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What You Need to Know About Fluorescent Light Fixtures
Article by Klika123
Indoor and outdoor home illumination covers a wide variety of different forms of lighting. Fluorescent light fixtures are one type that has many advantages. Lights with fluorescent bulbs are soft, subtle and balanced which is why it has become so appealing to today’s homeowner. There was a time when homeowners did not have access to fluorescent technology but large corporations did. Advances in technology has meant that manufacturers began to use them in their smaller bulbs and has subsequently meant consumers started using them in their dwellings. This has led to consumers saving a lot of energy and money.
How does fluorescent technology work?This kind of lighting is basically set off by a gas discharge within the tubes of the bulb. They use a very small amount of mercury put in tubes which is activated by electrical currents. This activation results in UV light causing the phosphor which is also used in the bulb to illuminate or fluoresce. There is only one real disadvantage to using fluorescent light fixtures and that is you need to handle them and dispose of them properly. You will find the safety precautions on the packages when you buy these bulbs and lamps. Other than that these lights are safe and very advantageous to use.
Fluorescent light has many different applications on a practical level. You can use them as strips, wall mounted, surface mounted and large overhead style like you see in school cafeterias and gymnasiums.Fluorescent light fixtures can be mounted on walls which gives you a way to dress up any room in your home. They are best suited for areas of your home where natural light is not easily accessible. It provides a nice romantic yet functional glow to any room. Surface mounted types are best suited for outdoor applications. This means you can use them around the pool, the deck, the garage or any other outdoor structure where you need light. Many of these lights are decorative as well as functional.
Light strips are nice for certain areas like the bathroom, kitchen, garage or utility room where you need better illumination. These come in several sizes and are mounted to the ceiling.
Besides being versatile this form of lighting is also very energy efficient. It can help homeowners and other consumers who pay electric bills save hundreds every year. Regardless of how you want to use fluorescent light fixtures, you can find some form to suit your need. Your best option is to comparison shop online for not only the best prices, but also various types and styles.
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Leave a commentFrugal Living & Money Saving Tips to Save Power & Save Water when Doing Laundry
Article by Luckysingla
Frugal Living & Money Saving Tips to Save Power & Save Water when Doing Laundry
Money saving tips like today?s are so easy and so important. For you to be successful in your frugal living efforts, it?s necessary that you evaluate each and every regular task that you do around the house and see what money saving tips you can employ to start saving more money.Wouldn?t you love to know that you could pay a couple of dollars for something that will not only allow you to save power, protecting yourself against rising energy costs, but also let you save water and save time? Get down to your local dollar store and buy a mesh delicates bag and put an end to ever running separate loads of laundry for clothing that?s marked ?delicate? or ?hand wash.? Just think; you could quite possibly eliminate one entire load of laundry each week. What an excellent way to save electricity and conserve water with little extra effort. At Thrift Culture Now, ways to save money abound and they can easily improve your frugal living lifestyle. Start to employ our money saving tips and save more of your money, every day.
P.S. Just as frugal living enthusiasts have a responsibility to find ways to save power and save water in order to protect their wallets, future mindedness must also come into play when they?re dealing with their personal finances. Read about this week?s Thrifty Blogger, Philip, to find out how you can get into the right mindset for financial success. Frugal living is one thing, but in order to grow your wealth (which we all want to do!) you have to put your money to work. Find the facts about the global economy in this free report from Casey Research: The Good, Bad and Ugly: Outlook for the Economy.
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How Water to Gas Works
Practically everyone is looking for a way to save money on gas and new gas saving devices like water for gas gadgets are making people realize that concept, but how does water for gas work?
One that has been proven effective to make people save money on gas is a water powered car and it has proven to be effective at increasing your gas mileage.
Sounds preposterous, but this is actually a car that runs on water as well as fuel and surprisingly enough, it can be any gas-fuelled car.
Any vehicle can be converted into a water powered car to save money on gas, improve your engine life, and even benefit the environment.
Here’s how a water powered car works.
First thing you should know is that your car will not run on water alone, make no mistake.
It will use a combination of water and gasoline to power the car. Although you still need to fill up your car, it will happen less often.
The way you use water to increase your fuel economy and reduce fuel consumption is fairly simple.
A water to gas device is installed on your vehicle that breaks water down into its original elements, hydrogen and oxygen.
The device then feeds these elements into the engine with gasoline and creates an effective mixture that increases gas mileage by up to 70%.
This mixture is called HHO (oxyhydrogen) or Brown’s gas and helps maximize fuel combustion, reducing harmful unburned fuel and carbon exhausts.
To make this water to gas process work on your car, you will have an option of buying a pre-made conversion kit and have it professionally installed or learn how to build and install one yourself.
While it may seem like a complicated system, it’s really a simple task to accomplish – not rocket science for first-timers.
Armed with some basic knowledge of cars, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to do it yourself and you could be on your way to saving those dollars on saving gas. You’ll also save a lot of money by doing it yourself and not have to pay for professional service.
Many pre made water to gas conversion kits can be pretty expensive, so is having them installed.
You can buy all of the tools and supplies you need to do it on your own for around 0-0, depending on the tools and the quality of materials you hope to use. In the long run, this is but a fraction of what you would pay for a commercial system and the money you save on fuel will make up for your expenses in less than a month.
There are a lot of online guides on the Internet and these guides will show you step by step processes on how to build the system.
It will provide you a list of supplies you need and surprisingly, can be easily found at your local hardware store.
These kits can be installed on any vehicle, require very minimal space around 4 inches by 10 inches of free space.
One thing to consider though, is to install it in an easily accessible area where it could be easily accessed for inspection and maintenance.
The concept of a water powered car is more of a reality than many people think and actually, the systems are not complicated and very easy to install.
With just a little money and time, you can run your car on water and save a ton of money on fuel costs, all you need to know is how water to gas works.
Solar Street Lighting System
First of all, I introduce you with solar energy.
Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available renewable energy on earth. Only a minuscule fraction of the available solar energy is used.
Solar powered electrical generation relies on heat engines and photovoltaic. Solar energy’s uses are limited only by human ingenuity. A partial list of solar applications includes space heating and cooling through solar architecture, potable water via distillation and disinfection, solar lighting, solar hot water, solar cooking, and high temperature process heat for industrial purposes. To harvest the solar energy, the most common way is to use solar panels.
Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels and solar thermal collectors to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favourable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available renewable energy on earth. Only a minuscule fraction of the available solar energy is used.
Solar powered electrical generation relies on heat engines and photovoltaic. Solar energy’s uses are limited only by human ingenuity. A partial list of solar applications includes space heating and cooling through solar architecture, potable water via distillation and disinfection, solar lighting, solar hot water, solar cooking, and high temperature process heat for industrial purposes. To harvest the solar energy, the most common way is to use solar panels.
Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels and solar thermal collectors to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favourable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.
Now let we move to Solar street Lighting system…………….
Solar Street Lighting System
In the present world, solar street lighting system is implemented in the every street, every walkway and every road to provide the light during night, so that the whole world seems clear.
This system uses the photovoltaic technology to convert the sunlight into DC electricity through solar cells. The generated electricity can either be used directly or stored in the batteries for use during the night hours. Solar lighting has found wide application in rural as well as urban areas for lighting the streets and roads. Remote villages deprived of grid power can be easily powered using the Solar Photovoltaic technology. The economics of rural electrification can be attractive considering the high cost of power transmission and erratic power supply in the rural areas.
Solar street lighting system is ideal forstreet lighting in remote villages. Thesystem is provided with battery storage backup sufficient to operate the light for 10-11 hours daily. Thesystem is provided with automatic ON/OFF time switch for dusk to dawn operation and overcharge / deep discharge prevention cut-off with LEDindicators. The SPV modules are reported to have a service life of 15-20 years. Tubular Batteries provided with thesolar street lighting system require lower maintenance; have longer life and give better performance.
Solar street lighting system consists of following main parts:
Solar Photovoltaic Module (SPV)
Battery Box
Lamp with charge controller
Lamp Post
In general, the specifications of the parts are
74 Watt Solar PV Module
12 V, 75 Ah Tubular battery with battery box
Charge Controller cum inverter (20-35 kHz)
11 Watt CFL Lamp with fixtures
4 metre mild steel lamp post above ground level with weather proof paint and mounting hardware.
The detailed description of the above parts used in a solar lighting system is given below:
Solar Photovoltaic Module
Photovoltaic refers to method of generating electrical power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity using semiconductors that exhibit the photovoltaic effect. And the system which is used to perform photovoltaic process is called as solar photovoltaic module or solar panel.
– A solar panel (photovoltaic module or photovoltaic panel) is a packaged interconnected assembly of solar cells, also known as photovoltaic cells. The solar panel can be used as a component of a larger photovoltaic system to generate and supply electricity in commercial and residential applications.
Because a single solar panel can only produce a limited amount of power, many installations contain several panels. This is known as photovoltaic. A photovoltaic installation typically includes an array of solar panels, an inverter, batteries and interconnection wiring.
Theory and construction
Solar panels use light energy (photons) from the sun to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect. The structural (load carrying) member of a module can either be the top layer (superstrate) or the back layer (substrate). The majority of modules use wafer-based crystalline silicon cells or thin-film cells based on cadmium telluride or silicon. Crystalline silicon is a commonly used semiconductor.
In order to use the cells in practical applications, they must be:
Connected electrically to one another and to the rest of the system
Protected from mechanical damage during manufacture, transport, installation and use (in particular against hail impact, wind and snow loads). This is especially important for wafer-based silicon cells which are brittle.
Protected from moisture, which corrodes metal contacts and interconnections, and for thin-film cells the transparent conductive oxide layer, thus decreasing performance and lifetime.
Most solar panels are rigid, but semi-flexible ones are available, based on thin-film cells.
Electrical connections are made in series to achieve a desired output voltage and/or in parallel to provide a desired amount of current source capability.
Separate diodes may be needed to avoid reverse currents, in case of partial or total shading, and at night. The p-n junctions of mono-crystalline silicon cells may have adequate reverse current characteristics that these are not necessary. Reverse currents are not only inefficient as they represent power losses, but they can also lead to problematic heating of shaded cells. Solar cells become less efficient at higher temperatures and so it desirable to minimize heat in the panels. Very few modules incorporate any design features to decrease temperature, but installers try to provide good ventilation behind solar panel.
Some recent solar panel designs include concentrators in which light is focused by lenses or mirrors onto an array of smaller cells. This enables the use of cells with a high cost per unit area (such as gallium arsenide) in a cost-effective way.
Depending on construction, photovoltaic panels can produce electricity from a range of frequencies of light, but usually cannot cover the entire solar range (specifically, ultraviolet, infrared and low or diffused light). Hence much of the incident sunlight energy is wasted by solar panels, and they can give far higher efficiencies if illuminated with monochromatic light. Therefore another design concept is to split the light into different wavelength ranges and direct the beams onto different cells tuned to those ranges. This has been projected to be capable of raising efficiency by 50%. The use of infrared photovoltaic cells has also been proposed to increase efficiencies, and perhaps produce power at night.
Sunlight conversion rates (solar panel efficiencies) can vary from 5-18% in commercial production, typically lower than the efficiencies of their cells in isolation. Panels with conversion rates around 18% are in development incorporating innovations such as power generation on the front and back sides.
Battery Box
A battery box stores or houses a battery, typically a lead–acid battery. Battery boxes are typically constructed in two parts, a base and a lid. The base serves as a containment reservoir to prevent the batteries from shifting during transportation and to collect spilled electrolyte from wet cell lead acid batteries. The lid allows for access to the batteries for performing battery maintenance (i.e. cleaning battery terminals) or altering the battery cable configuration, and protects batteries from environmental elements such as sunlight (UV), rain, salt water, dirt, oil, and gasoline. Battery boxes are commonly used in applications where batteries need to left in an outside environment or where the batteries could be subject water or other elements Battery.
Material used in the manufacturing of the battery box
Battery boxes are commonly fabricated from three material, plastic, steel and aluminium.
Plastic battery boxes are the most common material selection because of its chemical and physical properties. The two most common used plastics for battery boxes are polypropylene and polyethylene.
Steel battery boxes are used primary in automotive applications. This type of battery boxes are often built into the frame of the vehicle. The steel selection often depends of the application and use.
Aluminium battery boxes are used for high performance vehicles. Because Aluminium offers substantial weight differential versus steel battery boxes, high performance vehicle owners prefer lighter weight components. The grades of Aluminium used differ from manufacturers, but these battery boxes often feature a high, mirror finish.
Manufacturing
The three most common methods of manufacturing battery boxes are, injection molding, rotational molding and metal fabrication.
Injection Molding is the most common method of making battery boxes. Typically, used for high volume production.
Rotational molding for battery boxes is used for smaller volume production or industrial designs that make the part difficult to use the injection molding process.
Metal fabrication is used for low-volume and sometimes low-cost requirements.
Rechargeable Battery
A rechargeable battery or storage battery is a group of one or more electrochemical cells. They are known as secondary cells because their electrochemical reactions are electrically reversible. Rechargeable batteries come in many different shapes and sizes, ranging anything from a button cell to megawatt systems connected to stabilize an electrical distribution network. Several different combinations of chemicals are commonly used, including: lead-acid, nickel cadmium (NiCd), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), lithium ion (Li-ion), and lithium ion polymer (Li-ion polymer).
Rechargeable batteries have lower total cost of use and environmental impact than disposable batteries. Some rechargeable battery types are available in the same sizes as disposable types. Rechargeable batteries have higher initial cost, but can be recharged very cheaply and used many times.
Solar controller
The basic circuitry on most solar powered street lights consists essentially of an automatic battery charger fed by the solar panel and a lighting controller automated for dusk to dawn operation. Automatic lighting can be triggered by a photocell or a timer. On some models a special feature dims the light at a given time, thus allowing a longer operation time.
Lamp
The most commonly used lamps in solar street lights and road lights are sodium vapour lamp. A Sodium vapour lamp is a gas discharge lamp that uses sodium in an excited state to produce light. There are two varieties of such lamps: low pressure and high pressure. Because sodium vapour lamps cause less light pollution than mercury-vapour lamps, many cities that have large astronomical observatories employ them.
Low Pressure Sodium Lamp
Low-pressure sodium (LPS) lamps have a borosilicate glass gas discharge tube (arc tube) containing solid sodium and a small amount of neon and argon gas Penning mixture to start the gas discharge. The discharge tube may be linear (SLI lamp) or U-shaped. When the lamp is turned on it emits a dim red/pink light to warm the sodium metal and within a few minutes it turns into the common bright yellow as the sodium metal vaporises. These lamps produce a virtually monochromatic light averaging at a 589.3 nm wavelength (actually two dominant spectral lines very close together at 589.0 and 589.6 nm). As a result, the colors of illuminated objects are not easily distinguished because they are seen almost entirely by their reflection of this narrow bandwidth yellow light.
LPS lamps have an outer glass vacuum envelope around the inner discharge tube for thermal insulation, which improves their efficiency. Earlier types of LPS lamps had a detachable dewar jacket (SO lamps). Lamps with a permanent vacuum envelope (SOI lamps) were developed to improve thermal insulation. Further improvement was attained by coating the glass envelope with an infrared reflecting layer of indium tin oxide, resulting in SOX lamps.
LPS lamps are the most efficient electrically-powered light source when measured for photonic lighting conditions—up to 200 lm/W, primarily because the output is light at a wavelength near the peak sensitivity of the human eye. As a result they are widely used for outdoor lighting such as street lights and security lighting where faithful color rendition is considered unimportant. LPS lamps are available with power ratings from 10 W up to 180 W; however, longer bulb lengths create design and engineering problems.
LPS lamps are more closely related to fluorescent than high intensity discharge lamps because they have a low–pressure, low–intensity discharge source and a linear lamp shape. Also like fluorescents they do not exhibit a bright arc as do other HID lamps; rather they emit a softer luminous glow, resulting in less glare. Unlike HID lamps, which can go out during a voltage dip, low pressure sodium lamps restrike to full brightness rapidly.
Another unique property of LPS lamps is that, unlike other lamp types, they do not decline in lumen output with age. As an example, mercury vapor HID lamps become very dull towards the end of their lives, to the point of being ineffective, while continuing to consume full rated electrical use. LPS lamps, however, do increase energy usage slightly (about 10%) towards their end of life, which is generally around 18,000 hours for modern lamps.
Working
The solar street lights work on the principle of the photovoltaic cell or solar cell. The solar cell converts solar energy to the electrical energy which is stored in the battery. The solar lamp draws the current from this battery and it requires no other wiring.
The solar street lights comprise of the photovoltaic cells, which absorb the solar energy during daytime. The photovoltaic cells convert solar energy into electrical energy, which is stored in the battery.
The solar panel converts the sun’s energy to dc electricity. Voltage is then regulated to a specific value by an electronic circuit to charge the battery. A solar controller protects the battery from too low and over charge. We now need to control the lamp. To do so, a timer or photocell does the job of switching the light from dusk to dawn. At the night time the lamp starts automatically and it consumes the electricity already stored in the battery. During the day time the battery gets recharged and the process keeps on repeating every day.
Thanks for reading my material
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How To Choose Great Bathroom Light Fixtures
Everyone has different tastes; that’s why there are so many different types of bathroom décor. But one thing is constant despite your décor: the need for clear, sharp light. For bathroom lighting, fixtures can make all the difference in the world.
When choosing your bathroom light fixtures styles, keep in mind that your real goal is to make yourself look great, not to make your bathroom look great. You have a practical job to do – grooming and looking your best – and this is what your bathroom light fixtures are to help accomplish.
1) Realize That Vanity Counts
Vanity lighting or mirror lighting in the bathroom is crucial; everyone’s walked into the bathroom where the lighting makes anyone look greenish or pale.
Without good un-shadowed light in a bathroom, it’s impossible to look your best outside the bathroom also, because you can’t see yourself properly when you’re putting on make up. This need for clear, un-shadowed lighting is what makes bathroom light fixtures so important. When choosing fixtures, bear in mind that the clearer your lens or shade is, the more light it will release into the bathroom.
2) Place Fixtures To “Support” Your Face
Placement is a second, important consideration for your bathroom light fixtures. Ideally, you should surround your face with the best light possible, minimizing shadows under the chin and eyes, and illuminating your cheeks and forehead properly.
You don’t have to use Hollywood strips with a half-dozen lights down each side of your mirror, but you should definitely use more than one bathroom light fixture. Ideally, you should have at least one on either side of the mirror.
Don’t place them above your head; instead, take into consideration the relative heights of your family, and try to place your bathroom light fixtures at about average forehead height. This will minimize shadows on all sides of the face.
Keep bathroom light fixtures at least two and a half feet apart; this shouldn’t be a problem, since the average bathroom mirror is at least this width.
If you want to mount your bathroom light fixtures directly on your mirror, that’s fine too; but look at them against a mirror before choosing to do this, as some fixtures just don’t look good in this setting. You may want an additional bathroom light fixture on the ceiling if you have a large or a dark bathroom.
3) Choose Good Lighting – Match Your Fixtures To The Lighting
When choosing your bathroom light fixtures, you should always consider what kind of lights you plan to use. In general, fluorescent is not a great choice; it tends to make people greenish or washed out. Instead, go for incandescent bulbs, or bulbs that advertise their similarity to daylight. Remember that the wrong bulb can make anyone look terrible. If you know of a place with bathroom lights that make you look terrific, see if you can find out what kind of lights they use, and go for these.
Bathroom light fixtures should not change the color of the light inside them; instead, they should release the light clearly and brightly.
Fixtures should be easy enough to maintain and should be guaranteed. Before installing them permanently, hold them up to daylight and be certain you like what you see.
Recycle electronics
Electronics are some of the items that present much disposal problems today. This is because they are being produced in large numbers by different manufactures who always claim to have produced better products even they have just changed the design. It means that within a short time you may find yourself with electronics that you realize should have been recycled to reduce the costs of manufacturing new ones as well as reduce the amount of industrial garbage to dispose. The situation requires that we recycle electronics.
There are several ways to recycle electronics. If you take items like phones, you will find out that the more expensive models can last longer but it is the battery that dies out after two years. If you do not know that the phone just does not expire but the battery you will be rushing to buy a new phone instead of looking for a quality battery.
Another way to recycle electronics involves just changing some accessories. If you look at phones you will realize that within a short time the case starts wearing out due to constant touching and the fact that sometimes it falls down.
To recycle electronics like phones require you to just change the case and it will be looking as good and new. If you decide to give some service to electronics by cleaning them thoroughly, disassemble the components to make it possible to clean all dust and dirt that might have gone inside and lubricate all components sufficiently then you will find they can do much longer than originally envisaged. Being able to recycle electronics would save a lot of costs and even the environment.
Sometimes people just need to be sensible. It is very wasteful and childish to try owning everything that you see in this world. If you buy some electronics and it is still in good condition or just needs repairs you do not have to buy a new one simply because you can afford.
It is even easier to recycle electronics like computers though this example is not limited to computers. You can easily upgrade an old computer by adding more memory discs or just changing hard disks. This would make your computer perform like later models when in actual sense the main components are not new. And all this is because there are certain basics that remain the same for longer periods of time. The manufacturers do provide for additional installations and manufacture several accessories which can be used to upgrade the comp.
To recycle electronics is environmentally friendly. To recycle electronics makes the electronics cheaper. Even when outer designs appear different, the basic technology always remains the same for a very long time making it prudent to recycle electronics.
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