Category: Save energy
Outdoor LED Display – See it in Action!
UPDATED!! New fixtures added!
One of the fastest growing LED markets is in the Outdoor area. We’ve discussed in earlier posts how the indoor LED products are starting to come around, but for the most part, numbers don’t add up. Well in outdoor situations the numbers are a no-brainer! The hardest part about understanding LED is actually seeing it live and in person. We can tell you how a 20w LED fixture will replace a 100 watt High pressure Sodium fixture, but wouldn’t it be nice to actually see it person??? We thought so. So we built a board of LED fixtures to do just that.
Listed from Top Left being #1, to bottom right being #12. Here’s what we have:
1) RAB Lighting’s – 91 Watt Area Light. This fixture is perfect for parking lot lighting and walkway lighting throughout a facility’s property.
2) RAB Lighting’s – 13 Watt Flood/Spot Light. This fixture is perfect for lighting up a flag pole or any outdoor sign.
3) Lithonia Lighting’s – 35 Watt Wall Pack. This general purpose wall pack has an excellent beam pattern and is able to replace up to 175w Metal Halide Wall Pack fixtures.
4) Juno Lighting’s – 50 Watt Decorative Wall Pack – Polaris wall pack designed for higher end architectural look. Ultra efficient LED Fixture with a nice look to match.
5) RAB Lighting’s – 52 Watt Wall Pack – Designed to replace up to a 250w HPS / Metal Halide Wall Pack
6) RAB Lighting’s – 78 Watt Flood Light – Designed to Replace 250w to 320w Metal Halide Flood Lights. Perfect for lighting up the side of building.
7) Lithonia Lighting’s – OLW14 – 26w LED Wall Pack – Ideal above man doors on your building!
8) Lithonia Lighting’s – OLAW – 35w LED Wall/Area Light. Perfect Dusk to Dawn Fixture Replacement
9) Lithonia Lightins’s – OLW – 35w LED Wall Pack – For larger HID Replacement applications
10) RAB Lighting’s – 13w Wall Pack – Designed to replace 50w-70w HID Wall pack, above man doors.
11) RAB Lighting’s – 20w Wall Pack – Designed to replace 70w-100w HID Wall Pack
12) RAB Lighting’s – 26w Wall Pack – Designed to replace 150w HID Wall Pack
One of great features of our display is the nLight Touchpad Control. Thanks to our friends from SensorSwitch, we are able to individually control each light on the board to easily compare like fixtures. The wiring is all done over Cat5 cable, making it easy and cheap to install. This switch will individually control 16 different channels. And it looks cool to boot!
- Here’s what the inner workings look like from the back.
We’re excited to show our display to anyone who would like to see the latest and greatest in LED Fixtures on display. Stop by if you’re in town.
Questions? Comments?
Brian Huff
Adventure Lighting
515.288.0444
Occupancy Sensors For Today’s Offices
Being Green and Saving energy is a big topic for companies. Not only because it saves companies money but also because it’s the right thing to do. And let’s face it, it’s great PR for them – consumers like to know that the companies they buy from, care about the environment.
Hands down the best way to save energy is to not use any at all – call it light abstinence.
And one of the things that can really help is occupancy sensors. They’ve been around for some time, but newer versions have taken the technology one step further, to create a more user friendly product.
Occupancy sensors work the same as a normal wall switch. Except in their case, they can detect when nothing is moving in the room. At that point, they shut off power to the lights.
There are some minor drawbacks.
One of the most annoying things that can happen is when we’re in a bathroom that has an occupancy sensor in it, and the dumb thing shuts off after a few minutes of inactivity, while we’re still there, behind a door. Hello! I’m right here!
Well no more going potty in the dark. (My wife claims I’ve been doing this since we got married.)
New sensors incorporate sound sensitive technolgy that reacts not only to the infared heat of a body when it walks into the room, but also to a person in a bathroom stall yelling, “HEY!! Who shut off the lights?!”
One thing to consider – and this relates to a previous post – when installing occupancy sensors in bathrooms that have fluorescent Lights, make sure you set the sensor to turn off on the longest time available on the unit. When the lights turn off and on a lot, the life of the lamp is greatly reduced AND people get stuck in stalls without lighting – kind of a double whammy.
Jack Huff, along with his son Brian and wife Sue, owns and manages Adventure Lighting in Des Moines, Iowa. For more information, go to www.adventurelighting.com
Turn Out The Lights? Read This Before You Flip The Switch
We’ve been told over the years – by our parents, spouses, bosses and even the U.S. Government – to “turn the lights off when you leave the room.” The reasons are simple – turning off lights conserves energy, saves money and prolongs the life of the light. Right?
Well not always. Believe it or not there are some very good reasons to leave the light on.
First, let’s make it clear – if the light is an old-school incandescent, go ahead and turn it off. And leave it off. Forever. Only 10-15% of the energy consumed by incandescents, actually goes towards illumination. The rest is wasted as heat. So the first step is to replace all of your inefficient incandescent bulbs with modern CFL’s (from Adventure Lighting) – a longer lasting, more energy-efficient, better for the environment, better light, period.
Now to the great fluorescent debate – to turn off or not to turn off?
Fluorescents, when turned on, are like me when I’m watching an NFL game on Sunday afternoons – they really like to be left alone. CFL’s were designed and built to be energy-efficient and thus, happiest when they’re doing their job, providing light. In general, the more you turn a fluorescent on and off, the more you shorten the life of the lamp. The rule of thumb is, if you’re going to be gone more than 15 minutes, go ahead and turn off the light. If it’s less, leave them on.
But there are other considerations.
Fluorescents (and incandescents) require a relatively high “inrush” current when they’re first turned on. The amount of extra electricity required depends on the type of light and the ballast, which provides the initially high voltage needed for igniting the lamp and also regulates the current during the light’s illumination.
There are three basic types of ballasts and three basic forms of ignition, but we won’t go there. Instead, just remember that the amount of electricity used to “start” a fluorescent is roughly equal to operating the light for around five seconds or so. It’s similar to the “should I keep my car running or turn it off” question. In other words, every time you turn on a light, it’s taking you five seconds worth of cost to do so.
Our best advice is to keep your car – and your lights – on.
For example, in India it’s all peak electrical time – there are no off-peak hours. (Glad we’re not running our 50 inch plasma TV over there.) Here in the U.S., peak or “on-peak” hours generally start in the afternoon and last through the early evening. So if you’re going to turn off your fluorescents, do it during this time – but only if you’ll be gone more than 15 minutes.
Otherwise, leave those beautifully stingy, energy-sipping wonders of technology on, let them do their job. They’ll be happy, because they get to light up the room, and so will your smile, because you’ll be happy, too.
And now we want to make you even happier, by giving you something for free!
As we’ve talked about in previous posts, your response to “Here’s A Bright Idea” has been amazing – we can’t thank you enough for your comments, calls and shared interest in saving money and the environment.
To say thank you, we’d like to give you two free CFL’s. No purchase necessary. All you have to do is subscribe to our “Here’s A Bright Idea” blog by email. We’ll then send you an email, telling you how to pick up your two free CFL’s. It’s that easy!
As an email subscriber you’ll also receive other great offers from Adventure Lighting. So sign up, get your two free CFL’s and other great offers from us at Adventure Lighting – and thank you! And if you have a topic or question you’d like us to address in a future blog post, please let us know!
Jack Huff, along with his son Brian and wife Sue, owns and manages Adventure Lighting in Des Moines, Iowa. For more information, go to www.adventurelighting.com
Countering The Rap That LED’s Aren’t So Hot
LED’s have been taking a bum rap recently and we want to set the record straight.
Unlike CFL’s or incandescents, LED, or Light Emitting Diode, create light by running a current through a small computer chip which then emits light. There’s no gas, no mercury, no moving parts – making it one of the most energy efficient and durable lights in the world.
That incredible energy efficiency, however, has LED to some problems. (excuse the pun) In Des Moines and other cold weather cities, incandescent traffic lights are being replaced with high energy efficient LED’s, which are 90% more energy efficient and can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings for cash-strapped cities. The downside is the very advantage that LED’s have – they produce far less heat than their predecessors, which allows snow and ice to build up, particularly during this record breaking winter. That has created visibility issues for drivers and headaches for the city road crews who have to clear the snow and ice by hand.
Truth be told, on the coldest, snowiest, windiest days, no traffic light – incandescent, LED or burning caveman torch – can keep up with the snow and ice. Otherwise there are solutions. Plastic covers can be placed over the lights, or they can be coated with a special moisture repellent substance. Airports usually add heating elements to their energy efficient LED’s and still see dramatic savings.
But many businesses also use the cooler running characteristic of LED’s and CFL’s to their advantage.
Adventure Lighting is currently retrofitting the cooler lights – literally the lights in the coolers, where beverages are kept cold – at all Short Stop Convenience Store locations, as well as other businesses where refrigerated products require display lighting. These new energy efficient LED’s produce 60% energy savings by themselves, plus their lower operating temperature means refrigeration units don’t have to work as hard. That energy saving one-two punch is great news for business owners looking to pinch every penny in this economy.
This type of savings also holds true for businesses where there are lots of lights in general – replacing wasteful incandescents with more energy efficient, cooler running CFL’s means lower lighting costs year-round plus lower cooling costs in the summer. There’s also a safety factor for residential customers who switch to CFL’s – they generate less heat which means they won’t burn your kids’ (or your) hands or create the high heat of incandescents that can, and do, ignite nearby cloth and other combustibles.
And while we probably wouldn’t mind a little extra heat from our lights during this coldest of winters, think about it this way – you can put your hands around an old 100 watt incandescent bulb to stay warm, or you can replace it with an energy efficient CFL and use the money you’ll be saving to pay for turning up the furnace a bit. Or to buy extra fire wood for your fireplace. Or an extra blanket. 🙂
Jack Huff, along with his son Brian and wife Sue, owns and manages Adventure Lighting in Des Moines, Iowa. For more information, go to www.adventurelighting.com
Get Your Rebates Now – But Will They Last?
One of the biggest selling points of our Adventure Lighting lights, especially for business owners, is that over time, the lights pay for themselves and then some – through their light efficiency and cost savings.
Therer’s also another very compelling reason to switch your company’s lights from incandescents to CFL’s – in most cases, the retrofit is paid for, lights and labor, with the Mid-American Energy Rebate program.
But now comes the scary part – will the rebates last? We’ve heard about approaching deadlines for TARP funds, and news headlines talking about funding running out for other savings programs. We also hear from company owners and consumers who question whether the Mid-American rebate program will be around long-term.
Not to worry, says Mark Reinders, communications manager for Mid-American Energy.
He told us that, while he would “never say never,” the rebate program, which started in Iowa 10 years ago, has “no sunset clause” and will be around a long time. Reinders emphasized that the Mid-American’s energy efficiency programs have had “a huge impact on lowering greehouse gases and producing costs savings for customers.” An additional benefit, says Reinders, is that “Mid-American Energy doesn’t have to keep building new plants.” So it’s a win-win-win, for consumers, the company and the environment.
The program has become so popular that it’s been expanded by Mid-American Energy to include Illinois, South Dakota and most recently, Nebraska – but Iowa was the first and, we think, the best! In fact, Mark told us that one of the reasons the program has been so measureably successful in Iowa is because of our steady population numbers – while energy consumption has increased (all those computers and big screen TV’s and Ipods, I suppose) our state population has remained constant, therefore the overall impact of the program has been greater.
In a future post, I’ll talk more about the rebate program process, how it works and how much money it can save your business – the numbers are truly amazing!
For now anyway, we can all rest easy – those fantastic Mid-American Energy rebates aren’t going anywhere. 🙂
Jack Huff, along with his son Brian and wife Sue, owns and manages Adventure Lighting in Des Moines, Iowa. For more information, go to www.adventurelighting.com.
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