It depends how the light is configured, some only have a emergency ballast and can only work in emergency mode. Some have both emergency and line voltage ballasts and those will also work in non-emergency mode.
For those lights that are dual mode, a constant 120v feed to the fixture is needed (along with the switched line) to charge the emergency light. One of my fluorescent fixtures has a constant 120v feed to it and I could reconfigure it to emergency operation if I get a emergency ballast.
These lights have 2 line wires (277v) from the same breaker, one is always hot, the other is switched. The emegency ballast is on the always hot circuit, the lamp ballast is on the switched. If there was a blackout when the light was turned off, it would still come on at reduced light output.
in the vo-tech building at my school they have three lamp T8 parabolic troffers in the hallways and every third one has an emergency lamp as the center lamp but the emergency lamps are normall off, so every third fixture has the center lamp off making it look burnt out. most places i've seen with emergency lights have the emergency lights wired so that they're switched with the other lights but only come on during a power failure instead of staying on when the rest are shut off. the votech building at my school seems to have just wired the emergency lights so that the lamp stays off always unless the power goes out.
The building isn't state-owned anymore. It recently became part of the Cranston Public Schools system now though it doesn't really make any sense seeing how the school is available to Scituate, Foster, and i think a couple other towns... The non-emergency fixtures have three F32T8 lamps. the center lamp has it's own ballast and the outer lamps are wired together on a second ballast. With the emergceny fixtures, there are three F32T8 lamps as well. The two outer lamps share a normal ballast and the center lamp is wired up to an emergency ballast that only runs the lamps during a power failure.
In general, there's 2 non-emergency fixtures in between every emergency fixture. Not much light if you ask me....
The main building in my school has emergency heads (they original had central systems with remote heads but when they replaced the old T12 fixtures with T8s they must have also upgraded the emergency lights to those individual batterys with two lights each. They're mounted sideways on the ceiling lol. They also upgraded the intercom/clock system in the main building in the 90s since they're the same clocks used in my elementary school, which was built in 1992. They haven't painted the classrooms or hallways since they replaced the T12 fixtures with T8s so you can tell there were older fixtures since the rooms are all white-washed now but there's little strips of color leaving the outline of the previous fixtures. I've never seen any of the older lights though.
WHAT? a new law in RI is NO small units, some types of small units and Central Systems only as of 2011, That is RI government........... Make laws and don't follow them. But I have to follow them. My dads building has to follow them I was told you can keep them but they have to be 12ft apart so am replacing them with Very High Output emergency light units
They installed the new T8 lights and small unit emergency lights before i came to that school (they probably changed them sometime between the early-2000s to 2010. Hmm is it only buildings over a certain size that can't use the small units? I should also note that the emergency lights and battery back-up on the exit signs in the votech building don't work. I tried every single one in my shop. That's like five emergency light units and i think five exit signs too. The exit signs are plastic and have cheesy color panels so i think they're factory-LED. The halls in the votech building all have fluorescent back-up lights but who knows if those work...
OK I see, It is industrial buildings and places that have over 60 people. Walmart will not be following the rules . It is because the small units only put 60lms out. A 12v 10w LED head is 900lm and a 7w LED chloride head is 500lm
I figured with all the money Walmary has, they could just install wind turbines on top of the parking lot lights to power them and have solar panels on the roof of the store. No need for emergency lights them since they wouldn't have to worry about the ancient power grid failing in a storm (well it would still happen but it wouldn't affect Walmart if they were off-grid...
60 lumens! Even 900 lumens is not much considering that the emergency lights are mounted rahter far apart and they're lighting a huge store. They need to start using your LED emergency fixtures and light the place up like a ballpark lol.
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For those lights that are dual mode, a constant 120v feed to the fixture is needed (along with the switched line) to charge the emergency light. One of my fluorescent fixtures has a constant 120v feed to it and I could reconfigure it to emergency operation if I get a emergency ballast.
My school has a central system
In general, there's 2 non-emergency fixtures in between every emergency fixture. Not much light if you ask me....
The main building in my school has emergency heads (they original had central systems with remote heads but when they replaced the old T12 fixtures with T8s they must have also upgraded the emergency lights to those individual batterys with two lights each. They're mounted sideways on the ceiling lol. They also upgraded the intercom/clock system in the main building in the 90s since they're the same clocks used in my elementary school, which was built in 1992. They haven't painted the classrooms or hallways since they replaced the T12 fixtures with T8s so you can tell there were older fixtures since the rooms are all white-washed now but there's little strips of color leaving the outline of the previous fixtures. I've never seen any of the older lights though.
60 lumens! Even 900 lumens is not much considering that the emergency lights are mounted rahter far apart and they're lighting a huge store. They need to start using your LED emergency fixtures and light the place up like a ballpark lol.