metal halide replacement

[kevin worrall]

hi, I'm thinking of replacing 10off 400w metal halide units in our warehouse with led lamps.  I don't know too much about led's, its all new tech to me, can I get retrofit lamps to use? 

do they need control gear or just a power supply?, if just power, can I gut the old fitting to save time/money or have I got to reply the entire fitting?

any help would be appreciated 

 

[Andy™]

hi, I'm thinking of replacing 10off 400w metal halide units in our warehouse with led lamps.  I don't know too much about led's, its all new tech to me, can I get retrofit lamps to use? 

do they need control gear or just a power supply?, if just power, can I gut the old fitting to save time/money or have I got to reply the entire fitting?

any help would be appreciated 

metal halide lighting is already very efficient, more so that fluorescent

you often need to bypass the ballast / ignitor with the replacement lamps although i think some will just screw in with no modifications

also, they do use less wattage but the lumen output is also less. things will have improved a bit by now, but the other year ago I look at something similar at a factory. basically, it was going to cost a lot of money, the total power used was going to be about 3/4 of what it was now but they were only going to get a bit over half the lumens...  decided to stick with the metal halide

 

[kevin worrall]

thanks Andy. The last time I replaced the lamps was only just over a year ago and I've got 6/10 still working. With having to hire a mobile platform its an expensive job to keep doing, so I was looking for something long lasting, therefore the led option 

 

[Lurch]

I fitted some random lights the other year and ended up sticking a 150W metal halide and a 50W LED flood on a pole. Light output was largely the same (outdoor on a ménage). Might be useful, might be rambling from a tired man. Got some non-working metal halides to attend to later this week so probably just swap them for LED again. It's more about reliability than anything, power savings aren't great as has been mentioned and the MH lights output a decent white light but assuming you fit decent LEDs there's less maintenance.

 

[Doc Hudson]

Do you know the spec of the existing lamps re' the Lumen's and Kelvin?  i.e. the light output and the colour intensity?  Remember the Watts is just the power consumed. If you are looking at replacements do a direct comparison with the actual light levels not power consumption. I am not convinced that all LED manufactures quote accurate comparisons when they just refer to the Watts. and just saying 'warm' or 'cool' is a bit vague IMHO. If you don't have any accurate specifications for your existing lamps, but you have access to a light meter, it could be worth measuring the light levels under a sample of your lights and noting the height of the light fittings. Then working backward through a few light calculations we could recommend a minimum spec of light you need to be looking at.

Doc H.

 

[Rob.]

Usually a decent wholesaler would send a rep to spec out what your best options are. 

You're under no obligation to use them, but can use the information gained.

 

[kevin worrall]

gents, this is all the information I've got on the lamps and where they are used

its two rows of 5 fittings , 30m long and 6m high, 10m wide

the MH lamps are 400w and I'm after general lighting levels as its a warehouse

hope this helps

 

[Lurch]

TBF you shouldn't need to be replacing lamps every 12 months, or rather they shouldn't be failing so often. I've seen some compact fluorescent low bay replacements that work well too and have been on every day for several years, but then I could also find plenty of sites with low bays that are on daily that last years too so maybe you need to look at why yours are failing so often?

 

[Evans Electric]

Are you getting cheapo MH lamps from somewhere  Kevin ....  as Lurch says ,  quite a high failure rate. 

 

[Andy™]

are you using the correct rating lamps too, i.e not using a 250w lamp into a 400w fitting? although id expect this to last a much shorter time if it was

 

[Evans Electric]

Are they on permanently  , 24/7  ?     I'm trying to remember but I'm sure they recommend switching off for 15 mins  in any week to maintain lamp life .    

 

[kevin worrall]

gents, the lamps are on 10 hours a day 5 days a week. The fittings are quite old so it could be component failure. The lamps may be cheap, just asked for 400w MH from the wholesaler, didn't specify a brand as such and yes the fittings are 400w