Certification of MR-16 cans

smacks999

Member
I am finding it hard to locate any par16 can safety specs, for Canada. cUL approved, or CSA, or similar.

Does anybody know how close the US and Canadian requirements are? Or if there are any fixtures with this info? I want to get some, but I need proof that they are legally useable here in Ontario.

I'm wanting use these as footlights, but any other ideas floating around for this purpose? I'm open to suggestions.
 
The PAR 16s that I bought from ChristieLites many moons ago, I DON'T believe are CSA approved. ADJ had some for sale that weren't CSA approved (I was a bit surprised--I thought approval was a condition of sale in Canada). Might you try normal black screw base holders and some LED MR 16 retrofits? That might give you a better spread anyway -- the PAR 16 don't spread very well, even with a wide lamp. Or would that be too big?
 
The PAR 16s that I bought from ChristieLites many moons ago, I DON'T believe are CSA approved. ADJ had some for sale that weren't CSA approved (I was a bit surprised--I thought approval was a condition of sale in Canada). Might you try normal black screw base holders and some LED MR 16 retrofits? That might give you a better spread anyway -- the PAR 16 don't spread very well, even with a wide lamp. Or would that be too big?

My guy at Christie is investigating this issue. I thought the same about selling in Canada.
 
My guy at Christie is investigating this issue. I thought the same about selling in Canada.
@smacks999 A few words regarding MR16 birdies as footlights. The rock opera Tommy was spec'd to use eight 120 Volt MR16 birdies across the front of the deck for footlights. There are very few 120 volt MR16's, ANSI EZK's come to mind but I may have the ANSI code incorrect. In retrospect they would have been far better to use transformer coupled 6 or 12 volt MR16's. We built the show to the New York designer's specs and shipped the scenery and automation to Offenbach, Frankfurt, Germany. This was 1995. The production electrician completed his pre-show lamp check and began every performance with eight working MR16's. By the finale there were always less than eight operational. Primarily vibration through the false show deck was shaking the tiny, compact and thin, 120 volt filaments to bits. There are no 230 volt MR16's. Both in Frankfurt in 1995 and again in London, England in 1996 we'd been requested to provide 120 volt MR16's connected in series wired pairs across 230 volts in Germany and 240 volts in England. Had they gone with 6 volt MR16's and transformers the filaments would've been manufactured with much shorter lengths of much coarser, heavier gauge, wire to handle the extra current consumed at the lower voltage; due to be appreciably thicker the filaments would have withstood the constant vibrations appreciably better.
There you go; more than you wanted to know about MR16's in foot light applications.
Presently also posting from Waterdown, Ontario.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
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@smacks999 A few words regarding MR26 birdies as footlights. The rock opera Tommy was spec'd to use eight 120 Volt MR16 birdies across the front of the deck for footlights. There are very few 120 volt MR16's, ANSI EZK's come to mind but I may have the ANSI code incorrect. In retrospect they would have been far better to use transformer coupled 6 or 12 volt MR16's. We built the show to the New York designer's specs and shipped the scenery and automation to Offenbach, Frankfurt, Germany. This was 1995. The production electrician completed his pre-show lamp check and began every performance with eight working MR16's. By the finale there were always less than eight operational. Primarily vibration through the false show deck was shaking the tiny, compact and thin, 120 volt filaments to bits. There are no 230 volt MR16's. Both in Frankfurt in 1995 and again in London, England in 1996 we'd been requested to provide 120 volt MR16's connected in series wired pairs across 230 volts in Germany and 240 volts in England. Had they gone with 6 volt MR16's and transformers the filaments would've been manufactured with much shorter lengths of much coarser, heavier gauge, wire to handle the extra current consumed at the lower voltage; due to be appreciably thicker the filaments would have withstood the constant vibrations appreciably better.
There you go; more than you wanted to know about MR16's in foot light applications.
Presently also posting from Waterdown, Ontario.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard


Wow. thanks for that... We are going to go with 8 120V 5W Dimmable LED bulbs (we'll see how dimmable that means). The lamps from Christie Lites are cUL and ETL approved. But they are PAR 20, E27 base, and have moulded Uground cords. Can't ask for much more than that!
 
Wow. thanks for that... We are going to go with 8 120V 5W Dimmable LED bulbs (we'll see how dimmable that means). The lamps from Christie Lites are cUL and ETL approved. But they are PAR 20, E27 base, and have moulded Uground cords. Can't ask for much more than that!
@smacks999 You're welcome and I apologize for my two typo's, I'm nearly blind now and posted quickly without proofreading as I'm in a home and was late for my scheduled lunch sitting. Where I inadvertently typed MR26 I meant MR16 and I see I omitted the word "wire" closer to the end of my post. You're correct. Dimming, up from and down to zero, will be your potential issues along with colour temperature and CRI with today's LED technology. Give LED's another few years and I expect they'll work most of the bugs out. It's good to occasionally get to spell colour with a "U" to a fellow Canadian.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
Give LED's another few years and I expect they'll work most of the bugs out.
I wouldn't count on it. The laws of physics and the cost of circumventing them preclude any affordable fix to implementing switched mode voltage dimming of an LED near the zero point. Sure it can be done, but not for a price that enough of a market is willing to pay.
 
I wouldn't count on it. The laws of physics and the cost of circumventing them preclude any affordable fix to implementing switched mode voltage dimming of an LED near the zero point. Sure it can be done, but not for a price that enough of a market is willing to pay.
@sk8rsdad Aw c,mon Dad, be optimistic! Two hundred years ago who imagined flight would be feasible? (I think I'm still leaning towards motor driven Variacs rather than fancy schmancy switched mode pulse width modulation.)
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
No, Ron, HAND driven variacs with good ol' reliable STAGEHANDS running them. (Those motor thingies will never last!)
@JonCarter Or resistance dimmers individually hand controlled by "good ol' reliable STAGEHANDS" sweating their collective butts off. To swerve this even further: Only recently a ~7' tall stack of six 6.6 Kw Variacs wired as 3 phase 13.2 Kw on a common motorized drive shaft were removed from service controlling a multitude of 500 Watt and 300 Watt mogul based incandescents (500's over the bulk of the seating and 300's over the balcony) Next to the ~7' stack was a much shorter stack of 3 lower rated Variacs, possibly in the area of 3.6 to 4.0 Kw each, connected as three phase to power the control windings of a quantity of dimmable fluorescent ballasts; the old way where powering the winding saturated the ballasts' cores reducing their inductance. Because of how the ballasts controlled the fluorescents, the Variacs' output voltages increased as the fluorescents' illumination dimmed. I believe both of the two independently motorized stacks each had rotary limit switches associated which opened and closed 3 phase contactors to cut their source power once their respesctive loads were fully extinguished. The original mogul based lamps, their fixtures and their control were only removed from service less than six months ago. This installation was older than @BillConnerFASTC and dirt but not as old as sand. Sand on the loading floor was replaced by cast iron counter-weights dutifully transported from England to our city, then the heart of steel and cast iron production in Canada.
I'll butt out and we can return to our regularly scheduled diversions.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
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