In my garage I have four fluorescent lights, the ones with three wires (brown, blue, green/yellow) and a separate starter that plugs in the side. These are wired from one light to the next, I think it`s called in parallel. I`ve acquired two more lights but these are those emergency back up lights. They have four wires, (brown, blue, green/yellow and black) a tridonic.atco pc 1/58 t8 pro digital ballast, a lite plan HRN/4 emergency module and a battery. My question to any electrickery experts is, can I remove the battery and emergency module and rewire it to just use the ballast like on a normal light? Can I then wire them into the existing lights or should I have them on a separate switch? Cheers.
Simple answer - yes (in theory) you could, but no you shouldn't. They are designed to charge off the mains and run off the battery in the event of an electrical failure. Why not just get some more cheap fluorescents if you want more light ? Hardly seems worth the bother...
a decent spread of light is probably better, less shadows. get a few batten lampholders fixed to the ceiling and then use cheapo CFLs. fix the lampholders and clip/run the wiring yourself, then get a spark to do the final connections for you, just to be sure.
Doesn't seem right. Surely green is a 'livelier' colour and brown is a drab 'earthy' colour. Green must be live and brown your earth. [emoji6]
I was of course kidding [emoji106] They actually taught it in school when I went but I'm not sure if they do now.
Wiring conventional fluorescent or bulb type lights is simple enough......easy to have them individually switched as well..... All you need is 1.5mm twin & earth; some earth sleeve; red sleeve; wire cutters; a screwdriver; cable clips; hammer; some screws.........and of course, the lamps and switches/surface boxes which are pretty cheap........Plus a diagram to show how it's done (I have one here) It always amazes me as to why the wiring colours were changed from red; black; green - (which seemed such an obvious way to do it......) ......to muddy brown, blue and green/yellow..........(in fact, I think even that has changed now) I have heard so many reasons for it; ranging from EU regulations to colour-blind Polish electricians.......... I would have thought all colours would be somewhere between grey to muddy brown if color-blind...........or in other words, if colour-blind, don't become an electrician.
Sorted. I had a chat with one of the shift sparkies this morning, funnily enough, his nickname is Timmy Two Wires. He said what I wanted to do was the best way, remove the battery and emergency module then a little bit of rewiring and jobs a good `un. He said a quick bodge would be to cut the battery wires then put the black and brown wires to power and it would work, but bodging is bad. I bench tested the light and it now works. The bits I removed might be worth putting on ebay, get a bit of petrol money maybe. Cost of two lights £0. Cost of rewiring and fitting £0. I love those kind of figures.
