Observation on Design – Exhibit Electrical – Stem Lights converted to LEDs
What: Save money on Exhibit Electrical Power Costs.
Prelude: Here is one way to save money on your next exhibit electrical bill with LEDs.
There’s no catch to this one. Only condition? Your exhibit or trade show booth uses incandescent stem lights. Such a trade show exhibit may be an in-line both although stem lights are used on a variety of exhibit designs.
Sometimes the exhibit builder may call these lights wall washers. They run on 120 volts, they typically use an incandescent tube-shaped lamp of somewhere between 100 and 300 watts. Hopefully you’ve already gotten rid of the 300 Watt versions because they consume more power than the light that they put out is worth.
Everyone looks to save money and the big kick is in LED lighting. Your Exhibit builder may have already suggested that you switch to new stem lights that are LED based. You also may know that these are not inexpensive items so before you take the jump and invest in new fixtures along with the new lighting you can do a simple test and replace the incandescent lamps with LED versions. A quick look on Amazon.com or even just a Google search for T3 replacement LED lamps-yields a variety of styles.
With incandescent lighting the color is always warm with LED lighting you have a selection of one or more colors of white but LED lighting tends to be cooler than incandescent lighting. There are some LEDs that have a warm output through it may not be what you thought.
First let us look at power consumption. It’s the reason to switch to LED lighting will get back to color in the second when you take out the lamp from your existing wall washer you may be able to read the code and see how much power it consumes. Having six 150 W lamps on your 20 foot in-line both would require 900 W or at least a 1000 W circuit. Some exhibit halls may only sell you a 1500 W circuit for those lights. The LED replacement lamps are very efficient they can be in the neighborhood of 7 to 30 W. looking at this as a purely mathematical process you can see you have reduced your electrical demand drastically.
One of the reasons the LEDs have a wider range (power consumed) is based on manufacturing technique. Incandescent lampshave become very homogenized over the years. Different manufacturers essentially make the same lamp and the power requirements remain constant. The technology of LED lighting is very new and different manufacturers may assume a replacement lamp design would need more or less individual LEDs to create a similar illumination as the incandescent lamp that is being replaced.
It is safe to say that an LED lamp rated at 7 Watts will probably put out a lower quantity of light then one rated 30 Watts. Keep this in mind when selecting an LED replacement. The lights we are discussing are typically flood lamps as they fit into a light fixture that does not have any sophisticated optics. In some cases the LED replacement lamps have the individual diodes pointing down. Unlike the tubular lamp it is replacing any reflector that is built into the stem light fixture and will not have the same effect as originally designed.
Keep in mind it is the eye of the beholder that should drive which LED replacement lamps to use. Purchased some samples to try them out with your specific graphics. In general we have found that the LED lights have a lower illumination output then the incandescent tubular lamps they replace.
Back to the color component. The color of LEDs used in the trade show business as of late tends to be a brighter bluer white. This results in a graphic that looks a little brighter than it may have with incandescent lighting. This is a positive thing but it may also look as though colors have been altered when in reality you simply changed your lighting
Hope this helps if you have questions please leave a comment.
What: Save money on Exhibit Electrical Power Costs.
How: – Stem Lights converted them to LED lamps.
Level: Simple
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