Signs of The Times - November 2010 Issue

[megavolt512]

I just cane back from London where someone was trying to tell me that a 4ft Osram LED tube at 1200 lumens was same as T8- ummmm the lights must be really dim!!!

Until LED tubes can be over 2000 lumens and sell for under $40 a tube - it doesn't make sense

LED "tubes" will never mature as a product. This is simply a wrong application for LEDs. This is like waiting for neon to mature as a spotlight. LED's will excel in fixtures designed for them, not as retrofits for linear light sources with 360-degree illumination.

Also, in general illumination, lumen-efficacy is critical. Modern fixtures of any type need to be in a verifiable 70+ lumens/watt and >85 CRI to be playing in this arena. And several thousand lumens. Of course, higher number are better - but since many products already exceed this baseline, this minimum bar is already here.

[Erik Sine]

Now in this months issue SOT writes a obligation piece to their biggest inside page advertiser GE. The good part is GE got redeemed a "Buy one, get one free" page this month. They bought the inside page, and got the opposite page, the magazine cover for FREE! Everyone likes FREE!!!

I'm going to dig a little deeper into this to see if my suspicions are right, which I think they are and update this in a later post.

On to reality.

In this article Susan writes that 320 feet of GE Contour was used to retrofit out an exiting old, cumbersome neon display. Bob of Triangle is quoted as saying that the new GE contour will consume only 25% of the power that the neon did. Interesting.

He's also quoted as saying that the aquarium spent somewhere around $7k-$8k in maintenance per year, okay.

REAL NUMBERS

320 feet of GE contour comes out to 320 x 4.32 watts per foot (Per GE Spec Sheet) = 1,382.40 watts for 320 feet on a 100% efficient power source, lets be real and at least multiply this and going easy by 1.15 to factor in efficiency so we get a number of 1,589.76 watts for 320 feet of GE Contour

Now, lets do the neon numbers.

For a 15Kv mag tranny (30ma) we are looking at 241 watts (3.35 amps x 120v x .60 power factor) divide by 72 ft of 15mm blue neon = 3.35 watts per foot. Or 1,072 watts for 320 feet of neon

Okay, so it's Maryland, it might have been a 60ma system. Let's credit a 60 ma system

For a 12Kv mag tranny (60ma) we are looking at 432 watts (6.0 amps x 120v x .60 power factor) divide by 55 ft of 15mm blue neon = 7.85 watts per foot. Or 2,512 watts for 320 feet of neon

Personally I think I would do this job in 18mm, but that's for another thread.

Now the brightness factor of a Rare-earth phosphor compared to the GE Contour would be overwhelming, especially at a 60ma system. I have to say I'm even a little suspicious of this picture of the wave judging the sky above, the brightness of the dark sky's leaves me to believe the shot is over exposed and leaving it favorable.

Back to the math.

Obviously we see that the GE Contour at 320 feet is 1,589 watts and 15mm neon is 1,072 watts. Neon > LED

For a 60ma system we are talking a 2,512 watts or a 37% reduction using the GE Contour, which is close to the 40% but far from 70%. LED > Neon

If this is a cold weather application then there is a reduction in energy and the 40% is pretty accurate, if a project like this is not in cold weather where a 60ma neon system would be required than the GE Contour actually draws 33% more power than neon.

ROI

You have to ask yourself, at the end of this conclusion is it worth retrofitting to a new light source or should this project be re-engineered/upgraded and made better with the same light source?

Maryland has cold winters at freezing, so it's obvious GE used the comparison of 60ma neon, and comparison in energy is pretty accurate. But not for the ROI!

I got some basic prices from a distributor and you would be looking at almost $100 per 8' length, with what seems like a PS every 8 foot length running at about 35 watts. that's $4,000.00 for 320 feet on the light engine stuff _ Power supllies which could very well be 40 power supplies?

That's a very long ROI, they should have just re-engineered the neon installation better. Think of the savings!!! $$$$

PS- Camelot Dave, those neon/tranny power numbers look accurate to you?

[megavolt512]

I sent an email to Paul Gramza at GE Lighting today, who supposedly worked on this project. I asked him if he knew more about how the numbers were calculated, and could share some information.

BTW, here is a picture of Triangle Signs taking down the neon:

http://nationalaquarium.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/neon-wave-removal__mg_8788_2010-07-27grallg-copy1.jpg

(Looks like 15mm neo-blue.)

[Camelot Sign]

The transformer calculations are pretty close. You are way too kind on the power factor though. Power factor for a normal pf transformer is about .5 instead of the .6 you have. That brings the watts per foot down just a touch. Say about 7.1 watts per foot for 15mm glass below 40 degrees F on a 60mA transformer and 4.0 watts per foot for the 30mA transformer.

You mentioned 18mm glass so I'll just pop that in here too at about 5.9 watts per foot for 60mA and 3.3 watts per foot for 30mA. All transformers are of course the 15Kv models.

[YYZ]

[megavolt512]

The transformer calculations are pretty close. You are way too kind on the power factor though. Power factor for a normal pf transformer is about .5 instead of the .6 you have. That brings the watts per foot down just a touch. Say about 7.1 watts per foot for 15mm glass below 40 degrees F on a 60mA transformer and 4.0 watts per foot for the 30mA transformer.

You mentioned 18mm glass so I'll just pop that in here too at about 5.9 watts per foot for 60mA and 3.3 watts per foot for 30mA. All transformers are of course the 15Kv models.

I don't think it's really fair to calculate PF here. The low power factor isn't going to affect their electricity bill much - and it is correctable with a capacitor, a PFC model tranny, or an electronic switching supply (all are over .9 pf)

My point in all this was the National Aquar. is probably NOT saving 70% on their electric bill.

Edited October 28, 2010 by megavolt512

[Camelot Sign]

The transformer calculations are pretty close. You are way too kind on the power factor though. Power factor for a normal pf transformer is about .5 instead of the .6 you have. That brings the watts per foot down just a touch. Say about 7.1 watts per foot for 15mm glass below 40 degrees F on a 60mA transformer and 4.0 watts per foot for the 30mA transformer.

You mentioned 18mm glass so I'll just pop that in here too at about 5.9 watts per foot for 60mA and 3.3 watts per foot for 30mA. All transformers are of course the 15Kv models.

I don't think it's really fair to calculate PF here. The low power factor isn't going to affect their electricity bill much - and it is correctable with a capacitor, a PFC model tranny, or an electronic switching supply (all are over .9 pf)

My point in all this was the National Aquar. is probably NOT saving 70% on their electric bill.

When working with purely inductive loads such as a neon transformer PF must be used in the calculation for watts.

Volts X Amps X PF = Watts. If you only use Volts X Amps the resulting numbers will be almost twice the actual value.

Now back to our regularly scheduled thread.

[megavolt512]

The transformer calculations are pretty close. You are way too kind on the power factor though. Power factor for a normal pf transformer is about .5 instead of the .6 you have. That brings the watts per foot down just a touch. Say about 7.1 watts per foot for 15mm glass below 40 degrees F on a 60mA transformer and 4.0 watts per foot for the 30mA transformer.

You mentioned 18mm glass so I'll just pop that in here too at about 5.9 watts per foot for 60mA and 3.3 watts per foot for 30mA. All transformers are of course the 15Kv models.

I don't think it's really fair to calculate PF here. The low power factor isn't going to affect their electricity bill much - and it is correctable with a capacitor, a PFC model tranny, or an electronic switching supply (all are over .9 pf)

My point in all this was the National Aquar. is probably NOT saving 70% on their electric bill.

When working with purely inductive loads such as a neon transformer PF must be used in the calculation for watts.

Volts X Amps X PF = Watts. If you only use Volts X Amps the resulting numbers will be almost twice the actual value.

Correct, but only for a non-PFC, non-electronic (switching) neon power supply, and only for the case of "real power" actually consumed - not power metered and billed to you by the utility. PFC in neon installations has been available for at least 50 years. The PF concern largely disappears with electronic supplies, and would be an identical issue if someone installed a large LED system with giant step-down magnetic transformers. It has nothing to do with the neon tubes themselves.

[TecnoluxMan]

Any update from the GE people or the Community Organizer? =====likes that coined name!

[Erik Sine]

Any update from the GE people or the Community Organizer? =====likes that coined name!

The Community Organizer is doing his best to sweep this one under rug, it's not even a listed story on signweb.com. GE won't even return inquiries about the "savings". I wonder what the coupon coed is for the "twofer"