Practical advice on commercial lighting from LED retrofits to lighting design.

Although LED lighting is the most popular and one of the most efficient lighting options right now, our team still faces a lot of questions on fluorescent lighting. Aletheia Cyr, our training and development specialist, helps walk through some of the most common questions we receive on fluorescent lighting. 

We've used our Lighting Insights blog to help readers understand light bulb part numbers so they can more accurately replace or retrofit their lighting. Another piece of the part number puzzle is ANSI code, which can help to pair ballasts with lamps.

What are ANSI codes?

ANSI stands for "American National Standards Institute," which is an organization that develops standards for a wide range of commercial products. In lighting, ANSI codes have particular relevance to common types of light bulbs, but they are less and less common in the modern lighting world. That said, they remain a useful piece of information for finding the right ballast for your lighting.

Growing up in Japan, I learned quite a bit about the challenges that come with learning a second language. I remember having both English-speaking and Japanese-speaking friends and being the translator between the two groups. And I had to work hard to make sure information didn't get lost in translation. 

Oftentimes, there were tricky moments for me, as the translator. Like, when my English-speaking friends would tell a joke while smiling, that smile was perceived as nervousness by my Japanese friends. The cultures were so different, each having so many nuances, that most communications had challenges like that. I was constantly trying to figure out how to accurately capture the intent, the context, and proper body language from the native culture and properly translate it for the other culture.