Fluorescent Lighting makes people go dizzy....

[Geordielad]

Evening all,
I was asked last night if fluorescent lighting can make you feel sick, dizzy and have really bad headaches. I hadn't really ever thought about it till asked and I said they do flicker but had never heard of people feeling ill from it, but I said I would look into it. I've been searching the net and have found there are quite a lot of people that have suffered with this but I couldn't find any solutions to it. I am going to continue searching tho.
At the moment there are 4 rows of 6 4ft fluorescent switch start fittings which each have 4 lamps in. So if i was to change/ alter anything it would be a long job.
Has anyone heard of this before and is there anything we can do to prevent people feeling ill?
The lights are in a church hall so if I was to go down the high frequency route it could end up costing quite a bit, which they may not want to pay for.
I had thoughts of perhaps some thing at the DB end that could counter this or maybe re-lamp entire hall with a different lamp, but I'm not sure.

Thanks in advance to any help

 

[Geordielad]

Thanks everyone for your help. I thought it would be the H.F route that would cure the problem but wasn't sure if there was an alternative. The lights don't appear to flicker or scroll (as I've seen in the past with t8 tubes) but it just one lady who feels ill as soon as she gets in to the church with the fluorescent lights on. She did mention that it not just in the church, she can feel ill in certain shops as well.
The diffusers that are in at the moment are the metal ones that kinda look like rows and squares!
Hmm..... not a great technical way of describing the diffusers for a spark to use but hey ho i understand what i mean. Maybe if i spend the night drinking i could come back later with a better way of describing them! Or for that matter answering my own question!!!

 

[Guest55]

your pic / link hasnt worked glenn lol.
im hoping it was something offensive ;-)

 

[GLENNSPARK]

your pic / link hasnt worked glenn lol.
im hoping it was something offensive ;-)

sorted..lol..

 

[brman]

I can confirm standard flossies can make people pretty ill even if they aren't epileptic. In my case I went through a period where they triggered migraines.

There was something about some lights that would trigger it - I can see the flicker of a normal tube and those in a supermarket chill cabinet are often the worst. I quite often went for a pint of milk and ended up with a blinding headache for the rest of the day along with vomiting and disrupted vision for an hour or so. Not nice!
I never had a problem with CFLs or HF fittings.......

 

[ian.settle1]

2 words.
H.F.
;-)

Thats 2 letters not 2 words :laugh3:

 

[AndyOz]

HF is the only real solution, although this may be too expensive.

Check to see if fittings are split over different phases. This will help if they are wired L1, L2 then L3 along the rows.

If money is not available for HF fittings check to see if some fittings are particularly bad and replace the tubes in them.

Sorry can't be of more help.

 

[GLENNSPARK]

Thanks everyone for your help. I thought it would be the H.F route that would cure the problem but wasn't sure if there was an alternative. The lights don't appear to flicker or scroll (as I've seen in the past with t8 tubes) but it just one lady who feels ill as soon as she gets in to the church with the fluorescent lights on. She did mention that it not just in the church, she can feel ill in certain shops as well.
The diffusers that are in at the moment are the metal ones that kinda look like rows and squares!
Hmm..... not a great technical way of describing the diffusers for a spark to use but hey ho i understand what i mean. Maybe if i spend the night drinking i could come back later with a better way of describing them! Or for that matter answering my own question!!!

well get yourself in to #15...looks like a good nite out in there...

 

[grantr37]

Lighting can affect people, due to the way they perceive environmental light....light rippling/flicker can be a power factor issue,at certain times of the day you will notice some lights with tubes that appear to have a dark patch that sweeps left to right about once every 2 seconds at times, this is to do with the way the internal gas is energized with a low energy region being swept through the tube, this is a lack of saturation that causes a volume of the gas to be energised at a lower level than the rest of the gas, the physics of the interactions in the gas prevents re-combination until a complete cycle at full power transits the Tube...if this does not happen then a dark patch sweeps left to right and a visible flicker due to rapidly varying light levels can be seen...
You will notice as well that at certain times of the day, or when certain activities that use equipment liable to interrupt clean supply, such as use of industrial ovens, nearby workshop equipment etc occur, even 2 doors down in an industrial site....fluorescent lighting can take longer to "strike up" i.e longer to turn on...and a noticeable flicker can be observed on the tubes as well as on reflective/white surfaces in the room, this can cause discomfort similar to travel sickness...


This is also common with D Type compact Fluorescent Lights (the ones in the round light fittings)

A change of side starters to new Electronic ones that provide a better initial strike may reduce the problem, as would High frequency fittings if the money is there....

Electronic starters are only about £1.50 and are available on ebay...

 

[Engineer54]

High Frequency Fitting with colour 840 tubes, this is the answer to your question, a nice bright white daylight type of natural light and non flickering, it is well known to help with the type of problem you have mentioned, I wouldn't give you a penny for a fluorecsent with a starter myself, I never buy them now.

Well at least they are about 5 X more reliable than HF ballasts. lol!! We've had nothing but trouble on the reliability side of things, since HF ballasts have become the norm for strip fluorescent fittings!!

 

[trev]

Just tell her to go and bother god elsewhere. Sorted

 

[Brendan976]

Tell her to wear sunglasses, sorted.

 

[grantr37]

was in CEF today, picked up some bumf on Fusion LED light tubes, had a play about with a display set up with different lights in it, looked not bad, also had remote controlled tubes and lamps there......

 

[Geordielad]

Tell her to wear sunglasses, sorted.

Haha! Yeah I was thinking along those lines, or maybe a welders mask.

I've heard about led tubes but I'm not convinced on them yet. Think technology has to improve a lot more till there viable as fluorescent replacements.

 

[grantr37]

I can confirm standard flossies can make people pretty ill even if they aren't epileptic. In my case I went through a period where they triggered migraines.

There was something about some lights that would trigger it - I can see the flicker of a normal tube and those in a supermarket chill cabinet are often the worst. I quite often went for a pint of milk and ended up with a blinding headache for the rest of the day along with vomiting and disrupted vision for an hour or so. Not nice!
I never had a problem with CFLs or HF fittings.......

yes the ones in supermarket chill cabinets are running in freezers and fridges and are at too low a temperature, they never had anything else they could use until now.....its up to us to sell them LED light tubes for the chillers and freezers now....

 

[grantr37]

I wonder how much material ended up as deposited condensate on frozen food packaging in terms of transformer/ballast winding oil and micro traces of mercury from slow leaking tubes.....the seals and vaccum integrity of the tube endcaps must be compromised now and then by all the thermal cycling of freezer doors opening and closing altering the temperature around the tubes with heat coming from the tube itself, as well as the vibration from pump motors and the shaking from slamming lids and doors...
These deposits would then "become available" (work loose) when food sold and taken home (or the freezers)defrosted/melted......I would expect that any new fridges and freezers we see going into supermarkets now will have LED's in them, but this could take years due to the time that supermarkets hold on to their fridges, freezers and chill cabinets...