Alternatives to 500w halogen floods

[Stuart91]

+1 for Jazega's suggestion of keeping your halogen fllods for PIR security and discharge floods for work lights.

 

My experience of this is that a few low level lights on all night is a much better security deterrent than halogen floods going on and off all the time.

At the premises I used to have, we had halogen flood PIRs all round, but had lots of break ins. We replaced the halogens with 28W 2D fittings on dusk-dawn sensors and have not had a break-in since. I am not sure if this is coincidence... but it's a lot nicer to walk around at night without being alternately dazzled and plunged into darkness.

 

These are interesting thoughts. And it would certainly make my life easier to be able to forget about PIRs, which are generally proving to be a pest. However, our situation might be a wee bit different from Tim and Dom.

 

The yard is enclosed by buildings, the only way in is via a fairly tight alleyway. We are close enough to a motorway that the high level lights there give a certain amount of background light. You wouldn't have a problem walking to a vehicle but it is way too dark for anything but the most basic work. From the street, there is a locked gate, and the yard appears to be in darkness beyond because the street lighting is much brighter. My main concern would be that passing toerags would notice the yard more readily if we had floods permanently on, and if they stand at the right angle to the gate, might be able to see some of the stuff that's in the yard.

 

Once they get over the fence (which despite anti-climb paint and barbed wire isn't impossible), the floodlights give the thieves some helpful working light, and as soon as they are round the corner from the alleyway, they are out of sight of passers-by.

 

The flip side of things is the CCTV. This proved to be useful in identifying an intruder over the summer, but the footage was shot in daylight. Images under the halogens are OK, but aren't brilliant and my fear is that if we go any dimmer, they will become useless. Of course, the flip side to this is that we could look at better cameras with more useful low light capabilities.

 

Any thoughts?

[Oovis]

There's no way that a 30W led will be as bright as 300W halogen. Halogen does about 15-20 lumens per watt. LED is currently at about 60 lumens per watt. So you'd need about 75W of LED to equal a 300W halogen.

We have 50W LED workers on stage at the moment as a trial. Without getting out a light meter and measuring there feels like little difference from 500W halogens. If you're just looking for work light do you need an exact lux replacement, or something that'll save power and money to do the same job?

 

Certainly from an 8m throw they still make me squint!

 

My 2p

[J Pearce]

If you're only wanting light for CCTV look into infrared, your cameras may already be compatible.

 

You could then fit a few metal halide floods for working light in the dark months.

[Stuart91]

If you're only wanting light for CCTV look into infrared, your cameras may already be compatible.

 

You could then fit a few metal halide floods for working light in the dark months.

 

At least some of the cameras have infra-red LEDs built in, but these are pretty weedy. I'm entirely ignorant of the technicalities of infra-red floods: are they more energy efficient than producing visible light?

[J Pearce]

There are some big led IR floods that should consume a lot less than a 500W flood, and happily fill the whole yard with enough light for the cameras but without helping the burglars to see what they are doing.

[Jivemaster]

IR illuminators vary from PAR 64s with a heavy filter to rows of IR LEDs. Replacing tungsten with CFL usually impacts badly on the night performance of CCTV because the camera needs the IR that CFL does not produce.