Idiots guide to exterior floodlighting?

Anyone know of such a thing please. I am at a loss as I have minimal knowledge of this subject. I am looking for discharge luminaires with a rough equivalence to 1000w tungsten/halogen. These will be controlled by either time switches or dusk/dawn sensors. Must give a white, not amber/yellow, light. I've googled for hours and find myself more confused than ever. No doubt I am not putting the right search in but I don't really know what I'm looking for. Tungsten/halogen I vaguely understand as that is what I use now. Several luminaires are well past the use-by date. So I would like to replace them with more modern and efficient units. Son, Sox, HQI, metal halide ! The choices seem bewildering but, as yet, I am unable to find a simple explanation or comparison of different types.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Philip.

Reply to
Philip
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How far are you trying to light ?? You should be looking at either HQI or Metal Halide fittings, may be 400W, and you can buy these with a prewired photocell.

Regards

Steve Dawson

Reply to
Stephen Dawson

I believe metal halide has about the same efficiency as fluorescent (i.e. about 4 times better than tungsten/halogen) so you'd be looking at about 250W. For a cool white go for a colour temperature of around

4000K. A lower temperature (around 3000K) will give what is confusingly referred to as a warmer white (more like tungsten/halogen). Any higher than 5000K will start to look too blue.
Reply to
Ben

Some good guidance here:

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Reply to
John

Just remember that a 1000W light (of a similar beam shape) will only reach

3 times the distance of a 100W one. Several small lights can often be much cheaper to run, as well as producing less light pollution.
Reply to
Ian Stirling

In message , John writes

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Reply to
raden

They also have the added benefit of being more resilient - you can lose one or two bulbs in a 10-light with much less effect than if you've only two or three lights. Against that is the increased frequency with which bulbs will pop, mind...

Stefek

Reply to
Stefek Zaba

Many thanks for all the replies. Our application is aimed at both safety and security. Our work continues in the open after dark. Not too much bothered by the temperature of the light, just that the light be white rather than yellow / amber. The area to be illuminated is approx. 3500 sq.m. At present we use 12 x 1000w tungsten halogen lamps around the periphery. These are now quite aged, becoming unreliable and generally inadequate for our requirements. Too many blind spots. The present system has, like Topsy, growed and growed. Now considering a central lighting/cctv tower of about 12-15m height for main illumination with, probably, 8 discharge lamps of an equivalence to 1000w tungsten halogen. Additional illumination as required would be located around the periphery with discharge lamps of lesser output. Again, many thanks,

Philip.

Reply to
Philip

Yellow is some twice the efficiency of white.

So, 60*60m? I suppose task lighting at each machine/station isn't an option? (if there are such)

This may cause more problems, with the light being more glarey, with ultra-hard defined shadows.

Might 4 2Kw equivalent towers work? If I was working there, I'd be interested in having my own light on each of the towers, and a remote. So, if I was having problems seeing, I could just remotely control a spotlight to point at me with a little joystick.

Alternatively, you might consider that if you run cables between the four towers, you can then hang lights from these.

Reply to
Ian Stirling

Something else if you are using multiple lamps is to have them on multiple outreach arms which could increase the effective lamp source size to upto 6 metres, which would reduce ultra-hard defined shadows.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Only low pressure sodium though - high pressure sodium is the same efficiency as metal halide. Apparently low pressure sodium appears even brighter than it is aswell due to the eye being particularly sensitive to that colour. They still look horrible though.

Reply to
Ben

Um, metal halide is only about half the efficiency of high pressure sodium. It's about the same as standard fluorescent lamps, except for the lower power lamps where it reduces (as with most discharge lamps).

They are the most efficient lamp source in common use. (Actually, they are so efficient they barely generate enough heat to vaporise the sodium -- hence their long run-up time and construction resembling a thermos flask.)

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

And I think they are favored by astronomers, because of the narrow wavelength band can be filtered out.

Reply to
Peter

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