Sparks Electrical News June 2020

LIGHTING

15

Introducing Spazio medical C onsidering the terrible situation that we as South Africans and the whole world are current faced with, Spazio Lighting has started a new division of its business called Spazio Medical to help in the fight against the Coronavirus. The company has identified a need in the market for ‘Pandemic fight- ing products’ and thus have started importing and selling specific prod- ucts including the following: • Surgical masks with three fabric layers of filtration including polypropyl- ene spun bound and melt spray non-woven fabric with an ear loop made of non-woven ultrasonic compound. It can block microorganisms includ- ing bacteria, dust, droplets and has a BFE (Bacterial Filtration Efficiency) rating of 95. • The KN95 Mask is the equivalent to the FPP2 mask and consists of four layers of filtration including, 20 g inner layer of non-woven fabric, 40 g meltdown cloth layer, 40 g cotton layer and a 40 g non-woven surface layer. These masks also include an adjustable nose clip and ear loop band made up of non-woven ultrasonic compound. • Spazio Medical currently stocks two different versions of face shields. An economic version that is sold in packs of 10 as well as a more comfort- able version that consists of a foam inner. These face shields have got a low glare, optical grade screen and provide protection against potential contamination from blood pathogens, body fluids or harmful chemical splashes. • UVC refers to ultraviolet light with wavelengths between 200-280 na- nometers (nm). Light in the UVC wavelength can be used for disinfect- ing water, sterilizing surfaces, destroying harmful micro-organisms in food products and in the air. This makes UVC fittings a very powerful tool in the fight against COVID-19. Spazio Lighting currently has five versions of UVC germicidal lamps called the Viruston range which can sterilize home and hospitality environments with an efficiency of 99.99%. They have an operating time of between 15 and 60 minutes and come complete with a long distance remote. It is important to note that this device cannot be switched on when there are people or pets present in the room. • Fogging machines, or foggers as they are sometimes called, use a fine spray or mist to apply a chemical solution for pest and odour control. In addition, it is also used for sanitizing and disinfecting of A s simple as it might seem on the surface, it is just not easy to maintain lighting. Mil- lions of people experience the unpredict-

Infrared thermometer.

Virustron 1.

Viruston 2.

Virustron 4 and 4L.

Viruston 3.

rooms and surfaces. You can get a range of hot and cold foggers from Spazio Medi- cal that are available in different sizes, from small foggers are for use in your home, car etc. to large foggers that can disinfect large spaces including offices, shopping centres, hospitals etc. • Spazio Lighting’s infrared non-contact ther- mometer has a measuring distance of 1-5 cm and an accuracy of approximately 0.3°C. This thermometer comes complete with an automatic data hold, auto power off function and LCD display. Be on the lookout for more products to be added to the range in the near future.

Enquiries: +27 (0)11 555 5555

How a proactive approach can alleviate common commercial lighting maintenance headaches

Electrical issues Sometimes, even when the correct products are used and long-life products are in place, outages can still occur frequently. That could be due to larger electrical issues plaguing the overall electric system. It is not all that uncommon to see large-scale systemic problems that interfere with lighting per- formance. Bad scheduling Just as ordering details can be lost in transla- tion, particularities in scheduling go unstated from time to time. This can lead to maintenance crews showing up at inconvenient times – peri- ods when work cannot be performed. And this goes without saying, but when previously sched- uled maintenance gets postponed, the lighting gets neglected. Bad luck Lastly, you may have simply dealt a bad hand of cards. Murphy’s Law – “what can go wrong, will go wrong” – kicks in and lighting maintenance crews get stuck in unexpectedly bad traffic, product arrives broken or faulty, the technician finishes his work and the very next day another handful of lights go out, or some other crisis occurs and outages crop up. The above are just a few of the issues that make it easy to understand why lighting maintenance so often goes wrong. Proactively solving for lighting maintenance issues Any car owner would tell you that maintenance tends to be most expensive and inconvenient when it is reactive. Further, most would probably tell you that things fail – brakes wear out, tires puncture, alterna- tors die, etc. – at the worst possible time. The same goes for a reactive approach to lighting maintenance. Proactive, or preventative maintenance, on the other hand, allows for spaces to stay well-lit and sharp-looking. Here are three best practices that we recommend for implementing a successful preventa- tive maintenance programme:

ability of lighting maintenance every year around the holidays, when a single bulb on their strand of Christmas lights burns out – often knocking a sec- tion of the strand out. The timing of this is never convenient and usually takes more time to fix than you think it should. Unfortunately, such headaches are not exclusive to Christmas decorators. They happen in the pro- fessional lighting world all the time. To make things even more challenging, lighting is getting more complex, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the consistency of commercial spaces. Be- low are five of the snags that contribute to lighting maintenance challenges. Wrong product One fairly obvious reason your lights could frequently go out is short-life lighting products. If you were try- ing to avoid a heavy upfront investment and opted for lower-priced lighting with shorter life ratings, you are probably starting to experience frequent outages. Fur- thermore, when products are misused – paired with a bad ballast or used improperly in the application – it can result in reduced lifespans. Missing or wrong materials onsite All too often, the lighting technician does not have the appropriate materials to replace every outage. This may happen for a variety of reasons: • A technician does not know the part number of what needs to be replaced prior to their visit. • A store may have ordered the wrong part number. • A store may have changed lamp types but for- gotten to remove the old inventory. Problems may appear to be one thing and turn out to be another. In the case of an outage of a lamp which requires a ballast, the culprit could be a faulty ballast and not the lamp. These issues create a ripple effect which post- pones maintenance and may result in an increase of outages.

maintenance providers ensure their technicians are well-trained in what to look for while on-call and know how to diagnose electrical system problems. They also have an on-boarding process with clients and with their labour providers to ensure that many of these variables are discovered or discussed ahead of time. Consider a re-lamp or retrofit This may seem like a cop-out answer, but the reality is that the right product in the right application will most likely result in less maintenance. If you can move to more efficient, easier to maintain products, you will reap the benefits in reduced maintenance costs, reduced energy costs, and more consistent visuals across your organisation.

Keep product stocked The best way to improve the chances of one-call reso- lution on a maintenance request – the holy grail of lighting maintenance – is to stock common products at each location. A good lighting maintenance provid- er should recommend commonly used products that will set their technicians up for success. While this will not result in 100 percent of maintenance calls being resolved in a single visit, clients that implement this proactive step are almost always pleased. This is also a step you can take regardless of whether your lighting maintenance programme is on-call or scheduled. Attention to detail Lighting maintenance involves managing an enor- mous number of variables – from schedules, to regional differences, to product specification, to electrical system troubleshooting. Great lighting

Enquiries: www.regencylighting.com

SPARKS ELECTRICAL NEWS

JUNE 2020