So I work for a billboard company and we are shifting to LED+solar for illumination

We are replacing all the incandescent lighting with these LEDs that are supposed to consume 1/3 less power than the current lights. I gotta be honest, these things don't look too powerful when we shut all the doors and turned all the lights off for these things to try out. We have about 600 of these to install this year. FUN!



album here - http://imgur.com/a/9lucY







album here - http://imgur.com/a/9lucY

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I will try to fix the CPF links in the next 2 weeks or until I give up in frustration. Can not do that and verify with CPF down.

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Yesterday 06:31 PM #2 brickbat

Incandescent? Where are you in the world where billboards are still lit with incandescent?
Jim

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Yesterday 08:28 PM #3 kalekainxx

What brand of flood lights are those?

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Today 07:16 AM #4 tempman

IDK if they are currently incandescent or not, but maybe halogen or xenon or something. All I know is they are not LED.

IDK about the brand of them. They are from china. They led itself looks like a seoul p4

First thoughts:

1) You are likely using Metal Halide currently for your billboard lights, likely 250W or 400W ... i.e 25,000 - 40,000 initial lumens and likely 15,000 - 24,000 lumens end of life. That is coupled with a highly effective reflector and lens combination that is actually pretty good at putting the light where it should be.

2) Your LED fixture looks like it is based on last generation LEDs and perhaps not of the best quality either. Certainly not Cree, Lumileds, Nichia or Osram though they may be Seoul however, I don't think Seoul make newer generation Lux clones with white plastic, only black.They look like the typical low cost knockoffs of the old Luxeon 1/3s. It looks like there is about 100 of them. Since it is supposed to be 1/3 the power draw and I am guessing you are using 400W units, then I am going to say they are 1W class LEDs and likely running about 1.2W because of forward voltage (of cheap LEDs, etc.) That is 120W into the LEDs and with power supply losses they could be 150W into the fixture ... or about 1/3 the power of a 400W Metal Halide with ballast losses.

3) All the LEDs in that fixture may ... MAY put out 10,000 lumens, a far cry from the 24,000 end of life lumens of the metal halide light.

4) The metal halide light glass "cover" is actually a lens and that makes it effective at throwing light on wide angles. Your LED light uses reflectors behind a glass plate. At large angles between the light and the cover plate you will have what are called fresnel losses. I.e. the distribution pattern will not be as good.

5) Low quality LEDs have questionable lumen maintenance, and also questionable maintenance of color temperature, color consistency, etc.


CONCLUSION

A) You are screwed .... Do you own these billboards or does another company own them? I can't see the advertisers being very happy. The seal on the front of those lights looks cheesy too. I hope they stay sealed. I am always thrilled when the power supply is bolted to the hot heat sink too. It makes them last so much longer ... yes that was sarcasm. Just a little bit of offset would go a long way to them working longer.

B) If you are planning to run these with Solar Off grid, good luck. I hope you are in a very sunny area in a warm climate. If not, you are looking at a very large and very expensive solar system. If you want any chance of having it work, PM me.

Semiman

p.s. Feel free to PM me.