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LED suggestion for house lights
- Thread starterJChenault
- Start date
So far customers have been either early adopters, or needed the small size to solve a variety of install problems. Carnival Cruise decided to try some because of their space constraints, and CBS news in NYC bought a bunch when they found out they had less room in their new custom studio fixtures than they thought. The 8-packs have been popular with rental houses. Altman carries Brickblasters now for example:
Altman Rentals LED Fixtures
ESPN bought some all white fixtures (WNC's)... and there's quite a few others too, but the fixtures are still virtually unknown. You'll be hard pressed to find someone who has one. The factory has demo units, that may be your best bet if you're really interested.
ejsandstrom
Member
If you are only using the RGB to adjust color temp take a look at Chroma-Q - Products - Creative LED - Studio Force V 12 - Features
Variable Color temp.
As far as being able to turn the whole room red, or blue or whatever, I can think of a bunch of times that it would be useful.
Fellowship Church brought in a ton of wash lights just to wash the crowd when they were recording their live music DVD. It would be cool to have that built into the house lights.
http://www.chroma-q.com/products/studioforcev12/overview.asp
Variable Color temp.
As far as being able to turn the whole room red, or blue or whatever, I can think of a bunch of times that it would be useful.
Fellowship Church brought in a ton of wash lights just to wash the crowd when they were recording their live music DVD. It would be cool to have that built into the house lights.
http://www.chroma-q.com/products/studioforcev12/overview.asp
RickR
Well-Known Member
Affineon makes some nice looking fixtures. The downlight series gets to be pretty bright. They are probably too bright and expensive for your use unless you redo the whole system.
On the code note: they can be set to go on when DMX is lost, for emergency conditions.
I've had demo units but haven't seen them in action. I will in the next few months if the installers get moving...
On the code note: they can be set to go on when DMX is lost, for emergency conditions.
I've had demo units but haven't seen them in action. I will in the next few months if the installers get moving...
tjrobb
Well-Known Member
RickR alluded to this, but the code issue is that, more than just during a power loss, you need "panic" lighting. Basically "it" hits the fan and the house lights go on, to full, ideally white. At our space our racks are tied into the fire alarm so when the alarm trips the lights go on. No evacuation in the dark, EVER.
JChenault
Well-Known Member
Actually, in our jurisdiction the code requires that, during a power loss, there is a battery operated system that will turn on. This does not have to be the house lights and typically is not. We have mounted on the wall, a number of units with a couple of PAR heads that connect to a battery. When power is lost they come on.
The OP indicated that there is a stand-alone emergency lighting system in place, so the LED system need not take panic into account.
In general, you can provide for emergency lighting in a number of ways.
1) Stand-alone fixtures to provide the minimum footcandles and coverage, off individual battery operated units.
2) Same thing, except the stand-alone fixtures can be powered off a generator.
In either of those instances, the dimmable "house lighting" can be considered a "performance" type lighting and does not need to be part of the emergency system, as that has been provided for.
3) In the event you desire to not install individual units, the general house lighting system can become part of the emergency system. Usually this take the form of;
A) The individual branch circuits off a dimming/switching system can be routed thru a multi-pole transfer switch that routes the emergency generated power to the individual branch circuits upon loss of building normal power, or;
B) An entire dimmer/relay pack, or packs, can have their main power feed system routed thru a larger transfer switch that will transfer power to generator and simultaneously have the controlling system for the pack electronics module drive the dimmers/relays to full upon loss of normal building power.
So one of the interesting issues that will result in the retrofitting of a current incandescent house lighting system ,that is also the emergency system, with LED fixtures, especially those requiring DMX data to energize, will be how to design such a system so that the fixtures do indeed, energize upon loss of normal building power. If individual fixtures that are normally DMX controlled have auto-sensing to drive levels to full upon loss of normal building power, then that obviously becomes a selling point for that fixture in that application.
What code says that? Do you have a reference? Does it apply to other states, such as Washington where the OP is?
tjrobb
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure there IS code for non-power failure emergency lighting, but it seems less than ideal to have patrons running into the furniture in an emergency.
They're barely audible at all. The fan that's used is a low noise computer case fan that's powered at 8V instead of 12V. It's pretty big (85mm), so running it slowly still moves some good air. The result is a nicely cooled 4" cubed 50W light, and you wouldn't know there's a fan at all, unless you get right up to it and listen carefully.
Also, the fan speed doesn't modulate unless it's used above it's ambient temperature rating of 45C. Above 45C, the fan will begin to speed up in an effort to keep the LED's and internal electronics cool. At about 65C ambient, the fan will max out, and if the temp goes much higher, the LED's will shut off and the fixture will show an "over temperature" fault on the rear LCD.
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I maintain a ton of broadcast grade equipment with cooling fans. The fans range from cheap to expensive, sleeve bearing to ball bearing. Trust me, you absolutely do not want a ceiling full of lights with cooling fans. In a few, short years, it will turn into a collosal maintenance headache. Fans are simply too unreliable, especially the crap made for the computer industry. They'll be making all sorts of obnoxious noises when the bearing start to go, and then freeze up causing the electronics to cook.
Since you will be buying a large number of lights, you should be able to get a demo of the L&E and Light Source units, which appear to be well designed with convection cooling. I encourage you to stick with a light that is built for the purpose, such as those two.
I'm curious about the "loss of DMX" feature... I get how it's intended to be used, but I'd think if it's really going to be used for "emergency" use, they'd need to be certified for that.. like UL924 for example. The problem is.. an emergency lighting system (using a light with this feature) needs at least two other system components, an un-interruptable power source, and the DMX source that feeds the light... so would all these components need UL924 if this system was the "sole" emergency lighting system?
With traditional emergency lights, the power source and light are combined into one unit, and they're triggered directly from power loss, so I can see how this could be agency tested. But I don't quite see how a system with distributed parts could end up being UL924 listed.
Not all the components need to be listed as emergency components. Only elements that "HAVE" to function in a certain way, I.E. relay panels, dimmer rack control system (control module), etc... We have a new install where the house lighting will be an S4 Par type fixture. It will be dimmed off a standard Sensor style dimmer. The branch circuits will be routed thru a listed emergency branch circuit transfer panel. The fixture itself doesn't matter as long as it energizes upon transfer to the emergency system. To that end, the fixtures will be hard wired to the branch circuit wiring and there will be no connector on the fixture, which "might" prevent the fixture from operating when needed.
We have in another theater an ETC Unison dimmer system, that provides for DMX controlled dimmable lighting as well as having installed a listed main feed relay panel to transfer power to generated emergency lighting. The Unison rack control electronics module is designed for and UL listed for emergency use and has a built in sensor that activates upon being energized from generated power and senses that normal building power is lost. It then drives the dimmers to full. The system does not sense loss of DMX as that actually might be present, given that the Unison house light control system is on a UPS and might well still be driving DMX (possibly at a level of zero) to the dimmer pack.
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Not sure how to respond to this implied judgement, but the fan used is not "crap".. it's a quality 35,000hour, long life fan that we're running at half it's nominal speed... the fan is gonna last a long time. Additionally, the electronics aren't going to "cook".. the fixture measures it's internal temperature and shuts down if things get too hot (pretty sure I covered that in my earlier post). That being said, of course convection cooling is better, there's no fan to fail... but good luck finding a convection cooled 50W 4" cubed RGBW LED light that delivers 1200 lumens or a 50W 4" cubed all white (WNC) light that delivers 3100 lumens... that level of lumens/size performance is amongst the highest in the industry, and requires forced air cooling. So.. yeah, if you don't need that lumens/size performance, there's quite a few convection cooled lights to choose from, but if you need the smallest brightest light you can find, this is it... and did I mention that you almost can't even tell there's a fan, even when you're right next to it?
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Sorry, I wasn't specifically targeting your product. I have no idea what kind of fan you use. The computer industry is notorious for using $4 fans that barely last through the warranty. So, when someone says "computer fan," I get worried.
I'll stick to what I said before, based on 25 years of doing electronic maintenance. All fans are a high failure item. They are a reasonable and necessary tradeoff in LED stage lighting where compactness and light intensity are important. In my humble opinion they have no business in a house light when there are better alternatives.
35,000 hours is a really long time for a stage light. In some facilities that time could fly by in house light use. It's roughly the equivalent of three years of continuous use. Stage lights tend to be used hard and replaced fairly often. A house light should be able to do its job for 30 years.
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No problems with opinions on feature tradeoffs and application appropriateness, everyone's entitled to his own, some more than others, based on their knowledge and experience.
I'd like to explore the discussion about "life" a little more, I think it could be informative (especially to me)... first to clarify a couple of items:
1) 35,000 hours of fan life is almost exactly 4 years of 24/7/365 use AT RATED SPEED.
2) At half rated speed, the life will we well beyond that. I could make a case that the life is doubled.. http://www.machinediagnostics.com/p...brication/Calculate Bearing Life (Timken).pdf but let's split the difference and estimate fan life at 50,000hours... which is 5.7years of 24/7/365 use.
A couple of questions:
1) is 24/7/365 of "lights on" correct? This doesn't exactly seem right to me.
2) At what point do you start worrying about the life of the LEDs? 50,000hours is a fairly typical LED life estimate. Granted LEDs don't usually fail catastrophically at the end of their rated life... but should the life of the LEDs be considered?
3) 30years seems like a stretch... no matter what you use... Is there anything that could reasonably be expected to last that long... without something having to be changed?
My facility has ceiling lights that have been running for over 15 years without any maintenance, I expect them to last another 15 or more years because they are using 500W, 140V lamps and operating on dimmers that max out at 120V yet seldom run above 50%. This is a good thing because they are very difficult to access. I have considered changing them out for LED but would never install any fixture with fans, because fans accumulate dust which means they need regular maintenance. Regular maintenance on something that is difficult to access drives up the operating expenses since I have to rent lifts or scaffolding that to date I have not needed to rent.
I can replace a lamp with a pole and basket. I don't expect to have to replace the socket that holds the lamp during my lifetime. It might happen, but it is unlikely. 30 years is a reasonable lifespan for all manner of things. When was the last time you replaced the wiring in your house, or the front door, or the drywall?
I can replace a lamp with a pole and basket. I don't expect to have to replace the socket that holds the lamp during my lifetime. It might happen, but it is unlikely. 30 years is a reasonable lifespan for all manner of things. When was the last time you replaced the wiring in your house, or the front door, or the drywall?
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