It’s sooo annoying to be trying to work on a project - when the elderly fluorescent light above you starts flickering. Or when it doesn’t work at ALL. It may have worked for cavemen, but not so much modern man. At least, not those working in spaces that are windowless.
@Jast and I are re-igniting the process of upgrading Ye Olde Circa 1980’s Flickering Fluorescent Light Fixtures to broader spectrum LED’s begun by @ESmith during his tenure as Logistics Chair. (yeah, it’s been awhile…)
I have placed an “event” on the calendar https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/view/16122
so we have a room to sit and wire the tombstones needed for the upgrades. Then, we’ll head out into the space (mostly in the south/older portion of the space) to pull old stuff, install the new tombstones and add the new LED tubes. And then bask in the glow of LIGHT!
I hope you’ll come be a volunteer with this effort!
Andrew has already made a huge dent in the (former) cave of Creative Arts, so I think our priority on this day will be finishing the Metal Shop lighting upgrade, and then other key locations that have been poorly lit for too long.
Well, not so much. The tombstones there were appropriated. An unnamed source told @jast that “we’ve got plenty of tombstones.” The only ones @TBJK was able to locate during reconnaissance were the ones in Metal.
Sorry about that… Freddy is ordering more tombstones. I think… @yashsedai? Confirm?
In the metal shop it takes more time to clean the fixture and diffuser than the wiring and tombstone changeout. So someone can prep the tombstone wiring while the fixture is degreased.
I am not Freddy, so please forgive my intrusion. I come bearing gifts:
The procedure (thanks to @ESmith)
The tombstones:
The tubes:
I can vouch for the tubes, or check them out in the far South end of CA (all 4 fixtures in that end of the room are these).
I cannot yet vouch for this particular tombstone, but I believe it is very, very similar if not exactly the same as those used in those same 4 fixtures.
The minimum order is a box of 25. I’ll split a box with you if you decide you want them but don’t need 25. I could use eight but don’t mind buying a few extra.
Thank you for coordinating this Judy @jrkriehn ! (And for snax! and strippers!)
I think we had a successful party, despite my failure to get the tombstones on site in time.
We used the few that remained, plus a few more that @mrjimmy turned up, and, by “cheating” and re-using the old shunted 'stones for the far end, were able to convert another 6 fixtures (one has only 2 bulbs); 3 more to “finish the room” for CA, and 3 in the Interactive classroom (Thank you @Monikat for letting us butt in on the last 10 minutes of class!).
The new order of 'stones is en route, so we’ll be planning the party again for Metal and the other areas that need them.
Thank you to all who helped (I would name names, but I’m terrible with names, and I don’t want to slight anyone - you were AWESOME!)!
Add my thanks to our small but mighty crew. My observations:
(1) It’s just as important to have “ground crew” as it is to have the ladder-standers.
(2) I didn’t consider the reuse of the old 'stones to be “cheating.” I think it was a cost-effective discovery that will allow us to stretch our incoming tombstone/socket order to do more light fixtures than we originally expected.
(3) We’ll need more tubes/bulbs too.
(4) It should also be noted that we began tagging the “finished” fixtures, so in the future we’ll be able to look up and confirm whether a dark fixture is a dead fixture or simply a dead bulb.
(5) I think a wiki page would be in order to collect all the comments, resources, etc that have appeared on TALK since this process began with Erik in one place that we can keep updated.
@ESmith and @TBJK - do you recall what parts of the space you’ve done conversions on? We figured we’d like to add your updates to our tagging process.