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What Is Color Temperature?

LED Lighting has seen many advancements over the past couple of years leaving consumers with many options to customize their lighting. One of the most notable options is the ability to choose and or adjust the color temperature of your LED lights. In this blog, we will cover what exactly color temperature is and how to select the best color temperature for your facilities lighting. What Is Color Temperature? Color Temperature is a measure used to describe how “cool” or “warm” the light being emitted from a source appears. The spectrum ranges from 1,000K (Amber) up to 10000k (White) but most applications stay between 2,000K – 6,500K. Below is a simple chart we created to help visualize the differences in color temperature. IntegraLED, NewYork, Latham, CustomEnergyServices, SmartControlSystems, LEDLighting, EVChargingStations, The exciting part about modern LED lighting is that you can customize your lighting based on your preferences. Therefore, the examples above are not definite and Integra LED can create a custom solution just for your space! What Color Temperature Should I Use? Generally, spaces that promote comfort and class such as hotels, restaurants and certain retail locations utilize lower kelvin color temperatures around 2700k. Spaces that promote a modern and clean feel generally use higher kelvin color temperatures around 4000k. Integra LED prides itself in turnkey lighting solutions that truly require no effort from the customer. Our complimentary energy audit enables our engineering team to assess your current lighting situation and gather any preferences you have so we can create a custom plan just for you!

Color Rendering Index (CRI)

Color Rendering Index or CRI is a measure commonly used in the LED lighting industry. In general terms, the Color Rendering Index measures the ability of a light source to accurately reveal the colors of objects in comparison to natural light. CRI is measured on a simple 0-100 scale, the higher the CRI, the better the light source will render color. Therefore, an ideal light source will have a high CRI preferably above 80. Why is it important? Color Rendering Index is vital in applications where consumers are viewing or interacting with physical products. For example, a grocery store with inefficient and low CRI fluorescent fixtures will make produce look drab and unappealing. By switching these bulbs to efficient and high CRI LED Lighting Fixtures, the produce color will pop and attract consumers. A European supermarket utilized LED spotlighting and color LED uplighting to increase stopping power by 15% which lead to an overall sales increase of 6%. On top of this, LED lighting can greatly increase the energy efficiency of your location. Our customers have seen lighting cost reductions up to 70% Where Can I Find a Lights CRI? Most LED lighting manufacturers display the CRI on the front of the box or the back where they highlight different key measures including lumens, life hours and color temperature. The example below shows common packaging for an LED light and where you would find the CRI. What Light Source Should I Use to Increase My CRI? Natural light will always be the most ideal source to ensure the colors of your product are represented properly but unfortunately, many spaces do not have that luxury! LED lighting is a great option for any facility because it is more energy-efficient than other light sources and offers high CRI options. High CRI LED lighting can greatly increase the attractiveness of your products while saving you money at the same time!

Do You Know What You Are Putting in Your Ceiling?

Over the past five years, the LED lighting industry has seen an explosion in growth. LED technology has become more affordable and efficient making it the best lighting option for any space. This growth has created intense competition within the industry putting pressure on businesses to find a way to stand out. The most common way is price, but many companies have begun sacrificing the quality of their products to do so and even lied about the components used in their lights. In this week’s blog, we discuss what you as a consumer should be looking for when purchasing LEDs and why cheap products can create a safety risk for you. Counterfeit Drivers In general terms, LED drivers are a power supply that provides proper voltage and protection. Depending on the application, drivers can be contained within an LED light or externally wired to the light. A bad driver can send too much power to a light causing it to overheat and fail. Furthermore, they can reduce performance and cause aggravating issues such as delay and flickering. So how does one know if a driver is quality and can be trusted? The first step is checking for efficiency standard designations such as UL, DLC and more. The goal of these organizations is to ensure the safety, efficiency, and quality of lighting products for consumers. They perform various tests with strict criteria to find which products fit their standards. If they pass, the product can be stamped with their logo so customers can identify their listing and know the product can be trusted. We highly recommend visiting the DLC and UL websites and researching if the products you have previously installed are listed. Furthermore, there have been cases of LED products that place fraudulent efficiency standard designations on their products so doing your research is quite important. Check out this interesting article about a company that was fraudulently placing UL logos on their drivers. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ul-warns-of-counterfeit-ul-marks-on-led-driver-release-17pn-09-300474481.html As stated in the first paragraph, many LED lights internally contain their drivers. This is extremely convenient because it makes replacing an outdated light a one-step solution. The downside is that companies commonly promote their drivers as “high-quality” and use cheap drivers knowing the end-user will never actually see it. The best way to verify this is by checking if the product is listed or consulting with a company like Integra LED who can quickly assess product legitimacy and quality. Luckily, lighting consultants like Integra LED complete all this research for you and only install listed lighting products to ensure your LED lighting upgrade is safe, efficient and will last. Many facilities have numerous types of lights making the research process quite time-consuming. Cheap Materials and Construction LED lights are comprised of several components that all play a factor in how long they will last. For example, LEDs perform better in cooler temperatures so quality heat sinks can greatly increase their performance and rated life. Budget or cheap LED lights commonly skip out or cut corners on these key design features to offer a more affordable product. The price tag might look attractive but when your lights start quickly burning out or even catching on fire, you may regret that $2 dollar difference. Don’t believe us? Check out this tube that caught on fire which we found while completing an energy assessment for a potential customer. We won’t name names but is readily available and commonly purchased by businesses who complete “DIY” upgrades. The moral of the story is that if the price is suspiciously cheap, the product is either counterfeit or poor quality. We expect this issue to grow as LEDs begin to saturate the lighting market and become the most utilized source of artificial light. Protect your facility and work with a lighting consultant to upgrade your lights to LED. Our projects are backed by a minimum 5-year warranty and we only install listed quality lighting products to ensure your facility is safe and efficient.

LED Lighting Applications: Manufacturing

LED Lighting Applications: Manufacturing Integra LED has worked with numerous manufacturing facilities over the years offering quality lighting solutions. Over this time, Integra has gained insights on the best solutions for manufacturing facilities to help them receive high-quality lighting that significantly reduces lighting costs. In this week’s LED Lighting Application, we will discuss some of the best insights we’ve received while working with manufacturers! Common Replacements We commonly replace high-intensity discharge lamps also known as HIDS as well as fluorescent troffers. These two options are extremely outdated, they are up to 70% less efficient than modern LEDs and offer an inconsistent and unreliable source of light. When it comes to lighting for manufacturing spaces, we commonly replace the entire fixture with a one-piece LED solution. Below are two examples of upgrades we install for customers. HID Lamp Upgrade LED high bays are a great solution for outdated HID lamps. As you can see in this example, the LED option will last around 3.8x longer than the HID lamp while using almost 70% less electricity. Furthermore, HID lamps have a long start time which can slow down employees whereas LED high bays turn on instantly saving your company time and potentially money! Fluorescent Tube Upgrade LED tubes are the most common upgrade we see here at Integra LED. They let the facility keep the original troffer they have because tube replacements only require new drivers and LED tubes. As you can see above, LED tubes are significantly more efficient than fluorescent tubes. In general terms, efficacy is a ratio comparing light output to energy consumption. Therefore, the higher the ratio, the more efficient the light source is. Safer Employees Considering the number of hazards in a manufacturing facility, safety is a priority for your employees. Put yourself in the shoes of an employee, you are handling dangerous machinery that cuts raw materials. It requires a high level of precision and needs you to move quickly to avoid bottlenecks in the manufacturing workflow. In situations like this, employees need an environment they can focus in and safely handle the dangerous machinery they are using. Lighting is a major factor in employees’ safety as well as productivity in situations like this. If an area is underlit or improperly represented due to a low color rendering index (learn more here), it can create risk for your employees due to poor vision or focus. Furthermore, fluorescent lighting is commonly linked to headaches and other cognitive issues that can affect an employee’s focus and overall health. LED lighting is the most modern and efficient solution for manufacturing lighting systems. Integra LED has installed countless systems for manufacturing spaces and seen tremendous results. On average, our customers reduce their lighting costs by up to 70% and get up to 35% of their project cost covered by incentives.

LED Lighting Applications: Warehouses

Quality lighting is an essential part of warehouse performance. Without a properly illuminated space, many issues can arise such as increased errors or even unsafe work conditions. Furthermore, lighting is a major cost for warehouses, they run their lights for long hours and commonly demand high amounts of electrical use. Currently, the industry has seen a massive shift from outdated options such as fluorescent tubes or High-Intensity Discharge lamps to efficient LED lighting. In this week’s LED Lighting Application, we will discuss the issues that poor lighting creates for warehouses and how LEDs can provide a solution! Poor Lighting Problems Outdated lighting options such as fluorescent tubes depreciate very quickly meaning the amount of light they output decreases quickly over time. This decrease in light output can create several issues with the most concerning being poor contrast and dark areas. Poor contrast can affect employees using forklifts to move goods in a warehouse increasing the risk of error or injury. Additionally, decreased light output can create dark areas within your warehouse especially in confined spaces such as corners and end rows. On average, a workplace injury requiring medical attention costs $42,000. Therefore, ensuring your warehouse is well lit is imperative to not only keep your employees safe but save you money! Fluorescent lighting emits a low-frequency flicker that is not visible to the human but absorbed by the brain. The flickering can create a strain on your eyes which can cause headaches and overall discomfort for employees. Warehousing staff needs to be sharp especially when utilizing heavy machinery, LED lighting offers a smooth light output that emits little to no flickering. Switching from fluorescent to LED lights has been proven in numerous studies to reduce headaches which in return can make employees more productive. Lighting Maintenance Most warehouses have ceilings well above 15 feet which generally require a lift if you need to make any changes to your lighting system. Constantly requiring your maintenance team to use a lift and change lamps is a risk that can easily be avoided. Modern LED lights commonly last much longer than outdated lighting options which removes the need to constantly swap out lights. On top of this, consistently changing lights can interfere with daily operations in the warehouse making your employees less productive. The cost of changing out bulbs can quickly add up for your warehouse. Since LED lights last significantly longer, the cost of replacing bulbs no longer becomes an issue for the facility. We have had several customers who constantly are purchasing and replacing tubes which takes time and money away from their business. By upgrading to LED, these customers were able to reduce their maintenance costs significantly and reduce their electrical usage which slashed their total lighting cost by up to 70%. Solution: LED High Bay Lighting LED high bays are the bread and butter of lighting upgrades for warehouses. They provide excellent light output while requiring significantly less energy to run. Furthermore, they last longer than outdated options making them a quality investment for your facility. Here is a quick comparison between a High-Intensity Discharge (HID) lamp and a LED high bay. How to Choose the Right High Bay Efficiency The first specification to consider is the wattage of the current light compared to the replacement. All manufacturers offer a simple wattage or lamp comparison to help customers choose the best option. As shown in the example above, a 400W HID lamp is commonly replaced with a 125W LED High Bay. Therefore, the LED option requires around 70% less energy than the HID lamp being replaced. Not every LED manufacturer is the same so be sure to check which option is most efficient to ensure you get the most savings! Foot Candles The second specification is the foot-candle requirement of your facility. Foot candles are a measurement of light that is commonly used to set lighting standards for different facilities. Warehouses using outdated options such as fluorescent tubes usually underperform compared to lighting standards. To ensure you hit the lighting standards, we recommend contacting your local lighting consultant who can take a reading of your space and offer a custom solution to fill your lighting needs. Generally, a warehouse will want to be operating with at least 20 foot candles, however specific applications may require much higher lighting levels. Color Temperature Color temperature (K) is a measure of how “warm” or “cool” a light source appears. The lower the number (2000K) the warmer the light appears, the higher the number (5000K) the cooler or whiter the light appears. Since cleanliness and organization are important for warehouses, we recommend choosing a high bay with a color temperature between 4000 – 6000K. Conclusion Quality lighting can greatly improve the operations and profitability of a warehouse. LED lighting is a great solution for facilities that currently have outdated options such a fluorescent and HID lamps. They greatly reduce maintenance and energy usage while offering higher-quality lighting for your facility.