Induction Lighting For Parking Lots

[litebulb]

Is this stuff any good? Whay don't the big manufactures push it if it is. I think LED and Flourescent are a lot more promising.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

Welcome to the forum. I have not seen inductive lighting but maybe someone here can help.

 

[Ragin Cajun]

Induction lighting really shines where the cost of replacing lamps and ballasts is significant or difficult. Take tunnels, high lobbies, etc.

The lamp life is around 100,000 hours and the ballast can be remote mounted. Lamp color is also good.

They definitely have their place.

RC

 

[cpinetree]

Induction lights

Induction lights

Induction lighting is fluorescent lighting, instead of an arc being produced inside the lamp to excite the gas, the gas is excited externally with a large coil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_lighting

there are no Induction lamps (afaik) that are made to equal the light output of say a 1000w metal halide lamp, but you can get a 200 watt fluorescent (induction). They are large compare to a 250 / 400 watt metal halide lamp, so they are more difficult to retrofit.

It is best to use a fixture designed for the induction lamp with the proper reflector etc.

 

[BullsnPyrs]

We have had good results with induction lighting to replace HID wallpacks and medium wattage pole fixtures at some community colleges. We have had a lot of quality issues with the manufacturer but the results were good once the project was complete. The bigger lighting manufacturers do not seem to be pushing induction, preffering to focus on LED. They seem to think induction is a dead end and LED is the future in lighting.

 

[char]

I agree that induction lighting is becoming obsolete. It does have good color and long lamp life, however the lamp is quite large making it difficult to control the distribution. LEDs can be very tightly controlled, are alot smaller, and have a much higher lumen/watt.

 

[beanland]

ODOT Tunnel

ODOT Tunnel

I saw a recent tunnel on Highway 205 in Portland, OR, using a bank of induction fixtures. These are a great improvement over the linear fluorescent and HID fixtures previously used. High efficacy and long maintenance interval, just what ODOT wanted. But, LED fixtures will make induction lamps obsolete in the very near future.

 

[Lamp Jockey]

There's a pretty good push from the Utilities for Induction up here in the Northeast right now. I just completed a Wall-Pack retrofit, going from 150W/250W MH to 70W/150W Induction. Looks great and the Utility picked up 50% of the tab.

 

[tom baker]

There is a renewed interest in induction due to the long life of LEDs and the LEDs high cost, users see induction as an alternative.
One advantage not mentioned is induction are instant on, to 80% of inital lumens. The lamp is large, so there poor control on where the light goes. Lighting professionals call this a Blob of Light (LEDs are small sources and can be controlled)
One disadvantage is there is a small amount of mercury. There are good applicatons for induction, esp as an induction wall pack is $300 where an LED is $600.
Your lighting rep can run photometrics for you to evaluate the light put on the ground.
LED will eventually have this market, but not quite yet. For example, there is no more R&D being put into HPS as its a mature product.

 

[Next Generation]

In my honest opinion Induction and LED fixtures do nothing but hurt the electrical trade. Both are high dollar and lamp life is too long. Don't mean to come across this way but it takes work away from the contractor. You can't just change a lamp out anymore you need to change out everything. Show me a contractor that has enough money to be carrying around a whole bunch of replacement parts or show me a customer who is willing to wait for you to order to parts and go without the illumination. Just saying...

 

[MadWulf]

Induction lighting is interesting. I have had clients ask for induction lighting, and there really is not that great of a cost difference. The manufacturers say how induction lighting "looks" brighter and you can therefore use fewer fixtures. The problem with this comes in calculating the point-by-points and the difference between scotopic and photopic. IES guidelines do not recognize scotopic, and light meters only measure photopic. I have talked with my engineer friends and they all design to IES guidelines, and end up installing more induction fixtures than what would be required if scoptopic was recognized by IES. I currently do the same thing. I do not want the liability if someone sues one of my clients due to low light levels.

Once IES and light meters catch up and include scotopic, induction lighting could become more popular. I fear it will take too long and newer technologies will appear and make induction obsolete.

 

[mtfallsmikey]

How about the combination induction bulb/built-in ballasts, are they rated for exterior use? I am considering these for courtyard lighting, bollard type fixtures, to replace 70 watt HID's

 

[michael mckague]

You can expect ballast failures, just like the rest of the industry, but I have had only 2 fail out the about 100 installs not bad for now. Careful around the lamp and reflector while illuminated, they have a tendency to zap when there are not attached to the rest of the fixture, from the induction. Not having electrodes gives the lamps an advantage for life expectancy.

 

[weressl]

Is this stuff any good? Whay don't the big manufactures push it if it is. I think LED and Flourescent are a lot more promising.

It is very good. Longer life, less cost, higher retention of light output at the end of service life than LED's and better CRI. The LED's are mass produced in China with the usual problem of unpredictable quality control and their fierce push in the market why induction is taking the backseat. Both have the advantage of relatively low operating temperatures that is a critical issue in the petrochemical industry and other classified locations.

 

[SparkyEngineer]

Induction is more of a proven technology than LED (in my opinion) at this point of the game, but it is more of a niche product. We typically use them in hard to service areas (over escalators, high atriums, bridges/tunnels and similar locations. They are cost prohibitive to use for standard site lighting applications, particularly when considering change of lightning, etc. damaging ballasts.

 

[Strife]

I don't know. Jury's still out on life of LED's.
I'm hearing some serious horror stories through the grapevine.(mainly some of my vendors)

In my honest opinion Induction and LED fixtures do nothing but hurt the electrical trade. Both are high dollar and lamp life is too long. Don't mean to come across this way but it takes work away from the contractor. You can't just change a lamp out anymore you need to change out everything. Show me a contractor that has enough money to be carrying around a whole bunch of replacement parts or show me a customer who is willing to wait for you to order to parts and go without the illumination. Just saying...

 

[jdsmith]

I don't know. Jury's still out on life of LED's.
I'm hearing some serious horror stories through the grapevine.(mainly some of my vendors)

It all depends on what you buy - if you stick to established manufacturers, don't buy the cheapest thing they have, and give yourself some thermal margin (for example applying a light rated for 55 deg C ambient in a location that will see no more than 40 deg C) you may be OK. I have begun evaluating LED lights for use in petrochemical plants and there are a wide variety of designs. Some fixtures look like the second prototype from a junior high science project and some are professionally put together. The length of the warranty can be a useful indicator - all manufacturers have conducted enough product testing to have a good clue about how long the product will last, so their willingness to offer a longer warranty may indicate something about the life of the product.

 

[Open Neutral]

DC Metro (WMATA) had a tens of feet long ~8" diam tube in the Gallery Place station for several years. It was clearly some kind of HID lighting but I never saw any details on it. Does such ring any bells here?

 

[weressl]

I agree that induction lighting is becoming obsolete. It does have good color and long lamp life, however the lamp is quite large making it difficult to control the distribution. LEDs can be very tightly controlled, are alot smaller, and have a much higher lumen/watt.

Not quite so.

The virtually single dimension (unidirectional)nature of how the LED's create illumination makes them appear to have higher efficacy. The very same reason also produces a high glare factor that produces sharp shadows and the illumination is far less diffused than virtually any other light sources.

Whereas LEDs provide direct illumination, task lighting well and the various fixtures created around the light source go to great lengths to diffuse those with various bouncers and reflectors, fixtures with other lightsources need little manipulation to accomplish the same.

The LED's also appear to loose a lot when pushed through a diffuser, therefore most of them have a clear glass or polycarbonate lens and no diffusers or prismatic lenses.

Observing a lighted multisrtucture open building filled with equipment appears much more 'illuminated' with an HID source than with LED, when observed from a distance.

 

[BullsnPyrs]

Light Tube

Light Tube

DC Metro (WMATA) had a tens of feet long ~8" diam tube in the Gallery Place station for several years. It was clearly some kind of HID lighting but I never saw any details on it. Does such ring any bells here?

Sounds like light Tube, a PVC tube with HID fixtures at each end. While with another company years ago we put it on top of a Ft Lauderdale building to outline the steel pyramid they used to hide the chillers.