Lighting Requirements

The design is intended to light a classroom, and according to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Lighting Research Center there are minimum recommended lumens (amount of visible light from a source) for reading and writing. Other sources recommended lighting levels of 30 foot-candles for reading. These values of foot-candles and lumens can be used to figure out the square footage (ft²) the recommended amount of light will cover.

Lumens/Foot-Candles = ft²

This information helps find the ideal light bulb to use. The SATCO lamp specification catalog provided the light bulb specifications and helped determine the amount of watts the light bulb requires. Their T2 Ultra Mini Spiral Compact Florescent Bulbs would provide 600-800 lumens and requires 40-60 watts.

The amount of watt-hours 3 bulbs require can then be calculated.

3 bulbs x (40-60watts) = 120-180 watts

5 hours x (120-180watts) = 600-900 watt-hours

Volts & Week 6

The light bulbs are 120 volts and the car batteries that are going to be utilized provide 12 Volts. Different options can be explored to increase the voltage from the battery to the light bulbs.

-Explore cost and practicality of batteries in parallel and series.

-Explore cost and practicality of inverter.

-Explore cost and practicality of different types of batteries.

*Keeping this fundamental “map of requirements” in mind, this would also be a good time to begin exploring some of the negative effects such as power loss through connections and inverters and the effects that the elements might have on our electrical systems.