Cold Cathode lighting

Have you taken a look at implementing cold cathode lighting into your home and/or business life?

While Thomas Edison’s invention of the incandescent light bulb revolutionized the world and served humans for centuries, the time has come to tip our hats to Edison and leap forward into the 21^st century while embracing technologies advancements.   

Perhaps it is time to evaluate your lighting services, how well they are serving your needs and how they are affecting our planet.

There are too many benefits of using cold cathode to not consider giving the technology a try at the very least - as it is extraordinarily dependable and cost efficient. The cold cathode lighting provides high reliability, very low maintenance and uses minimal energy, making it ideal for residential and commercial uses. 

Of late, cold cathode engineering has been conformed and implemented into compact lighting products and are appreciating a median lifespan rating of 25,000 hours as well as boasting dimming capabilities. These long-life and energy saving lamps are ideal for particular applications, such as signage, where abbreviated maintenance and energy costs are coveted. The soft starting of the cathodes assures foresighted lamp life and unparalleled execution under difficult ambient circumstances.  In many cases the cold cathode lights make much more economic sense than LEDs.  They are generally less than half the price than LEDs. 

Cold Cathode lighting is the illumination of the present and the future. Some of you may have had the luck and pleasure of experiencing Cold Cathode in action. Some photo copy machines, mobile phones, liquid crystal display television screens and computer monitors are boasting the Cold Cathode technology.  

Take a look at some of the benefits you can reap when using Cold Cathode lighting:

·        Filament free resulting in no failures from vibration

·        Free from fire and explosion dangers as they operate “coldly”

·        Use 1/3 of the energy of Incandescent lighting

·        Boasts operating lifes up to 25,000 hours burning-over 10 times that of an Incandescent lamp

·        Full dimming capabilities – even down to 2 percent

pulse-start metal halide lighting

There are two types of metal halide light bulbs - probe start and pulse start

Metal halide light bulbs are used in exterior lighting (parking lot lights, street lights, wallpacks, many exterior lights).   They fall under a type of lighting called HID or high intensity discharge lighting, which includes metal halide, high pressure sodium, and mercury vapor. 

Lower wattage metal halide light bulbs have always been pulse-start.  Only recently have higher wattage bulbs (150 watt and above) become available in pulse-start.

The higher wattage probe-start metal halide fixtures are slowly being phased out.  Per the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 new fixtures between 150-500 watt can no longer contain probe-start metal halide ballasts

Pulse start metal halide is superior in quality and performance compared to traditional metal halide lamps which use probe start technology. It optimizes the start up process and evenly distributes heat throughout the lamp. The noticeable benefits are faster start-up time, more energy efficiency, better lumen maintenance and longer life. 

Probe start metal halide lamps use three electrodes in the arc tube to start the lamp: one starter electrode and two operating electrodes. The starter electrode creates a discharge across from an operating electrode. The electrons discharged jumps through the small gap between these two electrodes to start the lamp. A bi-metal switch disconnects the starter electrode from the circuit after the lamp is started. Every start-up of the lamp causes tungsten from the electrodes to sputter and stain the arc tube wall. This cause lumen depreciation which means the light output of the lamp decreases as it is operated. Over time the arc tube wall darkens and reduces the performance of the lamp.

This weakness in probe start metal halide lamps is resolved in the redesign of the lamp into using pulse start technology. Pulse start metal halide lamps use a high voltage ignitor and the ballast to create a series of high voltage pulses which start the lamp. The ignitor reduces the sputtering of tungsten as it heats up electrodes faster in the start-up process. It also allows the reduction of the pinch or seal area at the end of the arc tube thereby reducing heat loss and warm-up time. The immediate benefit of this redesign is higher lumen maintenance which means lamps can provide sufficient illumination and operate for a longer period of time before needing replacement.

The development of the pulse start technology increased lamp life and energy efficiency comparable to high pressure sodium lamps. In addition, it also produces desirable color characteristics.  The extended life of the pulse-start metal halide bulbs will reduce long term lighting maintenance costs

Pulse-start metal halide lamps are now available in a 5000 kelvin color, with a color rendering index of over 90.  This makes pulse-start metal halide an attractive lighting retrofit to both high pressure sodium lighting and traditional probe-start metal halide lamps.

Traditional probe start metal halide ballasts run using electromagnetic ballasts.  While many pulse-start lights also run off electromagnetic ballasts, they are more efficient, and there are some electronic ballasts available for pulse-start metal halide lights.  The electronic ballasts available today are typically only available for the wattage 150 and lower, but higher wattage electronic ballasts are expected to come on the market soon.

In Idaho there are currently incentives from Idaho Power for retrofitting old probe-start metal halide fixtures to pulse-start.  

Pulse-start technology is superior to probe-start lamps in almost every measurable way – longer life, better lumen maintenance, faster start up time, greater lumens per watt.  

At Bright Ideas Lighting Co in Boise Idaho we are your experts in lighting retrofits of all types including pulse-start metal halide.  Call us at 208-378-1889

8 foot light fixture upgrade

Recently we had a commercial lighting upgrade project in Boise, Idaho where the customer had 8' T12 fixtures that each had 4 light bulbs in them.  They were big fixtures that looked very dated and they were not very energy efficient.    Each fixture was consuming 276 watts and not producing adequate light.

We looked at a couple of different options and decided that it was not worth it to attempt to retrofit the old fixture to something more energy efficient like T8 8' lamps.  

The better approach was to scrap the old fixture entirely and use a new 8' fixture with tandem 4' T8 light bulbs.  The 4' T8 bulbs last longer than the 8' lamps and are much more energy efficient.  

We used high performance ballasts and high lumen T8 light bulbs.  The new fixtures use 110 watts and produce more light than the old fixtures.  

Also the light quality is better.  The old 8' T12 bulbs had a color rendering index of only 60, while the new T8 4' bulbs have a CRI of 83. 

The old T12 8' light bulbs only had a rated life time of 12,000 hours, while the new high performance T8 light bulbs have a rated life of 24,000 hours.

By using the energy saving fixtures and high performance bulbs and ballasts we were able to get the customer Idaho Power rebates that paid for approximately 70 percent of total project costs. 

The energy savings on each fixture is estimated at approximately $37 per year.   The energy savings in the first year is more than the after rebate cost of each fixture.  

Bright Ideas Lighting Co also warrantied all the bulbs and ballasts on this job for 2 years, thus eliminating lighting maintenance costs!

It is important when doing commercial lighting projects like this to make use you use a licensed electrical contractor who has experience in lighting upgrades.   

LED T8 light tubes

We at Bright Ideas Lighting Co recently did a commercial lighting upgrade at a building in downtown Boise, Idaho.  The job qualified for rebates from Idaho Power and was run through the custom efficiency program at Idaho Power, which pays rebates of 12 cents per kilowatt hour saved.

This project was the first time that we have used the new T8 LED lighting tubes.  We have been skeptical of these in the past, based on their price and relatively minor improvements over high efficiency T8 fluorescent lights.  However, in this situation the lights in question were over 45 feet in the air and the only way to get to the lights was by building an expensive scaffolding.   The T8 light tubes that we purchased were rated at 60,000 hours, which is significantly longer than even the T8 extra long life bulbs.  

Below is the picture of the lights before any retrofit was done.  The height of the lights made maintenance very difficult.  Maintenance on the bulbs had not been done in several years due to the cost of the scaffolding build.

T12 fluorescent

The bulbs before the lighting retrofit were T12 "cool white" color.   The owner of the building wanted to brighten up the look and decided to go with a higher kelvin 5500K lights. 

Even though the LED tubes were significantly more expensive than just a simple T12 to T8 lighting retrofit, we felt that in this case the extra cost of the LED tubes was justified. 

LED tube lights

These lights were at a location that was simply not accessable by use of a scissor lift.   The only way to get to the lights was through scaffolding build, at a cost of thousands of dollars, and a large disruption to clients.

Before the lighting retrofit there were no lighting controls on these lights and they ran 24/7.   We have now added a lighting control that turns off the lights in evenings and weekends.  This will significantly cutdown the overall run time of the lights. 

With the LED tube lights and the addition of the time clock controlling the lighting hours we believe it will be several years before the scaffolding build needs to be done again.  

Stay tuned for more information on this project as it will be featured on Idaho Power's "success stories" page, where Idaho Power recognizes outstanding lighting retrofit projects.