Design LED House light Retro fit

[JGO]

I strongly recommend you look at GDS ArcSystem. They are about as close as you're going to get to a drop-in retrofit. The other added bonus is that they have their own proprietary wireless data system so you aren't running DMX all over the hills. They are incredibly smooth, come in a wide array of output capacities, have a tungsten fade, and won't popcorn from 0%-1%. I'm a huge fan. We have 17 of them sitting in our storage to replace our house lights this summer.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

The GDS are indeed very good - maybe the best of the breed - but also the most expensive. Fwiw the mesh network is zigbee - a popular and i think open not proprietary protocol for lighting control.

 

[Mark Skala]

Resurrection!

I've just been sent a couple different brands of LED Par 38 screw in replacements, and they all dim miserably, even with a large incandescent load on the circuit as well. Another ing we noticed is the drivers are outputting a huge amount of RF which Unfortunatly is in same frequency range of some wireless gear we are using. Philips
doesn't have a spec sheet of which frequencies they would output on, but it seems to be in the 500-600mHZ range

Tyler, I am new here - saw in an earlier post you took a video of your light dimming? Is that available? We are trying to get our pastor to remove the fluorescent lights in the sanctuary and replace with dimmable lighting. He insists on LED and has also approved new stage lighting (colored uplights, LED washes and spots). I think the effect of the stage lighting is wasted with old fluorescent house lights. He is visual and has asked to see a demonstration. An online video would be great and any suggestions from this group would be appreciated.

Oh, I am the audio/video director for our church and it has been years since I did anything in the lighting field. In fact, LED was just a dream.....

Thanks,

Mark

 

[Esoteric]

Tyler, I am new here - saw in an earlier post you took a video of your light dimming? Is that available? We are trying to get our pastor to remove the fluorescent lights in the sanctuary and replace with dimmable lighting. He insists on LED and has also approved new stage lighting (colored uplights, LED washes and spots). I think the effect of the stage lighting is wasted with old fluorescent house lights. He is visual and has asked to see a demonstration. An online video would be great and any suggestions from this group would be appreciated.

Oh, I am the audio/video director for our church and it has been years since I did anything in the lighting field. In fact, LED was just a dream.....

Thanks,

Mark

Hey Mark, we do LED retro fits. But you are absolutely right. Without controlling the house lights, adding stage color will be a useless effort. But go with actual LED fixtures. Retrofit lamps have all sorts of problems.

Mike

 

[Esoteric]

The house lights in our school auditorium are also used during the school day. That means they are on for 8 to 12 hours/day 5 days/week and 11 month a year. I have about 65 bulbs. Does that change the pay off?

Significantly. Just in AC load without the electrical load.

Mike

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

If you want to relamp As or PARs with LED for mains dimming, try a few TCP http://www.tcpi.com/spec-sheets/ELITE/Designer-Elite/Designer-Elite-DIM-PAR-Series_print.pdf and see if there low end dimming is good enough. It's the best we found and noticeably better than Phillips IMHO. Still not perfect fade to black but if you're the mope that has to change lamps from a ladder on sloped and stepped floor over fixed seats, might be good enough.

 

[James Feenstra]

Tyler, I am new here - saw in an earlier post you took a video of your light dimming? Is that available? We are trying to get our pastor to remove the fluorescent lights in the sanctuary and replace with dimmable lighting. He insists on LED and has also approved new stage lighting (colored uplights, LED washes and spots). I think the effect of the stage lighting is wasted with old fluorescent house lights. He is visual and has asked to see a demonstration. An online video would be great and any suggestions from this group would be appreciated.

Oh, I am the audio/video director for our church and it has been years since I did anything in the lighting field. In fact, LED was just a dream.....

Thanks,

Mark

If you're looking at complete fixtures, consider the Chroma Q Inspire;
http://www.chroma-q.com/products/inspire-led-house-light.asp

We can definitely arrange a demo....RGBW w/ a theatrical dimming curve

 

[Brian Moon]

Yeah, I have at least half a dozen clients waiting on fully dimmable retrofit solutions and it seems like every other day I get a call from them because some Phillips or Cree dealer made a cold call and has no real idea what "fully dimmable" means and gets their hopes up over a $40 or $50 lamp, and then they call me wondering why I am trying to talk them into $1500 a piece units to do the same thing. I tell them to get get a sample and sure enough it does fine from 100%-20% and then BLINK its gone.

It is just really annoying having to deal with that all the time. Then I have to start the selling process all over again. I wish electrical distributor and sales people would stay in their residential/industrial world and out of the theater/house of worship world.

No disrespect toward you. I am sure you are awesome at what you do. But when someone actually makes a fully dimmable LED retrofit lamp, I will be a happy, happy man. But I consider myself up on what is in the market, and I know that such a thing is at least a couple of years away.

Until then, I tell my clients that their choices are conventional units and dimmers or an all in one LED unit replacement.

I also know you can play with dimmer curves to smooth things out, but I have still never seen an LED retrofit lamp that doesn't go BLINK at the end of its dimming curve and for house lights that is VERY annoying.

Cheers mate!

You may want to check out www.rledlighting.com. They have some really new and cool technology for their fully dimmable LED lamp replacement for houselights.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

What is cost range and how large is your commission on each lamp? Clearly you are associated with this company and this is a commercial post.

 

[robartsd]

At about 10x the cost of the residential/industrial replacements lamps that pop on/off at 10-20%, R LED lighting's retrofit is not going to change much of the problem @Esoteric describes with clients wondering why they cost so much more than the dimmable LED lamp at then nearest big box store. If it works as descirbed, it might be a nice solution for many retrofit situations though - possibly even new installs if it simplifies the emergency lighting design. I wonder if @Brian Moon knows if they will be shown at USITT (or any other upcomming convention).

 

[RickR]

I saw one at LDI.

Smoothly dimmed on a SmartPack WM, all the way down. I'd like to see it on a cheap-o wallbox. But it is almost as big and expensive as a new fixture.

Eventually it will be practical, but not now.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

I felt obligated to look at this lamp at USITT. It appears to be a much better product than I thought from posts here, though I have not tested it thoroughly as I plan to.

It seems to succeed where other retrofit LED s fail because the driver is powered by the stored a stored charge. Thus, in my simple minded view, as you dim the mains fro 120 to 0, and where a normal retro led turns off abruptly when the driver can't function for lack of power, this driver has power to allow the fade to continue fully to out. Likewise, when you fadevit fro 0 to full (or some intermediate level) the led does not turn on for a brief - fractions of a second - period while the driver becomes fully powered, and then the LEDs start their fade up. By preheating, and maybe creating a profile, you can keep the driver powered by keeping the caps charged. The concept is indeed fascinating and seems workable, and hopefully testing will demonstrate this.

Figures lie and liars figure, but the $750 list compared to a $1000 list for an Invite or other dedicated fixture is not bad when in addition to a net difference of $200 or so you add replacing fixture labor and adding data and switching a dimmer for a non dim. I don't buy the marketing 2 or 3 or 4 times hype, but not insignificant.

I also see no value in installing new cans and dimmers and this lamp, but a whole other discussion.

 

[techieman33]

Looks interesting, and if it really only does take a fraction of second to start fading up then I doubt it would be an issue for 99% of us. Though I don't know that I like the thought of 2.8LBS of light fixture hanging by a tiny little E11 base.

 

[Les]

Though I don't know that I like the thought of 2.8LBS of light fixture hanging by a tiny little E11 base.

I took a quick look at the website and saw that it apparently does come with a safety cable. Still puts some stress on the socket though, which might not be a good thing in general.