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TechieJustin · 07-18-2007, 11:21 PM

I have a basement/workbench area. Its about 30 to 40 feet long by about 20 feet wide withshelves at the sides. There are two edison sockets for normal bulbs there. I would like the replace those two edison sockets with three or four fluorescent T5 (T8?), thereby improving the light for the whole area including the workbench.
Putting them where the sockets currently are should be trivial. I have hard wired stuff before in my kitchen with breautiful results. What about the others? Could I just take a wire fromone fixture, twist it on the other wires, cap the connection, and run it to the next; in parallel? Or is that bad practice?
I'm guessing it would be trivial. Twist white to white, black to black and green to green.

Square Eye · 07-19-2007, 03:20 PM

The connections can be made inside the fixtures. It's actually common practice to wire flourescent fixtures in parallel exactly as you described, but the connections must be made within an enclosure.

TechieJustin · 07-25-2007, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Square Eye

The connections can be made inside the fixtures. It's actually common practice to wire flourescent fixtures in parallel exactly as you described, but the connections must be made within an enclosure.

Gotcha. That's what I meant, but I didn't really understand the terminology.

I bought one Lithonia Lighting T8 strip from Home Depot. I'm going to replace one 44 inch fixture that is 30+ years old and generally crap these days. Installing it should be trivial - this is a different project from the basement job.

Square Eye · 07-26-2007, 05:28 PM

T-8 fixtures are GREAT!
They eliminate many of the problems associated with flourescent lighting.
They fire right up in cold temps, last longer, start faster and brighter.
I have them in my shop and they're the best lights I've seen in that situation.
5 years on the same T-8 tubes, not bad at all.