An emergency light is a lighting device with a battery backup that switches on automatically when a building experiences a power outage. Emergency lights are standard in commercial and high occupancy residential buildings, such as college dormitories. Most building codes require emergency lighting be installed in older buildings as well.
This feature may be added to many exit sign and emergency light fixtures, the SDT feature prolongs battery life, and reduced man hours required OSHA tests. Self testing diagnostic automatically executes a 15 minute test every 30 days and runs a 90 minutes test once per year. The major reasons batteries typically fail is because they remain dormant for long periods of time. With the SDT feature automatically simulates a full discharge and full recharge to keep the batteries in peak performance. If any problems arise during this testing process it will report them through the user interface. This benefit drastically reduces man hours required by OSHA to manually perform the tests.
Visibility, brightness and long life are very important factors that should be thought about when purchasing and exit sign. Light emitting diode or LED exit signs & emergency lights have proven to be successful in the reducing electricity consumption by up to 85%. LED exit signs can save money and power while still emitting considerable amounts of light.
An emergency light with battery backup capability switches to emergency operation in the event of a power loss to illuminate escape routes and safety equipment.
Emergency light ballasts are devices that allow normal fluorescent lights to double as an emergency light by providing battery power to one or two lamps after electrical power is lost. These ballasts operate for a minimum of 90 minutes in a situation where electricity is lost, the same length of time that emergency lighting fixtures normally operate.
Lithium batteries are primary batteries that have metallic lithium as an anode. These types of batteries are also referred to as lithium-metal batteries. They stand apart from other batteries in their high charge density and high cost per unit. Depending on the design and chemical compounds used, lithium cells can produce voltages from 1.5 V to about 3.7 V.