LED lighting for shopping malls

LED lighting for shopping malls:

You may not think about it, but the lighting in a shopping centre has a great influence on the general impression. Most of us have tried to visit a shop, where the lighting was either too dimmed or too intense, and in most cases this affect what you buy. In this week’s blog post, we take a closer look at how to create the perfect ambience in a shopping mall by means of LED lighting.

Upgrading from traditional lighting to LED lighting can seem like an immense and costly affair. For this reason, many malls utilize traditional fluorescent tubes, who raise the price of the utility bill. But does it have to be expensive and difficult at all, and which advantages are associated with using LED in a mall?

Reduced expenses

First, you should perceive LED lighting as an investment. And it does not necessarily need to be a long-term investment. Most luminaires are retrofit, which means that the fluorescent tube can be replaced directly with an LED tube. This makes the replacement both simple and cheap. Furthermore, it means that the return on investment in most cases is around 1-2 years, wherefore the investment is rapidly recouped. In fact, you save up to 70% on electricity when you compare LEDs to conventional lighting, seeing that light-emitting diodes are far more energy efficient than fluorescent tubes.

Create a cosy atmosphere

Besides reducing costs, LED lighting can contribute to creating a cosy environment in the shopping mall. The LED light can be adjusted with regard to luminosity and colour temperature, and the light can even follow the circadian rhythm. This means that the light is warm in the morning and evening hours, whereas it is cooler during the day. Apart from this, smart LED lighting can contribute to guiding the customers to all corners of the centre. Altogether, the customers can be encouraged to stay longer and to buy more, in particular.

Attract customers

A cosy ambience inside is crucial to the mall, but what about the outside? An increasing amount of shopping centres choose to incorporate LED lighting as a part of their façade. For example, the light-emitting diodes can be used as a billboard for special shops or as a play of colours making the centre beautiful and attractive to the sight. There are endless opportunities and the only limitation is your imagination.

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Why choose DALI dimming? And what does Type 8 mean?

Why choose DALI dimming?

DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) is probably one of the most popular systems for dimming and lighting control. Today DALI Type 8 is available for purchase, and that is an addition to the regular and widely used DALI standard. In this blog post we elaborate on DALI in general as well as on the latest Type 8 addition, while also explaining why it is worth looking out for when buying lighting solutions.

DALI is a stable, flexible and indeed future-proofed system because of its innovative construction. The system only requires one single cable wherein a two-way signal runs trough the control panels, sensors and luminaires. The system therefore communicates mutually, which is essentially eliminating the need of one central controlling device. The controlling lies within the several components on the system, not a single unit, which makes DALI a safe and reliable system.

The aforementioned future-proofing in DALI is simply due to the fact that you do not have to switch or replace cables when you want to change or alter the lighting in a given room. If you want to convert a conference room into an open space office with fixed working stations requiring a higher lux level, all you need to do is reprogram the DALI system settings.

DALI is founded and developed by DiiA (Digital Illumination Interface Alliance), which is an alliance of large international lighting companies working towards their mutual goal of increasing the market for lighting control based on DALI technology.

DALI Type 8
DALI Type 8 is an addition to the original DALI standard, which does not only control luminosity but also gives you the opportunity to control the colour in your LED luminaires, like the RGB and colour temperature (also known under the name ‘Tunable white’).

On former DALI versions the system had two drivers and two addresses, one to the cold colour temperature and one to the warm colour temperature. The relationship between these two drivers controlled the colour temperature, meaning that you needed e.g. 40% from one driver with cold light and 60% from the other driver with warm light, to obtain a desired kelvin.

It was incredibly difficult to daylight regulate the lighting with an older DALI system because a simple alteration would distort the relationship between the drivers and change the colour temperature completely. It was a challenging process just to find the right colour temperature. On DALI Type 8 you have two channels on one address, which enables the drivers to alter the colour relationship automatically and hereby daylight regulate the lighting.

After such a technical explanation you might think what the benefits of DALI Type 8 really are. Apart from giving you the opportunity to ‘play’ with the lighting and illuminate your bedroom with a naughty ‘candy red’ colour, DALI Type 8 actually offer a range of more serious benefits.

Colour control through DALI Type 8 can give you a realistic daylight rhythm in your artificial indoor lighting. With DALI Type 8 you can make the lighting change in both colour and intensity, imitating the shifts occurring in the natural lighting outside. Systems like DALI Type 8 are highly sought after in the hospital sector, as bed ridden patients can get the feeling of natural lighting without having to get up and out.

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IK Ratings

IK Ratings

IK00 – No Protection

IK01 – Protected against 0.14 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 0.25kg mass dropped from 56mm above the impacted surface)

IK02 – Protected against 0.2 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 0.25kg mass dropped from 80mm above the impacted surface)

IK03 – Protected against 0.35 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 0.2kg mass dropped from 140mm above the impacted surface)

IK04 – Protected against 0.5 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 0.25kg mass dropped from 200mm above the impacted surface)

IK05 – Protected against 0.7 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 0.25kg mass dropped from 280mm above the impacted surface)

IK06 – Protected against 1 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 0.25kg mass dropped from 400mm above the impacted surface)

IK07 – Protected against 2 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 0.5kg mass dropped from 400mm above the impacted surface)

IK08 – Protected against 5 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 1.7kg mass dropped from 300mm above the impacted surface)

IK09 – Protected against 10 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 5kg mass dropped from 200mm above the impacted surface)

IK10 – Protected against 20 joules of impact (the equivalent to the impact of a 5kg mass dropped from 400mm above the impacted surface)

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Lighting—it’s all about lumens. But what are lumens, exactly? And how do you understand what are lumens in light bulbs and light fixtures? In addition to being the Internet’s premier modern lighting and design store, lumens is now THE way to find out how bright a lighted bulb or integrated LED lighting fixture is. And if you want a fixture with bright, luminous personality, it’s the key to choosing the perfect piece for your lighting scheme.

The lumens definition is: “a unit of luminous flux in the International System of Units, that is equal to the amount of light given out through a solid angle by a source of one candela intensity radiating equally in all directions.”

In short…

Lumens equals brightness!

And watts do not. Not that watts are bad, but they measure energy use, not light output. With new, energy-efficient LED technology, we can no longer rely upon wattage to indicate how bright a bulb is. See how to measure lumens below:

Use the chart above to determine exactly how many lumens are in a watt and vice versa. This should provide you with a good understanding of how bright 120 lumens is vs. a fixture with 5000 lumens. Additionally, you can use the color temperature chart to help you in choosing the best lighting for your application.

How Do I Read the New Light Bulb Label?
Kelvin, lumens, watts, The changes in lighting regulations and technologies mean that there are new lighting terms to learn. For example, while we’ve previously looked to watts to learn a bulb’s brightness, that information is now presented in lumens.

How Do I Choose an Energy-Efficient Light Bulb?
If you love incandescents, look to halogen.It is not illegal to own and use the existing standard incandescent bulbs, but once retailers’ supplies are depleted, that’s it. But the incandescent bulb isn’t dead. Moving forward, the general service bulbs that will be available will include halogen light bulbs, which is actually a subcategory of incandescent bulbs. They are 25% more energy efficient than standard incandescents, and they can last up to three times longer. Also, like standard incandescents, they’re dimmable and come in a range of sizes, shapes and colors. Available halogen options and their discontinued standard incandescent equivalents are as follows:

• 29 watts halogen = 40 watts incandescent
• 43 watts halogen = 60 watts incandescent
• 53 watts halogen = 75 watts incandescent
• 72 watts halogen = 100 watts incandescent

Look for the ENERGY STAR label.Especially in LEDs, the manufacturing quality of the bulb varies, with lesser bulbs not lasting as long as their better-built counterparts. Lighting experts currently recommend only buying ENERGY STAR-qualified LED light bulbs, as they must pass numerous quality tests to earn that designation.

Look at the bulb’s Color Rendering Index (CRI).This will help with CFLs especially. You want your fluorescents to have a good CRI, which is the measurement of how true the color of an object looks under the bulb’s light. A good CRI for most indoor residential applications is 80 or above. A really good one is 90 or above, which is an excellent choice for bathroom vanity lights. All halogen/incandescent light bulbs have a CRI at or near 100.

Check the color temperature.On new light bulb labels, you can find the bulbs’ color temperature, measured on the Kelvin scale. The warmer light colors associated with incandescents are on the lower end of the scale. So, if that’s your preference, look for LEDs and CFLs with light color temperatures in the 2700K to 3000K range. Pure white light hovers around 4000K, while cooler temperatures that simulate daylight are 5000K or higher.

Forget watts…look for lumens.Why? Lumens equal brightness; watts do not. (Watts measure energy used.) CFLs and LEDs use much fewer watts than incandescents with the same brightness. As a rule, you’ll replace a standard 75-watt bulb with an energy-saving bulb of about 1100 lumens. On the low end, replace a 40-watt bulb with an energy-saving bulb of about 450 lumens. Rely on new bulb labeling standards to show lumen output and help you choose the right brightness for your needs.

Reference :lumens