A paint booth comprises of several essential features that aid in its normal functioning. In order to keep out the contaminants and dust, the booth is kept closed with air tight doors while permitting the inward and outward movement of goods. The air-paint aerosol inside the booth, due to its pressurized construction, enables the air to be forcibly exhausted through filters. This aerosol inside the paint booth is flammable and combustible.

Understandably, considering the inflammable conditions inside a paint booth, designing an effective lighting system would need several parameters to be kept in mind.

General paint booth lighting should attend the following essentials: -

• Illumination of the surrounding

• Hazards and safety control

• Ease of servicing and maintenance, and finally

• Consumption of energy

The adequacy of lighting is of special interest in an automotive paint booth because of the size and intricacies in design of modern automobiles. The three important aspects to consider are the intensity of individual lights and their number and locations as well as the focus over the work area leaving no shadows.

The hazards inside a paint booth arise due to the inflammable nature of the aerosol. The use of electronic ballasts, mirrored reflectors and high output extended life phosphors (ELP) and safe light fixtures as per class and division is to be ensured. The fixtures for the fluorescent lights should be inside recessed panels inside the paint booth. These should be water and corrosion proof and meet Class I and Division 2 standards. If these are not inside the recessed panels, they should meet Class I and Division 1 standards. There should be an interlock provision to disengage and stop paint spray activity when the access panel for the light is opened for routine maintenance and servicing of either the lights or the ballasts.

There should be ready access to the lamp and the ballast for the purpose of their routine maintenance and servicing. Since the lens will get fogged with an ongoing paint activity, it might be a good idea to use easily replaceable cling film for covering them. Consumption of energy is quite easily addressed by the proper selection of the lamp and ballast.

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