Emergency lighting question

[skella]

Hi

I'm in need of some advice. First of all i'm not an electrician but do have an understanding of electrics as i come from an electronics background. We have a couple of different electricians we normally use and were getting conflicting advice on this particular project.

We are opening an indoor adventure golf attraction. All of our main lighting in the attractions is dmx controllable show lighting. Even basic lighting in the bar area is controlled via dmx dimmer packs.

The question i have is on emergency lighting and what circuit it should be on. I know normally you would wire off the normal lighting circuit that in the event of fire / power cut etc the emergency lighting replaces your standard lighting.

In this project that way is not possible due to the fact that all of our lighting is run via dmx dimmers etc. We have a one 32amp 3 phase supply that supplies our server rack. The server rack houses all of our amps / players etc for the sound and all of the relevant dmx dimmers and controllers. The supply to the rack needs to be switched off at night and back on in the morning so one switch powers everything in the attraction, sound lighting etc.

One electrician said to install the emergency lighting on its own dedicated circuit, but then we have no emergency lighting if power to the rack goes down.

The other electrician said to control the 3phase supply via a contactor a single switch turns on and off everything but we feed our em lighting from one of the phases before the contactor.

just looking at advice on what way everyone else would do it and would comply with relevant building regs.

 

[westward10]

You can put them on their own circuit but ensure they are maintained fittings, in other words they are illuminated at all times.

 

[nicebutdim]

I'm fairly certain controllers are also available for this.

 

[Vortigern]

I would agree to put the em. lights on own circuit. So when it comes time for testing they won't have to switch off your attraction lights. I assume you have some lights which are not on the same circuit as the DMX circuits as otherwise when you switch off "everything" you would be walking out of the building in total darkness. So that circuit that stays on would be the one to either fit extra em. lights or replace those lights with lights containing an emergency module. Not knowing what kind of lights you have, it may be possible to retrofit em. modules to existing lights.

 

[davesparks]

Anywhere where the normal lights are dimmed or dimmable the emergency lighting should be of the maintained type.

So maintained emergency lighting on its own dedicated circuits would comply (it can be switched off when the building is unoccupied)

If you are using installation dimmers rather than touring dimmers in a rack then you can normally get a permanent live from them easily enough to feed emergency lights.