Design LED House light Retro fit

[lwinters630]

I am looking for ideas to retro fit the 300 Watt Incandescent Frosted PS35 Light Bulb, Mogul Base - 300/PS35/IF can lights in the ceiling of our auditorium with LED bulbs. Actually I think these are the wrong bulbs for this can, since there are no reflectors in it. They run through our EDI mark IV dimmesr. Average height is 20' off floor. I found adapters to convert mogul to Edison base and I was hoping to just change the bulbs.

If LED's won't work, is there a more efficient type of bulb?

 

[techieman33]

I would look for a par 30 or par 38 dimmable LED, whatever will fit into the existing housing, you can also get extensions if it's sitting to deep in the housing. As far as specific lamp to chose your just going to have to experiment. Get a light meter and figure out how much light your actually getting out of your current setup so you have something to compare to. Find a couple of lamp vendors and invite them to come in and bring samples of what they have to offer and meter them and figure out what will work and if you can live with the cost of switch over. We would love to swap out the 300w BR40 lamps in our black box and large all purpose rooms but the $10k-$12k price tag is very hard to swallow.

 

[icewolf08]

I am looking for ideas to retro fit the 300 Watt Incandescent Frosted PS35 Light Bulb, Mogul Base - 300/PS35/IF can lights in the ceiling of our auditorium with LED bulbs. Actually I think these are the wrong bulbs for this can, since there are no reflectors in it. They run through our EDI mark IV dimmesr. Average height is 20' off floor. I found adapters to convert mogul to Edison base and I was hoping to just change the bulbs.

If LED's won't work, is there a more efficient type of bulb?

Cool, it sounds like you have pretty darn similar house lights to what I have! They drive me bonkers, especially because our last row of lights has started to misbehave and trip breakers... Anyway. We just got in a demo of the Altman Chalice LED houselight fixture. It isn't a direct "drop-in" replacement in that you would have to run power and data for them, but they are pretty killer fixtures. The LED engine is based on the SpectraPAR engine, just in all white. I am told they come in two versions, a recessed can mount and a hanging pendant mount. The demo we played with was the pendant version. It turned out though, that the pendat fit very nicely inside the cans from the incandescent fixtures so we were really able to do a side by side comparison. These fixtures can be lensed like a regular PAR, so you can change the field. The LED fixture is rated 100w and and blows the 300w incandescents out of the water in terms of brightness.

Side-by-side, the difference in color temp is very noticeable, the LED appeared to be a little "peachy." I think you can get them in different color temps. I would imagine if the entire system were LEDs it would look less odd. We were pretty happy with the result, but we have an awful lot of hose lights to replace, so we probably won't be able to afford the project for a while.

 

[SteveB]

We tested a 60w A lamp LED equivelent last spring, got the lamps from Bulbtronics, who said they were about the "most dimmable" LED you could find. I set up a test jig of 10 LED's with 1 - incandescent on a dimmer and did a bunch of fades.

In general:

- They dim out pretty nice, with a nice smooth fade to out, provided you are doing a complete fade from Full to Out, is say 5 to 10 seconds. When you stop at Half or so, and then continue, you start to see steppy'ness as you fade from 50% to out. Trying to do a fade to 25% works, but the fade out to zero is not pretty.

- From zero up, you get no light until maybe 20% then a pop on, then a fade up that's OK.

So, in general, they function much like compact dimmable fluorescent.

We looked at these lamps to replace about 400 existing 40W A lamps, and it would have been an expensive investment as the 60w LED runs about $25 each. Fortunately the GM while watching a fade out, correctly made the decision that line voltage LED's were not yet ready for prime time.

 

[tyler.martin]

I have a bit of a unique situation as our house has gold leafed dome in the middle of the ceiling and approximately 60 shells along the upper wall. We recently changed out all of the 100w A lamps to dimmable Phillips LED's. I have to say that they dim incredibly wel after playing around with voltage thresholds on the dimmer rack. We have kept 2 incandescent lamps in 2 accessible sockets on the dome and shells to increase the load per channel and it seems to be behaving. With out the extra little load they start to get rough, but with just the LED's it is still acceptible

This will save us money because the only way to change the lamps in the dome is to build scaffolding from the orchestra level.

Here is a pic of the dome and some of the shells.

 

[JChenault]

I have a bit of a unique situation as our house has gold leafed dome in the middle of the ceiling and approximately 60 shells along the upper wall. We recently changed out all of the 100w A lamps to dimmable Phillips LED's. I have to say that they dim incredibly wel after playing around with voltage thresholds on the dimmer rack. We have kept 2 incandescent lamps in 2 accessible sockets on the dome and shells to increase the load per channel and it seems to be behaving. With out the extra little load they start to get rough, but with just the LED's it is still acceptible

This will save us money because the only way to change the lamps in the dome is to build scaffolding from the orchestra level.

Here is a pic of the dome and some of the shells. View attachment 7596

Which Phillips units did you use?

Just curious

 

[Kelite]

We have kept 2 incandescent lamps in 2 accessible sockets on the dome and shells to increase the load per channel and it seems to be behaving. With out the extra little load they start to get rough, but with just the LED's it is still acceptible.

Good thinking Tyler, the extra load certainly smooths things out doesn't it?

Nice place you've got there!

 

[tdrga]

Fortunately the GM while watching a fade out, correctly made the decision that line voltage LED's were not yet ready for prime time.

I had the opposite experience. At my place, the decision was made to replace all of the A-lamp incandescent houselight lamps with dimmable LED lamps. I had our maintenance folks do the replacement on one circuit while leaving a comparable circuit as incandescent. I did a demo for our CEO and CFO to show the dimming curve differences and the pop on at fade up with the LEDs.

They weren't too bothered by it and the idea of going from 300w per fixture to 21w (with associated energy cost reductions and utility rebates) pretty much sealed the deal.

Once all of the lamps are replaced with LEDs, I will have to tweak dimmer curves and levels to try to get it to look good.

-Todd

 

[tyler.martin]

Which Phillips units did you use?

Just curious

I cant remember off the top of my head, but im just heading in for a Focus Call now. I will get the model number and try and take a video of them house fading.

 

[tyler.martin]

So we are using Philips 8E26A60 LED's for all of our architectural lighting. They are an 8W 450 Lumen A sized lamp. They are dimmable! Designed to work with Triac dimmers but work nicely with SCRs. We have 2 color temperature versions, a 2700K lighting the house and a 3200K lighting the dome. Apparently they retail for 18.00 CAD, and have a 6 year warrenty...

 

[Esoteric]

I have never seen an LED replacement lamp that didn't have that flicker at 10%-20%. If you found one then I have some clients that might want to buy you a drink.

 

[tyler.martin]

I did take a video of the fades today, I will post when I get home. They are smooth all the way down to zero. They do have a fast low end fade. Our house lights are split between a CD80SV rack and a System Six rack. The lamps on the CD80 Rack are WAY smoother than the System Six rack. The System 6 Rack is going to be replaced with a Unison Rack soon, and hopefully they will get nice and smooth curve.

I think the lamps that we use have been discontinued, but I bought a couple hundred of them to last me a while

 

[DELO72]

Right now LEDs aren't powerful enough to replace 300W bulbs. It's getting there every day though. At the moment the best suggestion would probably be a PAR38 Medium screwbase retrofit. That will force the light down where you need it. A-lamps are a horrible waste of light in those kind of ceiling cans. Here are a few Sylvania LED retrofits I would suggest you consider. They are only 21W - 24W LED PAR38s, Dimmable to 10% (perfect for house lights), and the final #s are the beam angle (30deg, 25deg, 40deg).
LED21PAR38/DIM/P/930/FL30
LED24PAR38/DIM/830/NFL25
LED24PAR38/DIM/830/FL40

 

[phenry]

Right now LEDs aren't powerful enough to replace 300W bulbs. It's getting there every day though.

If you are referring to screw in replacements, I tend to agree. They really are getting better extremely quickly though.
There are LEDs though that are more than capable of replacing an 300W fixture. Check out our PL house light if you are not opposed to a retrofit.
PL House Light LED Luminaire | Strand Lighting - A Philips Group Brand

 

[JChenault]

Right now LEDs aren't powerful enough to replace 300W bulbs. It's getting there every day though. At the moment the best suggestion would probably be a PAR38 Medium screwbase retrofit. That will force the light down where you need it. A-lamps are a horrible waste of light in those kind of ceiling cans. Here are a few Sylvania LED retrofits I would suggest you consider. They are only 21W - 24W LED PAR38s, Dimmable to 10% (perfect for house lights), and the final #s are the beam angle (30deg, 25deg, 40deg).
LED21PAR38/DIM/P/930/FL30
LED24PAR38/DIM/830/NFL25
LED24PAR38/DIM/830/FL40

What are the color temps of these lamps? One thing I really like about the Phillips units is the 2700K color

 

[Esoteric]

Dimmable to 10% (perfect for house lights)

I disagree strenuously with this. House lights must be able to smoothly dim from 100%-0% with no stepping over at least 15-20 seconds at the minimum (I would prefer 45 sec to a minute).

Thus I will continue to instruments instead of replacement lamps.

 

[jglodeklights]

I agree with Esoteric. Smooth dimming down to 0 is very important in house lights. The experience patrons have from the time they approach and enter the building to the time the house lights dim and fade out can make a large impact in their overall view of your show. Sloppy dimming that drops or flickers or visibly steps below 10% can be disconcerting, and distract patrons from entering the world of the play as immediately as they should. It can be more distracting than a malfunctioning circuit that causes a fixture to flicker sometimes once it reaches 1% as it fades out during other times in the show. These are the reasons why we sometimes convert lobbies in to jungles.

Most of all, it should be our personal pride that motivates us to choose products that allow for a high degree of finesse. It may be that our specific theater's patrons don't give a hoot and will never notice some rough dimming by the houselights. However, we will know and peers may also know.

 

[tdrga]

I agree with Joe. However, my opinion carries no weight when compared to the bean counters and the expected monetary savings (plus the press point of "being Green!!). So I'll have to live with my LED retrofit lamps and try to make them look as good as possible.

-Todd

 

[Esoteric]

Where are you in Central, TX tdgra? We just had a rather large project down there canceled because financing fell through. It was supposed to be a very nice hybrid conventional/LED space. Although some idiot thought that a 800A service would be enough power for 2 theaters, a lobby, a bar, a restaurant, and 4 loft apartments. I think it was doomed from the start.

 

[DELO72]

I disagree strenuously with this. House lights must be able to smoothly dim from 100%-0% with no stepping over at least 15-20 seconds at the minimum (I would prefer 45 sec to a minute).

Thus I will continue to instruments instead of replacement lamps.

Ah. I was thinking of a House to half fade, and then house out, but I suppose that makes sense that you would prefer to do a quick fade out, vs. a bump to black, even at half. Point taken and agreed! Full/smooth dimming jumps the cost exponentially... at the moment at least, which is why there aren't many options there yet for retrofits.

PHenry--That's a very neat PL house light! I was of course just referring to Retrofits in terms of output capability at this time. Just out of curiousity, why would you need tunable RGBW for a houselight? It could be very cool for some theatres that are more interactive with the audience where you break the 4th wall....

Cheers,

Mark