Outdoor Lighting of Colorado's Blog

LED Replacement for Path Lights

In a recent blog posting, I mentioned that we were retrofitting one of our customer’s low voltage quartz halogen landscape lighting systems to LED. We originally installed the system in June 2001. Our Outdoor Lighting Perspectives’ (OLP) copper BB-07 path lights manufactured by our factory (B&B Manufacturing in Nashville) had used the 20W quartz halogen G6 bi pin bulbs with corresponding sockets. The retrofit is as simple as sliding out the old socket and wiring harness and replacing it with the new LED (4W Cree), electronics, driver, and wiring harness assembly.  

With the introduction of OLP/B&B’s PAR36 LED (6W Cree) bulb retrofit earlier this year, our company can now offer customers a truly sustainable way to upgrade to this new, energy-saving technology – without having to discard the old quartz halogen fixtures. The customer’s system that we recently converted to LED was initially installed in 2001. That system included a total of 17 fixtures – eleven 35W quartz halogen well lights and six 20W quartz halogen path lights, for a total power usage of 505W. For the new installation/retrofit, we added 11 new LED fixtures to the 17 existing fixtures that we retroffited, for a total power usage of 176W. Interestingly, we increased the size of the system (total number of lights) by 65-percent while at the same time we reduced the energy usage by 65-percent.

PAR36 LED Bulb

Heat is the number one factor that can adversely affect the life of an LED. As you can see in the design for the PAR36 LED bulb as well as the path light LED replacement, the thermal heat sinks are a prominent part of the final manufactured product. As a former aerospace engineer who performed thermal analyses of jet and rocket engine, high-energy laser, and orbital spacecraft, I wholeheartedly give these products a two-thumbs up sign of approval.

The other important thing about these LED retrofits is that our customers are in no way sacrificing the actual lighting effect. In fact, our factory (B&B) conducted an experiment by taking nighttime photos of the same house. On one evening, the lighting fixtures had quartz halogen bulbs installed and on another evening, the fixtures had been retrofitted to LED. Interestingly, most people viewing the sets of photos side by side guessed wrong. The LEDs actually looked better.

Filed under: Green Energy, Landscape Lighting, LEDs, Lighting Retrofits, Residential Lighting | Tagged: B&B Manufacturing, Cree LEDs, Denver landscape lighting, don't throw away your old landscape lighting fixtures, lighting retrofits for energy savings, low voltage LED lighting, outdoor lighting perspectives colorado, Retrofitting landscape lighting systems to LED, save energy by retrofitting landscape lights to LEDs, sustainability |