Commercial Lighting Options?

ttmw

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I'm new to the forum and i'm looking for a bit of advice...

I'm just about to go ahead with a new lease on a 640sq ft shop premises. At the moment there's fluorescent lighting strips fitted, but i fear these are going to give that horrible orange glow to the place.

What other options do i have to get the colours of my products (pet supplies) to be bright and stand out with true colours instead of an orange glow. Have i got any easy option or will i have to get new light fittings put in at a huge cost?

What lighting is used normally in commercial premises?

Thanks in advance for any advice :)
 

idleprocess

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If the existing floro tubes do not satisfy, the cheapest option (and likely the most cost-effective) will be to install some tubes in a more pleasing color. Florescent is used most commonly (almost universally) for retail establishments because of its high efficiency, low TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), and excellent color rendition.

With the possible exception of 8ft T12 tubes, floros are available in a very broad spectrum of color temperatures. "Warm" floros, often with color temperatures of 2700K - 3500K attempt to mimic incandescent spectrum. Cooler temperatures of 4500K and up are closer to mid-day sunlight. CRI (Color Rendition Index) indicates how accurately a light source renders colors relative to the sun; higher scores are better. Home improvement centers in the US have a broad selection of T12 & T8 tubes in bulk for a reasonable price without going into the niche tubes that cost considerably more, singly.
 

Ken_McE

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I came in to say what idleprocess said, only he already said it better and firster. I will mention that normal fluorescent tubes should not have an orangey light. If they really, really, do have an orange tint, I would appreciate it if you could look at the lettering near the end of one of the tubes and tell us what it says. Changing out the tubes should give you perfectly good lighting for a reasonable cost.
 

ryguy24000

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Change the lamps. If the fixtures are 4' t12 change the ballasts/lamps to t8? Check for government tax credits if you change ballast.
 

Anders Hoveland

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It really depends how much money you are willing to spend, and how much trouble you are willing to go to. Probably your simplest option would simply be to get "full spectrum" fluorescent tubes. You do have to be somewhat cautious though, because many companies claim their products are "full spectrum", but they really are not. Some are much better than others. I would recommend TrueLite brand. The only downside is that the special phosphors they use degrade faster, resulting in gradual color shift, and it is recommended that the tubes be replaced much more frequently than regular fluorescent tubes.

LED is becoming very popular now. For commercial spaces, where better light quality is desired, "high CRI" LED lamps are now available. These are used in the fruits and vegetables section of grocery stores. The main difference with "high CRI" for LED is that it is better at rendering red colors, such as fleshy pink skin tones or red apples, and the light has a warmer feeling to it (has nothing to do with how yellowish the light is).

In some situations, a commercial space may be using both halogen spotlights with LED overhead. In this case, it is not as important to use "high CRI" because there is already so much red frequency light in the spectrum given off by the halogens.

Halogen is generally regarded as having the best quality of light (besides natural sunlight), though this normally is not practical in commercial spaces for several reasons. What some higher end commercial spaces will do, however, is use a combination of halogen spotlights to shine on selected displays, with some other type of lamp to provide most of the lighting in the store. If you are using a large number of halogen fixtures, another thing to consider is the heat. In warmer climates, this could increase the cost of air conditioning, while in very cold climates this may be an extra benefit.

It costs more, and has to be special ordered, but there are ceramic metal halide fixtures. These operate similar to metal halide, but have better quality of light and are appropriate for indoor spaces. If you want a cooler color of light, and the highest color rendering available, ceramic metal halide can be the next best choice (besides natural sunlight). The economics of ceramic metal halide generally make it more attractive in situations where very large amounts of light are required (athletic fields, sports stadiums), but they have been used in high-end small-scale applications, particularly landscape lighting.

Depending on when your store is open, you might see if it is possible to install sky lighting to let in sunlight. Sunlight is the best type of light, and the most energy efficient, obviously. During the dark evenings other types of light can be used.

One extra little thing most stores do not consider, if fluorescent tubes are used, they leak out some UV radiation. A very small number of people are especially sensitive to this, but it is probably not the best for anyone working under them all day (there was a study that showed a link to increased risk of cataracts). Make sure your fluorescent fixtures have plastic diffusors over them, this cuts out more than half of the UV. If one was really concerned about this, there are special UV blocking plastic tubes that can go around the fluorescent tubes. For example, if there are bare exposed fluorescent fixtures right above where the employees are stationed, it would make sense to use the UV blocking tubes there. For a typical customer that only spends 20 minutes in the store, this is not an issue. Some high end clothing or art stores take precautions because the UV can cause colors to fade over time.

Consider this though: artificial lighting tends to make colors look off because it has an incomplete spectrum; it only gives off certain color frequencies of light. So if you use two different types of lighting, that can generally improve the spectrum coverage, leading to better color rendering.




 
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Anders Hoveland

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Best quality of light, and probably more efficient than anything else...

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7287168/n...science/t/bringing-little-sunshine-our-lives/

With five hybrid solar lighting systems already in place and another 20 scheduled to be installed in the next couple of months, the forecast is looking sunny for a technology developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Preliminary data from field units, which collect sunlight and pipe it into buildings using bundles of small optical fibers, shows potentially significant energy savings in lighting and maintenance costs. An added benefit is that, for most uses, natural light is vastly superior to artificial light.
 
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mattheww50

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. Home improvement centers in the US have a broad selection of T12 & T8 tubes in bulk for a reasonable price without going into the niche tubes that cost considerably more, singly.

My experience is that for the highest CRI Fluorescent, you almost always have to go to a specialist lighting or wholesale supplier. The really high CRI Fluorescent lamps are just too pricey for most home improvement stores to stock. Few Home improvement customers are willing to pay for the premium CRI levels.

My own preference is for the GE SPX41 series. CRI is typically ~85, and 4100K provides excellent color rendition for most merchandise.
 

idleprocess

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Well done dude ... Quoting an 8 year old article. Never went anywhere.

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That's not entirely correct - was only 6 years old when this thread was active.

Looks like Solatube has put the general concept into practice - only without using fiber optic bundles to conduct the light. No idea how real "Smart LED" system is. Seen their basic product (aka, "sun only") in houses every now and then and found the lack of control frustrating.
 
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bandits1

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My experience is that for the highest CRI Fluorescent, you almost always have to go to a specialist lighting or wholesale supplier. The really high CRI Fluorescent lamps are just too pricey for most home improvement stores to stock. Few Home improvement customers are willing to pay for the premium CRI levels.
I saw Philips 4' 5000K T12 bulbs with a CRI of 90 at Home Depot. Same price as all their other T12s.

Can someone explain to me why my Philips 4' 4100K T12 bulbs have a CRI of 89, while the Philips 4' 4100K T8s we recently bought for a couple of newer fixtures only have a CRI of 79? Is it harder to cram high CRI into T8s or something?
 
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Anders Hoveland

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Can someone explain to me why my Philips 4' 4100K T12 bulbs have a CRI of 89, while the Philips 4' 4100K T8s we recently bought for a couple of newer fixtures only have a CRI of 79? Is it harder to cram high CRI into T8s or something?
T8s are a little bit more efficient, and also contain a little less mercury than the T12s. However, what I suspect may have happened is that Philips sacrificed CRI for increased efficiency. Typically a fluorescent tube contains a small quantity of blue fluorophosphor (this is NOT the same thing as the old halophosphor fluorescent lamps, so do not get confused) combined with rare earths. The rare earth phosphors basically give a single red, green, and blue frequency. This is terrible for light quality (yet highly efficient), but to a small extent the blue fluorophosphor helps compensate for this by providing a moderately broad spectrum of frequency coverage in the blue region of the spectrum. There are other reasons for the use of the blue fluorophosphor as well (too complicated to get into here, but suffice to say its use significantly helps reduce the amount of costly rare earths required). In some cases, to obtain higher efficiencies manufacturers have "cheated" by using a higher proportion of fluorescent green phosphor. Since the eyes are most sensitive to green frequency light, this gives the maximum number of lumens. It also adds an unsightly greenish coloration to the light, of course. The whole reason for the phaseout of T12 has to do with increasing efficiency. To some extent, there is also some trade-off between CRI and efficiency. So what I suspect happened is that Philips decided to use a lower proportion of blue fluorophosphor for the sake of helping increase efficiency, since that is basically the goal of T8 tubes.
 
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SemiMan

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T8s are a little bit more efficient, and also contain a little less mercury than the T12s. However, what I suspect may have happened is that Philips sacrificed CRI for increased efficiency. Typically a fluorescent tube contains a small quantity of blue fluorophosphor (this is NOT the same thing as the old fluorophosphor fluorescent lamps, so do not get confused) combined with rare earths. The rare earth phosphors basically give a single red, green, and blue frequency. This is terrible for light quality (yet highly efficient), but to a small extent the blue fluorophosphor helps compensate for this by providing a moderately broad spectrum of frequency coverage in the blue region of the spectrum. There are other reasons for the use of the blue fluorophosphor as well (too complicated to get into here, but suffice to say its use significantly helps reduce the amount of costly rare earths required). In some cases, to obtain higher efficiencies manufacturers have "cheated" by using a higher proportion of fluorescent green phosphor. Since the eyes are most sensitive to green frequency light, this gives the maximum number of lumens. It also adds an unsightly greenish coloration to the light, of course. The whole reason for the phaseout of T12 has to do with increasing efficiency. To some extent, there is also some trade-off between CRI and efficiency. So what I suspect happened is that Philips decided to use a lower proportion of blue fluorophosphor for the sake of helping increase efficiency, since that is basically the goal of T8 tubes.

Ander's likes to type a lot to make it look like he knows what he is talking about (or that he can read Wikipedia) then throws in the usual BS statement along the lines of "too complicated too ... ".

Not old fluorophosphor but old halophosphor ... but meaningless.


Real answer is not more different than you bought a 79 CRI tube and not an 83, 85, 90, 95 or 98 CRI tube. You can buy a wide range of tubes across a wide range of CRI's. Ander's is correct in that there is a tradeoff between efficiency and CRI and since most customers want efficiency and the usage rarely dictates a need for much over 85, that is what they buy. There are some of us that really like high CRI ... personally like 95CRI in 4000 and 5000K but they are about 20-25% less efficient. High efficiency does mean often more green, but really it is relative and not so much about more green and more less deeper blue and deeper red which are needed to achieve high CRI, but do not contribute a lot of lumens and hence hurt efficiency. All the talk or rare earths, phosphor types, etc. is an implementation detail and really meaningless unless you are building tubes and know phosphors. Higher CRI T8's exist and are readily available. Most T8 that you see are 80-85CRI at least in 4100K I find, but again 90+ CRI is relatively easy to find.

Semiman
 

idleprocess

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My experience is that for the highest CRI Fluorescent, you almost always have to go to a specialist lighting or wholesale supplier. The really high CRI Fluorescent lamps are just too pricey for most home improvement stores to stock. Few Home improvement customers are willing to pay for the premium CRI levels.

My own preference is for the GE SPX41 series. CRI is typically ~85, and 4100K provides excellent color rendition for most merchandise.
I believe that I've seen >80 CRI at Home Despot packaged and priced with the ~70 CRI bulk packs. Not sure if they go much higher than that without being sold as single tubes at a multiple of the usual price, of which they indeed carry a thin selection.
 

Anders Hoveland

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I believe that I've seen >80 CRI at Home Despot packaged and priced with the ~70 CRI bulk packs. Not sure if they go much higher than that without being sold as single tubes at a multiple of the usual price, of which they indeed carry a thin selection.
But again, in many situations you can increase overall CRI by combining two different types of light sources, since the peaks from one spectrum often tend to occupy the deficiencies of the other.
 

SemiMan

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If you strap a jet pack to a pig it will fly too. Bad idea though and it angers the pig.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
 

idleprocess

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But again, in many situations you can increase overall CRI by combining two different types of light sources, since the peaks from one spectrum often tend to occupy the deficiencies of the other.
Uh, I'm going to take a WAG that each successive higher CRI variant of any given color temperature effectively improves upon the most glaring weakness of the previous one. Mix color temps and maybe you'll have complimentary strengths, but that's just hard on the eyes without a hell of a lot more diffusion than most fixtures bother with.

If you strap a jet pack to a pig it will fly too. Bad idea though and it angers the pig.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
Post that on youtube (and beat the whatever charges the DA throws at you), and you'll make mad internet moneys.
 

Anders Hoveland

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Uh, I'm going to take a WAG that each successive higher CRI variant of any given color temperature effectively improves upon the most glaring weakness of the previous one. Mix color temps and maybe you'll have complimentary strengths, but that's just hard on the eyes without a hell of a lot more diffusion than most fixtures bother with.
That is indeed a potential problem, because often these different types of light sources will not have the same color of light. And it can look less orderly if the lamps are emitting different colorations. But while the appearance of the lamps themselves may appear less optimal, the appearance of the objects actually being illuminated will be better. In some ways it may be somewhat of a trade-off aesthetically. That is not to say that it cannot work. Sometimes two different colors of light sources are used together, but in different ways, to give a slight contrast that is part of the aesthetic design. Some stores will have cool white fluorescent overhead lamps with halogen (or LED) spotlights highlighting specific merchandise below.

I agree that the ideal would be to put the two different lamp sources, with different spectrums, behind the same light diffusor for uniform light, but often this is not practical for a variety of reasons.

One more thing I would like to mention. High CRI LED spotlights have begun appearing over the fruit and vegetable sections in supermarkets. These are red-enhanced LED, the idea being that those red colored fruits and vegetables need proper illumination. However, what I have noticed is that the red colored strawberries still look off. The red frequency these LEDs are emitting is too much of an orange-red frequency. Perhaps they chose this deliberately for higher lumen efficiency, but the strawberries have a very slight orangish tint to them. Whether this really matters for ordinary commercial purposes is somewhat a subject of opinion, I suppose. But I think they could have done better with a shorter red wavelength.
 

FRITZHID

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Imho, if you're looking for as close to sunlight as possible, and electric bill is not as high of a concern, ceramic metal halide is about the best you can do, it's what I have indoors over my work bench (I work on electronics and need proper color rendition) as well as over my grill outside (good color to tell how done food is), both are 100w and provide more quality light than a 500w halogen with less heat and far far far longer life span, then halogen OR fluorescent bulbs. Easier to maintain then LED (initially with not needing heatsinking or specialized power supplies/requirements) and CMH is a time tested and proven technology.
 

SemiMan

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Imho, if you're looking for as close to sunlight as possible, and electric bill is not as high of a concern, ceramic metal halide is about the best you can do, it's what I have indoors over my work bench (I work on electronics and need proper color rendition) as well as over my grill outside (good color to tell how done food is), both are 100w and provide more quality light than a 500w halogen with less heat and far far far longer life span, then halogen OR fluorescent bulbs. Easier to maintain then LED (initially with not needing heatsinking or specialized power supplies/requirements) and CMH is a time tested and proven technology.


Just remember that CMH can be anywhere from 3K-6K and up and also high seventies to mid nineties in terms of CRI.

Semiman
 
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