Out with the offensive fluorescent lamps.

[Electric-Light]

Cognitive bias testing

Cognitive bias testing

iwire, here's an awesome cognitive bias testing

Several conference rooms used to host classes for lighting and electrical personnel.

Classrooms are fitted with volumetric recessed luminaires that hide the lamps and cleverly fitted with both 48" T8 RE80 4100K and 48* T8 4000K dimmable Cree T8 drop-in lamps and on separate switches. A remotely controlled contactors are used to select between F32T8 vs LED. They're both on dimming ballasts.

AM, classroom 1: Mode selector is set to Cree LED lamps at the AV room, dimming controller set to bypass. Room lighting is shut off for presentation slides and accomplished by the instructor asking the person near the light switch to hit the switch. 2x4 ceiling panels are kinda dirty, some with stains, One near the podium has a broken off corner.

PM, classroom 2: Mode selector is set to utilize F32T8 841: Same students. Instructor activates the projector. Lutron Grafik Eye coordinated with AV system fades the lighting down to 1% smoothly and ramps up to 100% smoothly. The room has immaculate 2x4 panels. Sometime during the class, instructor mentions he was told the room was recently upgraded to the latest LED technology.

In the second example, CEU students are purposely told the classroom using the F32T8 841 fluorescent lamps was retrofitted with LEDs. These same students attended the first part of class day before in a classroom that was actually LED lit in earlier part of the day.

Now let's see what happens when they're surveyed at the end and the comments they write.

Do you believe that comment on LED upgrade and the added touch of dimming affects the survey results?

Session 3 the next day can discuss the survey results dispelling the LED myths.

 

[iwire]

If humans feel it is brighter, if humans like working under them that is the only thing that matters.

I find it silly to go on and on about facts and figures if the humans paying the bills are happy.

 

[Electric-Light]

If humans feel it is brighter, if humans like working under them that is the only thing that matters.

I find it silly to go on and on about facts and figures if the humans paying the bills are happy.

I agree,so long as there's no incentives on them. its not the purpose of fees to pay for some lighting that has not been proven as not a placebo.

 

[Fulthrotl]

I agree,so long as there's no incentives on them. its not the purpose of fees to pay for some lighting that has not been proven as not a placebo.

it would appear that the people collecting the fees don't share your point of view.

 

[Electric-Light]

it would appear that the people collecting the fees don't share your point of view.

taxes aren't high enough. Tax collector is justifying taxes and its spending. Hardly a surprise.
Those fees charged on bills in addition to "tax" is just another form of tax.

" sustainability " " LEED " are just some catchy things used by politicians to promote business for developers disguised under some non-sense.

 

[mirawho]

I agree,so long as there's no incentives on them. its not the purpose of fees to pay for some lighting that has not been proven as not a placebo.

What about the incentives on fluorescents? The incentive program is not geared towards some secret behind-the-scenes businesses controlling the direction of lighting, it is a move to reduce power consumption. The end user, the consumer or business owner, is the winner. That is what we, as electrical designers, installers and servicemen are supposed to present to the people that are dependent on our knowledge to help them find the right equipment that works for them. To call LED's a "not proven placebo" shows how little you know about LED's. I have brought this up before and I will bring it up again. Our company is one of a group of large entertainment rental and production businesses in the US. I personally design lighting for large award shows, movie premieres and special events. We stay at the forefront of lighting technology. The last time I brought this up, you blew off it as it just being entertainment lighting. I don't know what you know about entertainment lighting, but I know a lot about it. The lighting that is used in concert and stage lighting situations is the most technologically advanced lighting in production. That technology works its way into the home and business. These lights you think are toys sell sometimes in the $20,000 range each, so you can best believe people that purchase these lights (like us) have done our homework when we spend half a million dollars on lighting.

LED's, as much as you want them to be a placebo for who knows what you think will come, are THE forefront of lighting technology. Fluorescent technology has probably peaked as with HMI/HID technology. This is old school lighting and, I imagine, as LED technology advances, will be phased out like incandescent lighting.

The amount of power needed to light a show using HMI and/or Incandescent lighting compared to a show mainly using LED lighting is the difference between night and day. The amount of money a client saves in the reduction of power distribution gear enables our clients to get a better show for less. The fact that a single 12/3 cable can power a complete floor cyc instead of sending out 120@ in a multi-cable speaks for itself. The the labor involved in patching in all the stage pins and 2-fering the circuits together and trying maintain phase balance is a minor pain. With the LED's, you can chain the PCN connectors together and you are done. You take gel and gel burnouts out of the equation because of the huge color palette you have with LED's. Again, this technology is making it's way into residential and commercial uses. Our outside sales department has done millions of dollars in conversions from HID building lighting to LED luminaires and the results are spectacular and power savings great. And in the years we have been doing this, we have had little complaints about the lights.

So, like most conspiracy theories, yours is a wash. The great LED sales conspiracy is really only lighting companies and their engineers looking for better energy savings solutions for the end user. Solid state will be the future of commercial and residential lighting. Not just because of the energy savings, but because of the versatility of the light itself.

 

[mirawho]

And, just so you know, we use fluorescent lighting too. But, since all fluorescents (unless they have had magenta added to them) have a large green spike in the color spectrum. This green spike is visible to the naked eye but is most prominent to a camera. When you use color corrected fluorescents, they are deep magenta until they warm up or have been used for a while. And once they do have more than a few hours on them, they start to brown out like other fluorescents. I have a light we had manufactured for us that uses 6 - biax lamps. We have to purchase lamps like OSRAM Studio Color to use them for our purposes and this lamp is 3 times the price of a non-corrected lamp. We don't have that problem with LED's. Anyway, for all of your effort, you will absolutely have zero effect on the direction of lighting technology. You will still be preaching all of your negative ideas while others are making money doing retrofits of LED products.

 

[iwire]

If humans feel it is brighter, if humans like working under them that is the only thing that matters.

I find it silly to go on and on about facts and figures if the humans paying the bills are happy.

I agree,so long as there's no incentives on them. its not the purpose of fees to pay for some lighting that has not been proven as not a placebo.

What fees specifically?

The purpose of the incentives being handed out in my area are to reduce energy consumption. If the energy used is less when we are done converting to LEDs then the purpose of the program has been achieved regardless of the measured or perceived light output.

It happens that the LED conversion jobs I have done the customers have felt the light output was higher. I don't know how they will feel in 5 years. However this is a nice change from a fairly recent T8 to T5 conversion that dropped the light output significantly (Number of lamps was cut) where the customer was dissatisfied.

taxes aren't high enough. Tax collector is justifying taxes and its spending. Hardly a surprise.
Those fees charged on bills in addition to "tax" is just another form of tax.

" sustainability " " LEED " are just some catchy things used by politicians to promote business for developers disguised under some non-sense.

Those same tactics have been used to sell HID, CFLs and tubes, there is nothing new here or 'more evil' than before.

I am not aware of any tax funded LED programs, that is not to say there aren't any. The ones I work on are funded by the utilities. Utilities are free to invest their money as they see fit. They could invest it in infrastructure to keep up with increasing demand or they could pass out some incentives for LEDs, along with the CFLs, the energy star heating equipment, kitchen appliances etc. to cut demand. It appears to me they have to do both due to our ever growing demands.

 

[mirawho]

What fees specifically?

The purpose of the incentives being handed out in my area are to reduce energy consumption. If the energy used is less when we are done converting to LEDs then the purpose of the program has been achieved regardless of the measured or perceived light output.

Yes

I am not aware of any tax funded LED programs, that is not to say there aren't any. The ones I work on are funded by the utilities. Utilities are free to invest their money as they see fit. .

End of story

 

[Electric-Light]

What about the incentives on fluorescents?

They're around too, but some programs like Massave are giving preferential treatment for LEDs for the attribute key "LED" rather than performance specifications.

These lights you think are toys sell sometimes in the $20,000 range each, so you can best believe people that purchase these lights (like us) have done our homework when we spend half a million dollars on lighting.

We went through this before. So, you're talking about extremely expensive special purpose low volume products.

The amount of power needed to light a show using HMI and/or Incandescent lighting compared to a show mainly using LED lighting is the difference between night and day.....
You take gel and gel burnouts out of the equation because of the huge color palette you have with LED's.

Highly saturated colors aren't using solid state fluorescent lamps. They require colored LEDs and controls not used in common mass produced LED powered solid state fluorescent luminaires.

These special application LED special effects products use multiple discrete colored LEDs, as opposed to extruding out a very thin section of colored light from a white source like metal halide or a solid state fluorescent lamp such as the phosphor conversion LED. Anything you said in this thread, or other threads have NOTHING to do with general service lighting where cost matters a great deal. You really don't know LEDs much.

So, like most conspiracy theories, yours is a wash. The great LED sales conspiracy is really only lighting companies and their engineers looking for better energy savings solutions for the end user. Solid state will be the future of commercial and residential lighting. Not just because of the energy savings, but because of the versatility of the light itself.[/B]

What versatility do general service commercial and industrial lighting need that you can only accomplish with solid state lamp elements? Flashing... not necessary. Providing colored light.. not necessary.

Continuous dimming: LEDs are not required.
Individually addressable fixtures: LEDs are not required.

Electric solid state fluorescent lumianires that can match electric gas discharge fluorescent luminaires in lifetime, lifetime efficacy, color stability, color rendition, comparable warranty coverage backed by a company(Lithonia, Philips, Coopper etc) not likely to experience loss of ability to pay claims cost many times more. The labor coverage can not be lifetime offered by the installing contractor. It needs to be backed by the manufacturer and not limited by the sales company's business lifetime.

You will still be preaching all of your negative ideas while others are making money doing retrofits of LED products.[/B]

You mean the LED sales people and used car sales people who make money with promises of false ROI? :lol:

What fees specifically?

Look at the various fees itemized on power bills.

The purpose of the incentives being handed out in my area are to reduce energy consumption. If the energy used is less when we are done converting to LEDs then the purpose of the program has been achieved regardless of the measured or perceived light output.

So, the incentive benefit needs to be trimmed down on LEDs so it's adjusted down to the lowest cost comparable benefits such as de-lamping or using 49W T5HO lamps rather than the current unreasonable excess compensation of $200-300 per fixture that can only be applied for LEDs.

It happens that the LED conversion jobs I have done the customers have felt the light output was higher. I don't know how they will feel in 5 years. However this is a nice change from a fairly recent T8 to T5 conversion that dropped the light output significantly (Number of lamps was cut) where the customer was dissatisfied.

CCT and light pattern affects feelings. narrower beam (you didn't say if the existing T5 was ND or WD) increases hot spot intensity. Higher CCT at lower illumination increases perception of brightness. If comparable benefit can be accomplished, the allowance should cap at the lowest common factor to avoid providing excess benefits for LEDs.

The current longest life fluorescent lamps are available with material only coverage of 6-7 years and ballast warranty of material + limited replacement labor allowance of 6-7 years and since LED products claim they don't fail like discharge lamps, a comparable warranty would cover the entire SSFL lamp element + driver system for 6-7 years multiplied by claimed increase in life over the best non LED system. The maintenance savings require the review of previous maintenance cost and the supposedly non-existent maintenance for LEDs needs to be guaranteed by warranty.

https://www.sylvania.com/en-us/news...ROStart-Lamp-and-Ballast-System-Warranty.aspx

If the LED retrofit is made at the end of useful life, go on using the incremental difference.

If the existing system have plenty of depreciation life left, deduct the residual value over the period of the remaining period from monthly savings from LEDs.

I am not aware of any tax funded LED programs, that is not to say there aren't any. The ones I work on are funded by the utilities. Utilities are free to invest their money as they see fit. They could invest it in infrastructure to keep up with increasing demand or they could pass out some incentives for LEDs, along with the CFLs, the energy star heating equipment, kitchen appliances etc. to cut demand. It appears to me they have to do both due to our ever growing demands.

Grant or rate payer fee funded incentives, subsidized interest rate, etc that assists with the higher cost beyond the lowest cost comparable benefit option to just name a few.

 

[mirawho]

Do you know what dogmatic means? It fully describes you. I will try to make this as short as possible so you don't have to spend so much time grouping 5 words together and commenting on them in your dogmatic style. Sometimes it is like sifting through a child's banter. Telling me "I don't know much about LED's" says a lot about your lack of knowledge. I have noticed that most of the things you post are partial copy and paste items and if you read the whole article, they would not support your particular findings. I must say, though, I have to agree with you once in a while. Like when you said "Highly saturated colors aren't using solid state fluorescent lamps" you were absolutely right. There is no color I have ever seen in my life that was able to use a fluorescent lamp, solid state or otherwise.

And, when you mentioned things I have said in this and all my other posts have nothing to do with general service lighting, well, again you are being dogmatic. I have been in the lighting industry for over 40 years. I don't have a need to explain myself any further than that. To say I know nothing about LED's shows your complete lack of comprehension for anything I have posted. I don't have to repost everything I said above as I hate being redundant. I don't think you can call lighting that is sold in ten's of thousands of units "low volume". I see you made an attempt to discredit LED's by showing some very limited knowledge (probably something you had to research on line before you commented) of how intelligent lighting works, but if you really were knowledgeable, you would know the difference between the mechanisms of an intelligent light compared to a similar LED light.

Last but not least, you probably are the only person on the face of the earth that does not know that technology ends up in the home. Yes, you might not have all the bells and whistles, but the engineering put into the device itself always ends up in a home or business. So, everything I said above just was another avenue for your dogmatic style. The people in this post, like iwire, are outside looking at the sky and the limitless possibilities of life. You are happy in your little closed box. Stay there. It's good for you.

I remain civil, as civil as I can and like I said above, this is just one of those threads that will go on and on because, you have the need to be right and have the last word. Go ahead, finish it off. It's kind of sad thinking about your life, that this is how you spend your time when you could instead be listening to some good music. I am here right now because I happened to be online and wanted to see where this thread went. I was not disappointed!

 

[Electric-Light]

And, when you mentioned things I have said in this and all my other posts have nothing to do with general service lighting

Your examples revolve around HMIs and stage production LED special effects lights. These have very little in common with general lighting or use outside of show biz. These use multiple types of LEDs. If they used solid state fluorescent lamps like common "LED bulbs" they'll need to use a color wheel to produce colored light.

I have been in the lighting industry for over 40 years. I don't have a need to explain myself any further than that.

Correct. It's just a number, like an age, so you don't need to explain further since years in the industry is not something that's getting questioned.

The lights we're talking about here are solid state fluorescent lamps that use blue LEDs to activate the fluorescence instead of a gas discharge source. Bulk of light is converted through the phosphor, so they're still fluorescent lamps and the cost to achieve same lumen and lm/W is much more than gas fluorescent lamps

 

[mivey]

I've been biting my tongue for a while...

I have seen LED lighting 'oversold' for years. As LEDs have steadily climbed in efficiency they seem to always be sold as being better then they really are. I agree with Electric Light that they are being used faddishly even where they do not make sense.
...

Sorry I missed your post earlier. I will say my thoughts are much the same. I really don't care what the technology is as long as the numbers work out. For some, the numbers are just that they get paid to install whatever has already been spec'd. Others are more concerned with the overall performance and cost.

 

[mivey]

You guessed wrong. I have been in the lighting industry and have been for over 40 years. My background includes commercial lighting and signs including neon and fluorescent. I also have a strong electronics background including military communications security devices, old TTY, you name it, I have worked with it.

Then you should know better than to make such a ridiculous statement and analogy like the following as you should know it is not anywhere near the same as what was being discussed:

Do you know what an LED is? It is a diode. It is a semiconductor. Do diodes build up a tolerance to electricity over time????

You have any idea how many devices use semi-conductors? I guess after a couple of years we might as well throw out the TV and the radio since they are built with solid state technology. Oh, and what about solid state drives? Better go back to old fashion hard drives. Wait, they have semi-conductors too. We better go back to tape drives.

How about more fact and less drama?

Anytime you turn on your TV and see a movie premiere or most awards shows, you are looking at something I probably designed the lighting on and spec'd the power.

Then perhaps your expertise is in a slightly different area than what common folk deal with (what is being discussed).

In the beginning, maybe you could call them Light Emitting Decorations.

Not me. I also used LED lighting when it makes sense.

But, when you have manufacturers like Philips, Lithonia and Osram developing these devices, no matter what you come up with to make them look bad, you know that they are looking at the future of lighting.

Are we? Seems like they thought the same thing about CFLs at one time. I don't know what the future holds but I do know to be cautious when a technology is being over-sold and there is no doubt that happens a lot with LED lighting.

According to your pal

Hardly a pal in the sense that I'm on board with everything he says. Personally I don't know him and we may or may not get along but that is beside the point. I know he has a bias and judge what he says accordingly. Even so judged he is a good resource, not perfect but still a good resource.

Also, he is going online and C/P'ing others posts regarding LED's but only giving part of the info.

Then address any errors on a factual basis without the drama. The best help you could give me and others is valid information or even a documented point-by-point rebuttal of points made. If you have better information then present it for the benefit of the forum.

Just curious, ever drop a fluorescent tube, an incandescent lamp or say a 1000w MV from 30' in the air?

Yes, more than once. Bits and pieces everywhere.

Know what happens when you drop an LED?

Yes, been there done that. Bits and pieces everywhere. Those LEDs were part of a larger assembly, not as individual tiny LEDs. We don't deal with the individual tiny LEDS alone.

This is a learning forum, yet it seems those that need the knowledge refuse to learn. Whatever.

Presentation of knowledge is key to learning. As you seem to have experience and knowledge, see if you can step up to the plate.

 

[iwire]

Do you know what dogmatic means?

Mirawho, even though I disagree with some of electric lights opinions I can't dispute some of the basic facts he points out. As bias as he is, he also has a great deal of knowledge on the subject.

On the other hand I have not read anything in your posts that I feel worth committing to memory.

 

[Electric-Light]

Solid State Fluorescent Lamp

Fluorescent lamp