Specialty and Architectural Lighting

When new LED lamps are used to replace traditional light sources or LED fixtures are part of a retrofit project, an important but often overlooked issue that must to addressed is the compatibility of existing controls. Lighting is a system. The light source is one component. Ballasts, transformers, dimmers, occupancy and photo sensors must be compatible or the new LED light source upgrade will not function properly. It’s not uncommon, after LED lighting has been...

For some people dark winter days, particularly in northern latitudes, can cause lack of motivation, lethargy, slow response and in some cases depression. The common term for this condition is SAD, seasonal affective disorder. For owners of commercial operations with employees, this phenomenon should be taken seriously because it can not only affect the employee but also degrade work performance and productivity. Similarly, employees of institutional and medical facilities that operate 24 hours a day...

By a considerable margin the most common lighting job in North America is general space lighting for commercial and institutional occupancies provided by fluorescent tubes mounted in troffers, direct / indirect pendants and strip lights. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) estimated there were over 300 million fluorescent troffers installed in the country. The installed base of fluorescent lamps (primarily T8) is measured in the billions. Five years ago another USDOE study reported...

If you are a business or institution and are not yet using LED light fixtures and bulbs in your operation, you should be. At the very least you should be installing sample product to evaluate it. In 2020 we are at generation 5 and 6 of LED product and the technology is well on it's way to being the dominant light source for buildings. Lower LED Prices Eight years ago, the primary reasons that make...

When determining whether or not an LED lamp or LED fixture will provide the equivalent lighting that is provided by traditional light sources such as halogen, fluorescent or metal halide, lumens is one of the numbers you need for your evaluation. Spec sheets for most light bulbs and light fixtures include a value for lumen output or, simply, lumens. If the LED lumens are close to the fluorescent lumens, for example, you know that the...

When LED fixtures (or lamps) are installed in a building, thinking about replacement is likely the last thing on the minds of staff. With LED rated life ranging from 25,000 hours (for lamps) to over 50,000 hours (for fixtures) the typical time to replacement is measured in years. However, facility managers should be aware at the outset of LED installations of the different requirements for maintaining and monitoring LED lighting compared to fluorescent, halogen or...

The ability of the human eye to see the world in color and to perceive the smallest variations in the color of objects and illuminated spaces enriches the visual experience beyond measure. A major factor in the perception of color is the light source that is illuminating the object or space. The perceived color of an object is the color of the light reflected or transmitted by the object when it is illuminated. For example,...

Among all the factors to consider when buying an LED outdoor luminaire – here is another: connected controls. Increasingly, commercial building codes are expanding outdoor lighting requirements to include automatic shutoff and modulated light levels based on occupancy or time of day. This level of control, common for commercial interior lighting, may or may not be a code requirement for all projects, but in the future, codes will be in place or user expectations will evolve...

The germicidal portion of the ultraviolet spectrum provides an extremely powerful method of addressing sanitation issues for both water and air environments. We have already addressed UV water applications in another blog post. In this post we will look at both commercial / industrial and residential applications for using ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) to disinfect room air. UVGI has been available for decades and used primarily in specialized industrial and medical applications. Increased interest by...

LED downlight modules provide both an easy upgrade solution for existing incandescent or halogen downlight and an all-in-one package that makes for a seamless looking new downlight. The downlight module includes a non-replaceable LED array or light engine (not a bulb), an LED driver, a diffuser and the trim that sits flush to the ceiling. Advantages of LED Increased rated life is the main advantage of an LED downlight retrofit compared to replacing the existing...

It's not uncommon today for an incandescent, halogen or fluorescent light source to be replaced with an LED light source. Many LEDs are made to be direct replacements for traditional light bulbs and fixtures. In some cases, those traditional light sources have been controlled by photocells that are still in place. When this is the case, it usually results in an LED that does not respond to the photocell. Traditionally, photocontrol manufacturers only had to...