led High bays

[withoutfear]

we are looking into led high bays to replace old hid lights. Any ideas on how easy it would be to hook them up to a light board for dimming control?

[D.R.HADDOCK]

You will most likely need to run a dmx line to the fixtures,
Make sure that the lights work on standard dmx protocol,
And dont need a special controller that is maker specific.

[RickR]

Most "High Bays" are not dimmable.

Granted LEDs can be dimmed but they have to be built for it. Check your fixtures. As above you can't just plug an LED into a dimmer.

[Esoteric]

There are several very good high bay dimmable LED solutions out there.

Mike

[millamber]

Check out Affineon.

http://www.affineonlighting.com/Bay.html

The LED high bay they offer doesn't dim as standard, but it can be fitted with a DMX option. I have demoed this fixture and was impressed with the amount of light it put out. The dimming curve needed work (this was an early prototype) at the bottom end it got steppy, but overall it was a nice fixture.

Where are you located? Perhaps a demo would suit you well.

[sarahwilson]

LEDs produce brighter light with excellent color rendering (CRI). LED High Bay lights are at full intensity the second you turn them on. So you don’t have to wait for lights to warm up! Lumen per Watt is now in the range of 110 Lumens to 1Watt!

[Esoteric]

Yeah, we sell the Affineon products. They are great.

[Steve Vanciel]

I do not put much faith into CRI ratings per se. It is an extremely subjective rating process. Check every source for yourself with particular attention to how skin tones look. Many LED products simply do not create the necessary wavelengths to make people look good. "White" LEDs do not exist. They are typically a blue source with a phosphor coating. Over time, the coatings fade and your light will get increasingly blue.

A huge amount of R&D is going into LEDs but there is still a lot of marketing hype surounding them. Be careful not to jump on a bandwagon only to find that you've jumped off a cliff.

SteveV
Orlando, FL

[Esoteric]

I agree with Steve. Always try and get a demo of a unit before you buy and make sure you like the unit.

Although after seeing the latest offerings from Selecon and Vari-Lite, I feel good saying that LEDs that offer sizzle and steak are here.

Mike

[Steve Vanciel]

Good word choice. VL and Selecon are certainly steak. But not "hamburger budget" items.

SteveV

[Esoteric]

Yeah, definitely not. But if you have $1500 a unit (on the low end) or $10k a unit (for the really good stuff) they are great units. We are about to outfit a theater in Austin with Selecon units for stage work. And when theater LDs will accept an item, that is when I know it is ready for the big time. Picky theater LDs.

[D.R.HADDOCK]

Or maybe they are just jumping on the lastest bandwagon,
Reducing there carbon foot print,
Its all the rage now in the yuppy circle.