Welcome back!

In our last article of things you must know before switching to LED we saw what are the different technologies that we might be replacing and an easy formula to estimate the equivalent wattage for an LED (for an LED technology that generates around 130 lumens per watt).

Now it is time to review some concepts that you MUST understand in order to make the right decision when it comes to choose LED lamps or fixtures. These are some of the things you must know.

What follows are informal definitions, not academic ones. This is because our goal is for you to quickly understand the ideas and not to make a scientific dissertation about them.

Some definitions:

WATTAGE:

This is how much energy the lamp uses to function, therefore the smaller the number, the less you spend in your electric bill. In our website, here, on the left hand side, you can search by making a selection by wattage.

TYPE OF TUBES:

Tubes are measured by how long they are (in feet or inches and from pin to pin)) and how thick they are (the diameter, in 8^th of an inch:

You can find more information about tubes in our website following this link.

BASE or CONNECTOR:

FOR BULBS:
The metallic twisting part of the bulb that holds it in place. It can be:

• E26, Edison or Medium: Is the standard base that you find in a household. The number is due to the diameter in millimeters of the base, in this case 26. Click here to see our products with an E26 Base
• E39 or Mogul: More often used in an industrial or commercial setting. While it looks the same as the E26, it is a little bit bigger (39 millimeters diameter). A list of all our products with a base E39 can be found here.

Medium and Mogul Base

FOR TUBES:
The metallic single, dual or 4 pin connector that is at the end of each side of the tube. It can be:

• Bi-pin G13: 12.7mm (or 0.5”) from pin to pin. You will find this connectors in almost every T12’s, T10’s & T8’s tubes.
• Bi-pin G5: 5mm from pin to pin. They are in T4’s & T5’s tubes.
• FA8, nipple or single pin: In 8 footers tubes.
• R17d, Recessed double contact: Only in high output lumens tubes, not common.

LENS:

Another one of the things you must know is what a lens is and if it has any kind of impact in your buying decision. The lens is the covering or protection of the light that might also provide diffusion or not.

It can be clear (you can see through) or frosted, milky or white (you cannot see through).

This is just an aesthetic option. If the light will be at eye level, we suggest buying frosted, otherwise, any of the 2 will do.

Even though one gives out a tiny bit more of lumens than the other, our eyes are not able to see the difference.

Stay tuned, since in our next posting, we'll review the concepts of color temperature, IP and lumens and with that you will be ready to buy knowledgeably your next LED's.

We truly hope this information is helpful for you and, furthermore, helps reducing researching time and ease your transition to LED lighting.

Since we are here to help, please do not hesitate contacting us for more information or to show you different economical options for your next LED switch.

Have a wonderful and illuminated week!

Switching to LED

So, you made up your mind and you said to yourself: "I am switching to LED".

A lot of people told you about it, you know and you heard about all the benefits yet you have been procrastinating it for quite a while.

FINALLY, something clicked and you said "ok, it is time", only to find out that it wasn't that easy...Switching to Led: you seem to be loosing the battle.

Nothing is more frustrating than picking up the phone to realize that you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the subject. There are so many new terms, classifications and options that what you though (and should be) an easy task ends up being a mission you are not really sure you will be able to survive…Switching to LED seems to be a nightmare!

Therefore, to make your life easier, LEDRadiant have prepare a series of articles which provide an easy explanation of the things you MUST know beforehand so you can make a swift and fast transition to LED. Believe us when we say: Switching to LED is easy

First: the WHAT

First of all, if you are REPLACING an old lamp, you NEED to know WHAT type of lamp you are replacing. It might be:

• Incandescent:  Typical bulb in most residencies up to 15/20 years ago...(is an electric light with a wire filament heated to such a high temperature that it glows with visible light-incandescence-)
• HID (High Intensity Discharge): Mostly on commercial settings, (These lamps replace the filament of a light bulb with a capsule of gas. The light emanates from an arc discharge between two closely spaced electrodes. This discharge is hermetically sealed inside a small quartz glass tubular capsule.) They can be Metal Halide, Mercury Vapor and Sodium Vapor. or
• CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light): Fluorescent tubes are in this category. (In a CFL, an electric current is driven through a tube containing argon and a small amount of mercury vapor. This generates invisible ultraviolet light that excites a fluorescent coating -called phosphor- on the inside of the tube, which then emits visible light.)

Incandescent	CFLs
Incandescent Bulb	CFL Lamps
HIDs
HPS Lamps	Metal Halide Lamps

So, switching to LED implies 2 things: knowing what to replace and...

Second: WATTAGE

You need to know what’s the wattage of the lamp you want to replace. To find out this, you can read the wattage on the lamp itself (most of the bulbs have this information) or look for the information on the box of a spare one.

As a result, with these two pieces of information, Type and Wattage, it will be easy to determine the equivalent in LED that you need and with this, the switching to LED will be a breeze.

As a general rule, is there any way to calculate the wattage equivalency in LED?

YES!, as a really usufull starter, follow these simple formulas:

• Incandescent: Divide actual wattage by 11
• CFL: Divide actual wattage by 2.5
• HID: Divide actual wattage by 4.5

Examples:

• If you have a 400 Metal Halide (HID) bulb in a high bay, you should replace it with: (400/4.5= 88.88) a 100W LED and this way you will have a little bit more light than what you have now. These are some of the options you could go with when you are looking for replacements when you are switching to LED.
• You have a Fixture that is using a 14W CFL lamp and you want to replace it with LED: 14/2.5=5.6 . So any LED 6 watts an up will be a good fit. You can check here some of them.
• What about replacing that old 150W Incandescent lamp? 150/11=13.63. So starting at 14W you should be good to good! Here are some good replacements for that

Since LED technology is constantly evolving, this is going to give you just an ESTIMATE value, a rough idea of what LED wattage you’ll need to replace the old lamp and switch to LED.

There are other factors to take into account (like height, area to cover, type of light/fixture, etc.) For a more precise evaluation do not hesitating contacting us.

These formulas are an estimate based on an LED technology that generates around 130 lumens per watt. This is a value that raises constantly with technology improvements, hence changing the formula on a regular basis.

That's all for now!

We truly hope this information is helpful for you and, furthermore, helps reducing researching time and ease your switching to LED lighting project.

Since we are here to help, please do not hesitate contacting us for more information or to show you different economical options for your next LED switch.

In our next post we will learn the meaning of some concepts like wattage, types of tubes, Bulb and tubes bases or connectors, and lenses.

Have a wonderful and illuminated week!