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Lighting
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Spaulding Lighting Increases Lumen Output of Cimarron Luminaire by Up to 30%
SolidStateLightingDesign News Staff
September 20, 2012...Spaulding Lighting of Greenville, South Carolina USA, a Hubbell Lighting Inc. brand, announced that the company has increased the lumen output of its most popular area lighting fixture, the Cimarron LED by 15-30%. Spaulding says that its latest LED enhancements result in a luminaire that delivers up to 98 lumens per watt and allows for multiple LED configurations with over 26,000 lumens. The luminaire's enhancements are reportedly available at no additional cost.

The Cimarron LED Series was designed to deliver energy efficiency, safety and security and meet DLC and Lighting Facts requirements. It is available in configurations of Type II, III, IV and V distributions in 36 high brightness LED configurations.
The luminaire has a solid die-cast housing assembly that allows upgrading of the LED technology. The 5000k CCT fixture is designed to IP65, UL1598 and is Design Lights Consortium approved . It has a projected life of 60,000 hours.
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Crossroads LED Retrofits Lighting at Tulsa Performing Arts Center
SolidStateLightingDesign News Staff
September 18, 2012...Crossroads LED, a designer and manufacturer of white and multi-color LED lighting products based in Owasso, Oklahoma USA, recently completed the first stage of an LED retrofit of the Performing Arts Center in Tulsa , Oklahoma. Crossroads says that the the retrofit luminaires are compatible with ETC and Strand dimming controls in use at performing arts centers, theaters, museums and amusement parks.
The Performing Arts Center (PAC), occupies half a city block of the historic downtown district and houses five theaters and a world-class reception hall. Crossroads LED was awarded a contract to renovate the existing lighting platform of the PAC to LED luminaires earlier this year.
“Our retrofit products have allowed our company to successfully compete in the ever increasing and competitive LED illumination market and win major lighting contracts,” said Dana Stefanoff, President of Crossroads LED, “because large venues often do not have the resources to purchase all new LED fixtures for their facilities. Our retrofit luminaires are a cost-effective solution to increasing light output while decreasing energy usage. It’s a ‘win-win’ for venue owners.”
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Acuity Brands Opens Facility in Canada
SolidStateLightingDesign News Staff
September 18, 2012...Acuity Brands announced the opening of its new 60,000-square-foot facility for Acuity Brands Canada that combines the company’s Lighting and Controls offices. Located in Toronto, the new facility includes offices, a warehouse distribution center and a showroom. Twelve offices within the building incorporate a variety of Acuity Brands® value stream products to illustrate lighting solutions in office applications. Additionally the company notes that the entire building is networked with nLight® controls from Sensor Switch®.
Acuity Brands Canada will reportedly offer a full calendar of training modules as well as custom training sessions for sales agency partners and their customers. The facility will also feature lab space to allow the controls division to pre-program and test products, and offer hands-on training.
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O2Micro Again Sidesteps Dimmer Compatibility Issues with New Isolated Step-Dimming Driver
SolidStateLightingDesign News Staff
September 18, 2012...O2Micro® International Limited of Santa Clara, California USA, reports having extended the company’s Free Dimming™ technology and Lighting product portfolio with the introduction of the OZ8027A. The company is continuing in its somewhat roundabout, but perhaps more cost effective approach of tackling the dimming compatibility problem with LEDs. Instead of creating a complex dimming driver that works with the wide range of possible lighting dimmers, they have linked an integrated circuit and driver to any regular on/off switch. The effect is that the LED light can get step-down dimming to preset levels by toggling the on/off switch.
O2Micro asserts that its patented Free Dimming technology enables LED bulbs to dim using any on/off switch, thus eliminating cost, installation and compatibility problems associated with traditional incandescent dimmers. The company contends that its technology works with any on/off switches including: wall toggles, paddle switches, pull cords, rotary switches and other types of on/off switches commonly found on walls, extension cords and table/desk lamps.
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Solid State Capital Services Launched to Provide Vetting, Tax Surveys, and Financing Services for LED Lighting Installations
SolidStateLightingDesign News Staff
September 13, 2012...Solid State Capital Services, LLC (SSCS) has been launched to provide comprehensive management of the financial aspects of a property owner/operator’s deployment of high efficiency LED lighting solutions. The company notes that while many manufacturers work to assist their customers in assessing the energy savings-driven ROI, there has been very little done to address the business case that includes all of the available tax and incentive opportunities.
A number of other companies have gone so far as to offer to financing for installation of LED lighting with projected savings of electricity. Solid State Capital Services, in addition to offering financing, also vets proposed systems with regard to the potential risk involved with selecting sub-standard luminaires when it comes to claiming those tax incentives or rebates from local utilities. However, the company is independent and does not design or propose lighting solutions and does not promote a particular LED lighting company.
Don McDougall, Vice President & General Manager of SSCS, commented, "The mission of SSCS is simply to provide evaluation services to the owner and owner representative (engineer, architect, and lighting consultant) in order to identify and take advantage of better cash flow and accelerated ROI. Those will be achieved with the adoption of high quality, solid state lighting class (LED) fixtures both for renovation and new construction, so we can all enjoy the wider commercial and environmental benefits that will result," he concluded.
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Quality of Light Going Mainstream
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
September 20, 2012...Quality of light has always been an interesting phrase, but it's getting even more interesting with the increasing adoption of LED lighting. Back in "the day", when incandescents were pretty much the only choice, quality of light (QoL) wasn't much of a discussion since there wasn't much you could do about it. Mercury vapor lamps came along pretty early in the history of electric light, being invented in 1901, with versions pretty similar to those lamps today having been introduced in 1930s. This was probably the first big step in the QoL discussion, because there was now a standard for "bad" quality light (didn't say it was a forward-step). As described in a pretty detailed History of Light and Lighting web page (electricity shows up in the middle of the timeline):
Within three to five minutes after ignition, the mercury is completely vaporized and the characteristic blue-green spectrum of the mercury discharge is emitted. It contains strong ultraviolet radiation at wavelengths of 254 nm and 365 NM Radiation in the red area of the spectrum is virtually negligible. A mercury lamp's color temperature ranges between 4000K and 4500K, while its color rendering index (CRI) is only approximately 20, for a clear bulb. Applying phosphor coatings to the outer bulb increases the light output by 10 to 15 percent and improves the CRI to approximately 50.
It just sounds bad from the outset. In the good news department, it delivered 5x the efficiency of an incandescent lamp, which is also the bad news, since even then, power companies charged for electricity, and less usage cost less money. Efficiency demands arguably drove bad lighting.
Just a bit later, the fluorescent lamp was first introduced to the public at the New York World's Fair in 1937, followed by its commercial introduction in 1938. Now we were saved! There were now at least two sources of bad lighting, and QoL was primed for a real debate! By 1940, we had the PAR (sealed beam) lamp, which put everyone in a position to compare the effects of incandescent vs. gas-discharge vs. phosphor-generated lighting solutions. We did have things like art galleries and department stores, so it's safe to say decision makers did notice when QoL mattered, and when it did, incandescent was the choice.
Fast forward a half-century or so, and we arrive at a point where you could actually get decent quality light, as well as decent color rendering, from several of the higher efficiency sources. Still not great, but competitive considering the difference in energy usage (and subsequent operating costs). Everyone had carved out their turf, and other than CFLs finally delivering on decent QoL themselves, nothing much happened until late in the first decade of the 21st century. LED lighting showed up, and guess what? While it had the potential to be of decent quality, little of it was, and even littler of it was cost-effective versus the performance. (The claims versus the incumbents were very impressive, but the reality tended to lag a bit).
As we arrive at "now", quality of light has become a discussion again, and I'd be willing to submit it is going to be a big one. We invested a few minutes with the team from Soraa this last week, and it is interesting to note that as an LED pure-play stepping into a big, well established market, they are going head-to-head against halogen MR16 lamps with a pretty simple message, "We offer quality of light that goes beyond halogen" Dude! Understand that this is interesting not so much because of their approach to the technology (LEDs that can be driven really-really hard, allowing it to be a single die shining on a pretty 'rich' phosphor... no shadows, nice distribution, increased R9), but because they are going against high-footcandle incandescents in a painfully small form-factor where color quality is king. It's what incandescents do really well, as long as one ignores the efficiency issue. Interesting as well is the Soraa is doing it not on a lumens per watt message, but a "lux" basis to focus in on light delivered as the MR competitor would deliver it. QoL has to be their message since it is almost universally why the halogen MR16 is in that fixture, in that specific application, in the first place.
Soraa isn't the first to push QoL by any means. All the major LED manufacturers (Lumileds, Cree, Osram, Nichia, etc) have been trying to push QoL for years as a way to differentiate from "those low cost LED providers". CRI, CCT, lumen depreciation and color shift curves have been part of their message and product toolbox for a while. Xicato has done an excellent job of establishing its brand name as an OEM LED "module" supplier totally wrapped around QoL (very high CRI, enhanced R9 and R15) and are now emphasizing the quality-over-time element by asking, "What if a toilet floods and shorts out a luminaire in the gallery 5 years after installation? Will the replacement fixture match in terms of output and color?" Good question. They say theirs will, and that matters in a number of applications.
So as we look to the near future, I expect quality of light to start to get even more play and to begin to enjoy and expanded definition to move beyond "the quality of the source's light output" to include "the quality of the lighting experience". While we'll be demanding that the source continue to improve, in both the kind of light it produces, and how controllably and efficiently it does it, we'll also want it to be light that is "good for people" in terms of serving the need to see, and the need for the space to be pleasing and productive. Both will be good things.
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