The only fixture I would consider using those tandem retrofits on are those 8' striplights with a two piece ballast cover.

I think the fact that these were factory tandem lights saved them during the refit, if they used 8' lamps I have a feeling they would have either replaced or installed those dreaded retrofit kits.

Yeah, believe it or not T12 slimlines are still rather common around here!

It's interesting that they chose to use F40 tandem lights. Seems like F40 tandem lights aren't too common. My boy scout camp had used 8ft F40T12 tandem vaportight lights in the kitchen but the actual dining hall had standard 8ft slimlines. When they replacing everything with T8s few years ago, everything became either 2X F32T8/850, 2X F32T8/850 tandem, or 4X F32T8/850 tandem with Sylvania FO32T8/850 lamps. I don't recall any single lamp F32T8 4ft vaportights. There certainly weren't any single lamp F40 ones.

I found that a bit interesting too, the classroom louvered fixtures were also F40 tandem. I guess they found 4' lamps easier to handle or store or I guess they wanted to reduce the number of lamp types. The fixtures that replace the 8' louvered fixtures (Day-Brite Luvex) were tandem T8 bit were one lamp per cross section.

Yeah never seen a single lamp F40 vapourtight either, the two lamp is all that's used.

IMO the 8ft fixtures with separate channel covers or diffusers look better as tandems. Like wraps and stuff. But the 8ft vaportights actually use an 8ft diffuser, so those look better with 8ft lamps. With strips and industrials/turrets I like tandem or 8ft though. I prefer the single cover/reflector but those would be quite cumbersome to handle lol. The reflectors would be pretty hard to install as an 8ft section and an 8ft channel cover might bend (especially with today's cheesy manufacturing standards).

I've never actually seen a 8ft wraparound that used a one piece diffuser or even 8ft lamps in person. I know they exist though since I've seen then in old lighting catalogs.

Strips with one piece ballast covers IMO look better with 8ft lamps, especially if it's in a continuous row like in older stores. Yeah I think Visioneering fixtures are one of the few modern 8ft fixtures that still have full length ballast covers and reflectors. Occasionally I see ones that someone hacked a tandem T8 kit into. They drill two holes halfway in the reflector/cover so that that the extra set of sockets can stick out.

I remember in my high school they went from tandem F40 turrets to tandem F32T8 retrofit kits in the workshops and since the turrets were longer, the channels stuck out with the new retrofit kits installed. I never understood why they did that. They could have just reused the existing turrets and reflectors instead of forcing regular sockets and new reflectors to fit.

I looked around the labs today, and it seems like in the centre of each row of turrets, there a 4' version of this. Interestingly the 4' ones have starter knockouts on the side of the channel.

I prefer the 8ft channel covers too.

It turns out that there's one fixture in the labs that never got retrofitted to T8. It's over a engine test cell (basically a room sized sound damped box for testing engines) so I guess lack of access was one reason why it never got T8. Anyway that fixture is missing lamps and the reflector so I could see that the original ballast used in these had a stamped label kinda like the one here.

Interesting they left it T12. IMO if they were able to get up there to remove the lamps and reflector then they should have been able to retrofit it too lol. It's too bad the reflector isn't laying around nearby or you could attempt to revive the fixture with some lamps.

Yeah, the lamps were long gone and I guess the same for the reflector as I wasn't able to find it. Still kinda neat to see one with the original ballast though. I don't know why they left the fixture up though, the rest of the row is blocked by the test cells so they could have removed half the row when the test cells were installed.

The interior of the test cells also have some interesting lights. One has two F32T8 tandem turrets although they look newer than the JA Wilson ones used as general lighting. Still they look like they were T12 at one point. The other test cell has a 4' 4 lamp Daybrite Luvex louvered fixture. It's also T8. Not sure where was the fixture originally used though.

Forgot to mention in my earlier comment, but I've since been in the lab that got renovated. It seems three fixtures were removed in total but I have the feeling the other two fixtures got scrapped.

I went back to visit and they replaced the rest of the turrets with F32T8 tandem industrials. Why, I'm not entirely sure as the old turrets were already converted to T8. Well, at least I managed to save one.

Seriously?

Yeah at least they didn't replace the fixtures in the other rooms so a few still remain. I saw the tubes and the reflectors lying in the trash area but the channels probably got scrapped already.