LED Lighting

[SavinLight]

Hello,

LED lights are so advanced now days. New products are launching day by day. LED floodlight is one of them and it is energy efficient option. So buying them is a worthy decision. Isn't it?

 

[paulears]

I run a theatre - my company put productions on, and we use lots of LED lighting. Over the winter, the 500W linear floodlight we use for work light, and for the cleaners had been replaced by LED versions.

Cost savings are negligible as they are on for 2 or three hours every production day, and that's perhaps 70 days a year. New lamps for the old one were £3.20 each, and they lasted ages.

The new ones do not have the beam spread or punch to light the same area the old tungstens did, and the only solution I have is to now light the same area with theatre lights - 2 X 2KW units, using halogen, quite low hours lamps that cost lots. That's progress!

LED is still not cheap enough, or bright enough, or has equivalent performance to the units they are attempting to replace. I'm buying more and more LED kit for new purposes, but as like for like replacements, they're just not there yet.

 

[SavinLight]

Hey Paul,

Thanks for your reply. There are few things to consider before reaching to any conclusion i.e. they saves some energy at least which is better than other lighting sources, the designs are more elegant and they are Eco-friendly options along with full brightness. The only thing you can say that it is bit costly to install led lights but if you think about long term then they will surely return your cost.

If still there is some point left, I am open to discuss. So please share your feedback.

Thanks,
Savin

 

[paulears]

I'm happy with energy saving, but I am not happy with the technical performance. UK TV have had to design a new testing system for colour rendition, because the old one simply doesn't work reliably for LED. Many light sources require as close to point source (as in a filament) for correct operation. A cluster of LEDs just doesn't cut it yet. For display lighting, then I'm sold - but for a direct replacement, like for like - they are still not up to it.

 

[squeekwheel]

I've found out that LEDs for the decking lights can be very different in the terms of the light output so you might want to double check that otherwise your decking might look like an airport runway - go for a subtle pretty low light output ones.

 

[SavinLight]

I'm happy with energy saving, but I am not happy with the technical performance. UK TV have had to design a new testing system for colour rendition, because the old one simply doesn't work reliably for LED. Many light sources require as close to point source (as in a filament) for correct operation. A cluster of LEDs just doesn't cut it yet. For display lighting, then I'm sold - but for a direct replacement, like for like - they are still not up to it.

LED is latest technology in lighting era and it might be the problem that it is not compatible with your old devices but don't worry as LED technology is improving day by day and the issues will be resolved very soon.

 

[SavinLight]

I've found out that LEDs for the decking lights can be very different in the terms of the light output so you might want to double check that otherwise your decking might look like an airport runway - go for a subtle pretty low light output ones.

LED Decking lights are totally different from traditional lighting resources. I must suggest you to try it yourself and see the difference.

 

[paulears]

LED is latest technology in lighting era and it might be the problem that it is not compatible with your old devices but don't worry as LED technology is improving day by day and the issues will be resolved very soon.

I do not wish to buy products that change this quickly. If you need a replacement, or a second unit, it is VERY annoying to have to replace 4 units, because you need 1! This is what is happening at the moment - shelf life is measured in weeks, so specifying LED in a job means providing spares at the point of sale, because they are not available in a couple of months!±

 

[OlegLola]

By the way, our company developed free android app LED Flashlight for Android. I would appreciate if you'll review it. It utilizes the LED flash of device's camera to work in the flashlight mode or the blinking mode.

Check it on Google Play

 

[Con-rad]

LED is good source of light and saves energy. Is it straight replacement for conventional lights? Yes it is. So why some of customers are not fully satisfied with them? There are several factors, which have to be considered before you go for LED. First and for most - do you really need them? All this saving energy talking - in terms of lights (unless of course your have massive warehouses or factory and use 1000 Watt discharge flood lights on 24 hours run) is minority on you energy bill. When you put on your kettle or run microwave in the staff room - this is what has major impact on your final bill. I'm not saying to ban kettles. All I am saying that to achieve considerable proper level of savings on energy bill you have to consider many factors before making decission on how to save energy and where invest to improve energy consumption. This includes the price of LED's themself as they are not cheap and to achieve the same level of light as traditional flood light of fluorescent light is able to produce you have to face an option of more expensive lamps
with higher wattage LED replacements.

 

[Conglomer Group]

Hello Everybody,
What if i say..

LEDs are currently more expensive, price per lumen, on an initial capital cost basis, than more conventional lighting technologies. However, when considering the total cost of ownership (including energy and maintenance costs), LEDs far surpass incandescent or halogen sources and begin to threaten compact fluorescent lamps.

• LEDs must be supplied with the correct voltage
• Over-driving the LED or not engineering the product to manage heat in high ambient temperatures may result in overheating of the LED package, eventually leading to device failure.

 

[paulears]

That of course is the manufacturer's and distributor's view, but the reality is the by the time the recoupment period has passed, you are left with a substantially inferior product that is impossible to re-source (as in you need more of the same) or repair (as in the damn things have failed completely or in part).
Shelf life is tiny - my own kitchen for example has colour changing LED fixtures that light the ceiling. They are now two years old and 50% are faulty in one way or another - electricity savings have not even made a dent in the purchase cost, and to fix the problem, I will need to fe-fit the entire system and start again.

I'm confused about your final two statements. Rather obvious from an electronics point of view - and the thermal issues are not that much different from the wattage maximum labels put on lighting fixtures for years - go brighter, and they fail quicker.

LED is simply a new technology being sold as energy efficient and green. I'm a happy professional LED user, but they are not always replacements for older device, in the main - they're just new useful products.

 

[MikeDover]

Hiya,
I am new here, so don't know if I posting this is the right thread. If wrong, please tell me where to go

However, I am in the process of carrying out 1st fix at a large domestic property.
LED lighting has been specified throughout by the architect. The lights specified are LEDs down light fitting with driver which are approximately £60 each. Following discussions with the homeowner they are keen for me to find a cheaper alternative. I found the website any-lamp.com and was wondering if anybody has any experiences with them?

 

[Rhyl Lightworks]

The original post is over 6 years old now. LED lighting has come a long way since then, and anyone that does not buy it must be mad! Light bulbs are more expensive but the savings on electricity used and the longevity of the bulb make them very economical. People are just going to have to get used to paying more for light bulbs to get savings in the long run.
Barrie

 

[paulears]

Well - I'm now using LED kit in my stage work, and have largely changed my tune, but a whole load of new issues are rising up and they are pretty important.

Light output is up - big time, so that issue has gone away. Shelf-life is down, and I started buying one new model in November for my hire stock and sales. A client called me this week wanting two more - (£750 each) and I had to tell him they were no more, the Chinese factory having moved on to a new model that does more things, but is not a direct swap, needing re-programming of the control equipment. If a client buys a product, we've always expected it to be available a fair while, and progress is too rapid for this. It's feasible that in a domestic situation a product specified before first fix may be unavailable by the date they're ordered. This also impacts on repairs. If you install a high tech system, and one fails - have you budgeted for spares to sit on the shelf for years. If one of these clever fixtures fails, will the householder replace an entire rooms worth, and pay for controller tweaks to make a different unit work? This is a bit scary.

 

[Festoon Lighting]

LED Lighting can cost more to install but has savings of around 60% and can last for around 50,000 hours, around 5 times longer than traditional lighting.

 

[paulears]

and can be obsolete before the house is even moved into. One I was in yesterday had some lovely, expensive LED fixtures, and the owner had asked for more of the same in the room next door, and when they arrived, they are a different white - LEDs from a different batch in the factory. So all is well until one fails, when his spares will only match half the house. The savings in a typical house will never recover the outlay. 50,000 hours is the LED MTBF figure that is calculated, not measured. While the LEDs themselves are reliable, the other components frequently break down. Some I am looking at as I type have already failed - 3 failures in 20 fixtures installed 3 years ago. That's not very good reliability - and I can only replace ALL of them, if I want to match them with the new ones, which are brighter and a different colour. LED is currently 5 times at least more expensive, often 10 times more, and lifespan much, much lower than the 50,000 hours always quoted.

 

[daei007]

I run a theatre - my company put productions on, and we use lots of LED lighting. Over the winter, the 500W linear floodlight we use for work light, and for the cleaners had been replaced by LED versions.

Cost savings are negligible as they are on for 2 or three hours every production day, and that's perhaps 70 days a year. New lamps for the old one were £3.20 each, and they lasted ages.

The new ones do not have the beam spread or punch to light the same area the old tungstens did, and the only solution I have is to now light the same area with theatre lights - 2 X 2KW units, using halogen, quite low hours lamps that cost lots. That's progress!

LED is still not cheap enough, or bright enough, or has equivalent performance to the units they are attempting to replace. I'm buying more and more LED kit for new purposes, but as like for like replacements, they're just not there yet.

Yeah,led is getting more and more popular,it is evengy saving,most of all

 

[daei007]

As i know ,there are many decent designs for led lights ,like 15mm 25mm 30mm cut led downlights

 

[paulears]

I came across this old topic, and was amazed by what I wrote, just a couple of years ago. The same theatre stage is now lit principally by LED light - bucket loads of it and it's never been brighter. In fact, the latest LEDs are so bright we have to pull them back to let the older kit do it's job. The savings in replacement lamps is also enormous. I'm eating my words in just two years. They're also NOT premium band cutting edge lights - just normally available sensible priced ones. Fair enough, I'm buying theatre style LEDs, but you can bet the actual light sources are in loads of the everyday products now.

If you, like me, rejected LED more than two years ago - it could be worth a revisit?

 

[Rickden]

I had bought led light for my motorcycle from motoledlightkits lst yesr, Lights look great on my bike, bought two kits (one for each side) as a kit only has 4 lights.

 

[TLT Property Management]

I got led tubes in my office and they are great imported from China as well but it is a hit and miss with the quality. Some fail after a couple month others run for 5 plus years no issues.

 

[MBE2017]

LED lighting is well worth considering for companies, payback on outlay can be very fast, sometimes under 2 years, and you can use the savings to pay for the new lights on some Gov schemes.

So after payback has been achieved the savings on your bills are yours to keep, but look at several decent companies, loads of cheaper rubbish is being offered as with al booming markets.

 

[Karimbo]

I sell LED light strip fixtures and fittings, dont touch LED lights though, too risky. You can't trust cheap chinese factory electrics that you source from alibaba. I would advise everyone to stay clear of ebay LED bulbs and LED strip power plugs that aren't sourced from a reputable british retailer. You can end up turning your house to ashes if you get cheap ones that blow up and catch fire.

A lot of them are unsafe, bigclivedotcom (youtuber) does reviews of cheap electrics and has done a lot on LED and other mains powered devices. One LED bulb where there is a live exposed wire running through an LED circuit that can electocute you. Not a 12v wire but an actual 230v wire.

 

[paulears]

I thought I'd resurrect this topic because there's almost panic setting in in the theatre industry, as their lighting is effectively being outlawed by EU legislation and 2020 seems to be the end to theatre and entertainment lighting as we know it - theatres, clubs, pubs, schools, colleges, amateur dramatics, music venues - all have equipment that will become landfill. The expensive LED lighting we've been investing in also fails the test! Mixing colours from light sources cannot break the laws of physics so none of the manufacturers can meet the target, and have no equipment in the pipeline to do so. It's not just lamps - that story is a tiny bit of it. It means equipment, some installed in the 50's and still in use, with a few safety mods to make sure electrically, they're ok - will become a big problem. So serious somebody asked Patrick Woodroffe - who lights the mega bands and singer, plus did the Olympics how he will light the next Rolling Stones tour - and he said he can't. Nothing he can buy will do the job. Previously, entertainment lighting had an exemption - from 2020, it won't! More info here. https://uktheatre.org/who-we-are-what-we-do/uk-theatre-blog/save-stage-lighting/

 

[Karimbo]

Hi Paul

I'm sure by then LED equivalents would be made which can substitute the stage lighting. Or the industry changes and uses whatever LED lights are available.

I do think it's a bit draconian to force the old lights to be made redundant - it would be a better compromise to outlaw sales of the old style bulbs from 2020 so when the lights die, they are replaced by compliant ones.

 

[paulears]

That's the trouble - the physics doesn't allow it, so none of the manufacturers even have a plan available. The actual problem is colour mixing. Additive mixing of red, green and blue LEDs to create white. These LEDs have multiple elements in one, which cannot then meet the specs. One thought is that we simply use a white LED, that would meet the spec, the use subtractive mixing with cyan, magenta and yellow dichroic graduated mechanical colour wheels - which would produce the same range of colours - but would be wasteful of energy, but would meet the specs - which is plainly daft. I was just about to buy 5 RGB fixtures for a summer job, at over two grand each. Needless to say, I'm servicing this project with hired in stock, which is safer - but the project would have paid off 50% of the purchase price, which makes future jobs for them cheap, and then free - hiring in is just an expense. The hire company just invested in 40 of them!

As for lamps - some of our lighting does already have LED replacements for the old tungsten lamps. They're not a direct replacement as the colour is different - a much colder white, but the cost is prohibitive - over a grand, going in a ten year old fixture worth perhaps £200? Most of us are stockpiling lamps - which is the best thing to do. The big problem with entertainment lighting is that it is not workshop lighting or shop display lighting. It's artistic, and nobody wants to make short run LED replacements = and for many of the specialist lights we use, LEDs simply cannot do what we need to project images, and have good beam quality - and worse of all, most LEDs are rubbish at dimming. At the bottom of their output, they drop in very obvious steps - no done minute sunsets, because you see the abrupt drops in light. They also have technical problems - we use dimmers, and very few LED replacements work properly with dimmers. The brand new fixtures don't need dimmers - they are controlled externally - so while you can buy for a school say, a 650W Fresnel lensed spotlight for around a hundred quid. There is NO direct plug in replacement, and the nearest thing that might require a new lighting control and electrical wiring changes is around £800 - add on a grand or two for wiring changes, a couple of grand for a new lighting control - and the drama space will remain lit by fluorescent tubes when the theatre types pop a lamp, and they cannot buy a new one. Same with clubs and pubs - when their supplier stops supplying the lamps, and they have to spend over a hundred quid on the nearest, cheapest option - what happens.

Anyone seen a West End show in the past couple of years? NONE of these could have been lit with compliant lighting - none! Do you remember those vibrant, wonderful colours - the shafts of light in the air? Forget those - they'll have some workshop lights to use. Look at any of the Strictly/X-Factor/BGT shows? All those beams in the air creating those great shapes? Yep, they're gone too. All those amazing deep blues? Gone. The cleaner's lights will be absolutely fine - they will stay happy. This is the snag. Physics sets a limit to power conversion into light output. Colour uses only a small part of the spectrum - so making white from 3 colours takes 3 times the power, making the total power look bad, compared to car park lighting power consumption. The legislation makes no mention of this. If you complete, or try to complete, the EU response document, it's bogged down with tumble driers, dishwashers and TVs, lighting is considered only for illumination. If it isn't stopped, plenty of things will just not happen.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Whilst I can understand your concerns as a expert in that field, and it does seem a very short timeframe to operate in. Would the general public really notice any difference and should not the directors make more use of the lights available to compensate against any loss

We all shouted about hoovers with their reduced power but everyone seems to have pushed development to new improved ones, and the same with cars always meeting new environmental restrictions

But again whilst you experts will notice will any other person going to shows maybe once or twice a year

 

[paulears]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zt3g1

Listen here - about 9 mins in, just after super trouper (which ironically, if you didn't know - is big powerful followspot, used to follow people around a stage, and a product that as yet - hasn't;t been equalled with an LED unit, and probably won't be!)

It's a fairly balanced insert on a radio programme - and explained quite well.


To Karimbo - in application, it's the loss of the old lamps that is making scrapping the old ones likely, and while the lamps will be finally banned in 2020 - it seems off that perfectly serviceable equipment is scrapped because of a lamp! However - somebody today suggested the Chinese will probably carry on making them and we can import the illegal lamps from them, as nobody seems to check imported goods that are anything other than counterfeits.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

On Navy warships in the 60's we used to use 25 inch searchlights (size may be slightly different) they operated via a arc between a sick of carbon and a contact to produce a massive amount of light

Jump forward and the helicopters had a light called something like "Night to day"that far exceeded the power of the searchlight

Anyone my age who new Abba songs would understand what a super trouper was

The point, nothing makes more investment into development, than a short time limit, and whats not commercially affordable today, can soon become affordable in a very short time if the market for quantity is there.

 

[paulears]

The snag is that we're almost at the practical limit for power from a certain size package. Martin, Robe and Clay Paky, the world market leaders say it's not practical for LEDs to go above a certain brightness because the heat cannot be removed. Already, the 200W LEDs have huge heat-sinks, that just about cope, so they could make them brighter, and use subtractive colour systems - but the size of the units would be huge - and of course the only solution is forced cooling, which makes noise, which again, rules them out. Already, some of the more powerful units can't be used for plays. The specs were drawn up for white light, which is what it's all about for car parks, security work light replacements - nobody gave any thought to colours! The TV people aren't immune from the problem because they use different colour temperature LEDs so they can adjust to suit shooting requirements - so are labelled 'wasteful'. As Captain Kirk was told frequently, "Ye canna change the laws of physics, Captain"

 

[The Byre]

If I may make a plea for the film industry - modern digital film cameras cannot get a clear colour image from LEDs.

The reasons are simple - LEDs 'transmit' light on three discrete frequencies. Digital cameras receive (like the human eye) the light on three discrete frequencies. These frequencies are absolute, unlike the broad spectrum of light we get from incandescent lamps.

Unfortunately, these frequencies do not match from camera-to-light, leaving what appears to the human eye as white, sometimes having a ghastly green tone that is close to impossible to get rid of in post-production colour grading. On other occasions, I have seen a grey shirt appear on screen as having a whole range of unwanted colours, with the shadows deep purple and the highlights tipping into red or yellow.

There's nothing quite as frustrating as having a sober news interview with a man in a grey suit, who turns into some hippy-like psychedelic, multi-coloured clothed freak with a green face when you get the footage into the editing suite.

To get a proper colour balance and get that 'filmic' look, one uses old-fashioned incandescent lights. The bigger budget movies often even still use 35mm film stock (Nolan, Spielberg and others) which is less likely to fall over into unwanted colour ranges, though the speed and convenience of digital (as well as the lower costs and greater light-sensitivity) means that even Cameron has flipped over to digital (Arri-Alexa) with most made-for-TV movies done on 'Reds' or Blackmagic-Design cameras.

The idea that certain types of lights are going to be banned makes as much sense as banning candles, or telling a painter that he/she must no longer use oils and from now on, only acrylic paints are allowed.

We are not illuminating the local swimming pool or the office lavatory. Light is the paint with which the cinematographer and the stage lighting designer paints. In a rom-com, we know that She loves Him, because a single old-fashioned light bulb is reflected in her eyes - a little spot of light that looks like a star, set in her eyeball, that sets the mood to 'romantic'.

LEDs are great for some things - mostly because they use about one-sixth the energy (don't believe all that one-tenth lark, it ain't true!) That makes location shoots easier and reduces costs for things like cables and generators. BUT ordinary LEDs flash on and off and even the 'dimmable' LEDs used in households simply flash on less for lower light levels, so special LEDs and controllers need to be bought to avoid a strobing effect in the picture. These are far less efficient and fairly expensive.

LEDs for stage work have been wildly successful. Old fashioned cans had to have filter gels that set the light to just one colour and needed bulky dimmer-packs. LEDs can be set to any colour and can of course change colour and do not need dimmer packs. The lower power requirements mean that old cabling can handle brighter staging. LEDs weigh less, so gantries and flies can carry more lighting. LEDs integrate better into a computer controlled DMX environment - but I would not want to see all other types of lighting banished with the same short-sighted hysteria with which politicians and bureaucrats have attacked Diesel cars.

My kitchen has induction hobs, halogen hobs and a wood-burning stove and I use all three for different types of cooking. As much as I love the speed and efficiency of induction, I want all three for different things.