Security made clearer with LED lighting
January 20, 2009
The on-going problem with many security lighting is lack of clarity and poor CCT images, or un-serviceable globes. These two problems are related to the technologies used. It’s true that lighting has become brighter and longer lasting, but and there is a big but. The new technologies come at a cost and it’s not just the initial investment or complaints from the neighbours and Local Councils because of the glare, or light pollution. Operating costs of 200W+ lamps are mounting up. Clients are taking power operating costs more seriously and in these difficult times want to ensure they are achieving savings on power and can claim to be more ‘carbon neutral’. This is difficult when relying on old technologies.
Let’s take the ‘seeing’ problem, it’s all to do with how the ‘eye’ sees, or more accurately responds to light waves how our brain then processes them into images. We are all aware that daylight changes colour throughout the day, from the brightness of morning and noon light to the softer warmer colours of late afternoon and sunset. In technical terms the light spectrum has shifted from the ‘blue’ end of the spectrum (400-500nm) at noon to ‘red’ (600-700nm) in the afternoon. The cones and rods in the eyes respond differently to these wave lengths.
Why should this be a problem? To see clearly we need daylight, called cool white in LED terms with a Kelvin (K) score of 5000+, in contrast warm white is often between 2300K and 3500K. The ‘blue shifted’ light is better seen and ideal for security.
The ‘blue shift’ can be specified with LED lighting, i.e. cool white with nominated K readings.
As we age we also lose our ability to process warm white effectively. We literally need brighter lights to read/see. This has implications for lighting of pathways, walkways and car parks.
An example of a car park, one with LED and the other high pressure sodium (on right).
LED Lighting in tunnels and street lighting produces daylight style light for ease of sight, improving safety and giving much longer maintenance life-cycles >50,000 hours.
Other practical benefits of LED lighting, apart from the 80%+ power saving are much less heat, you can touch an LED without burning your hand, shock and dust resistance, drop them and they still work, weather proof ( up to IP68) and no UV light is produced, i.e. no attraction to insects, is recyclable. Plus high power factor (>0.9) performance, a further incentive for power saving.
LED’s produce high lumens per watt. In general this exceeds 100 lumens per watt and 150 lumens per watt products are already on the market. Light output is now more than adequate for security situations; with the added benefit of removing ‘light pollution’ and minimising glare issues.
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