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“I have a large, old, downtown, church with, of course, limited finances that is looking to brighten up their main sanctuary and altar. The church recently replaced all the high sanctuary bulbs with lamps that are small odd shape Philips lamp, certainly not a conical reflector style but an odd small bulb shape. I suspect they are metal halide lamps. The metal shades on fixtures appear to be cutting down the amount of light in the sanctuary. The bulb is sets way up the metal shade which is not reflective. The church is essentially looking for the brightest, whitest, long lasting (not so easy to replace these bulbs, cherry picker must be rented), most energy efficient lamp whose shape fits the existing fixtures and can be safely used given the rating of the existing circuits.
The bulbs that worked fine for the last 20 years were GE Reflector Floods AF5, 150W, 130V. The old bulbs look like a standard flood light with a face diameter of 4-3/4″ and 6-1/4″ long from the tip of the screw socket to the top of the domed face. What are your suggestions? Thanks.”
Replies
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I'm not sure if the lighting fixtures were replaced with metal halide fixtures or if only the light bulbs were replaced. If the fixtures were replaced, and you really have metal halides. Bad news. Only metal halides will work and the fixtures are made for only one wattage. You can't just change bulbs.
If only the bulbs were changed. Then you don't have metal halides. (you probably already knew that)
There is an amazing variety of light bulbs available. If you want to see alot of them, get a maintenance warehouse catalog
http://www.mwh.com
or better yet, a Grainger catalog
http://www.grainger.com
Because every building is different and your lighting needs and fixtures aren't like anybody elses, you'll just have to browse until you see what you like. You'll definately be able to identify your lights from the pictures in the catalogs.
*I'm not so sure you are using metal halide bulbs in place of the old reflector floods. These require a ballast to operate, like low pressure sodium.What ever they are, if they are not reflector type, the light output is not concentrated/directed and will appear dimmer, even if a higher lumen. Your nonreflective lamp shield is not helping either.If you are looking for long-lasting lamps you could switch to the compact fluorescents. GE (among others) has a 42w, 3200 lumen, 12K hrs fixture that is installed in a screw-in adapter. That's about the same lumens as a 50w metal halide with twice the life and twice the lumens and six times the life for the reflector flood but you still have the non-directed light which appears to be dimmer compared to the flood. You are probably not interested in changing the entire fixture, shade and all, but you might consider installing a highly reflective coating or shield inside the existing shade to assist in reflecting some of the light. The change to fluorescent would definitely be more energy efficient and keep you from renting the picker too often.
*Do the fixtures have covers over them ? Are the bulbs the screw in type ? (Sounds like it from your description.)If there is no cover, (Or if the lights could do without the covers...), and the bulbs are the screw in type, why are you renting a cherry picker when there is a tool available that will extend to almost any length, which is used to reach up into the fixtures, and grab the bulbs. It will hold the bulbs well enough for you to unscrew the old, and screw in the new. They have heads for these things, for just about any type of light bulb that has a screw in base. Including floods. If you started using this tool, the only time you would need a cherry picker is if one of the bulbs broke off in the socket. The best way to prevent that from ever happening is to coat the threads of the bulb base with either silicone dielectric grease or with anti-sieze compound, before inserting it into the socket. An added benefit to this would, of course, be that the bulbs would be a lot easier to change.It would also allow you the opportunity of easily changing bulbs in only part of the area, to see whether a different type actualy makes a difference in the lighting or not.Get yerself over to a local lighting and fixture company. They will not only have the tool that I suggest, but they could probably be talked into bringing the tool and a selection of bulbs to the sanctuary so that you can try them and find out which is best.
*Sounds like they replaced incandescent with halogen?
*There's also adapters to remove broken off bulbs.
*Not the spot for fluorescents, most flourescents have a focal length of 6 ft. Beyond that the lumens drop too fast. I suspect they are halogen can lights. The odd shape is too increase the focal length to 12 ft. Flood lights which are often mistakenly put into "cans" put out too much heat and too little light for the energy used. You will find that if they are "cans" the life will go up dramatically over flood lights. I have those same Phillips brand halogen can lights in my fixtures and They are now over 10 years old. Light bulbs are an area that you should get some expert advice from a lighting studio. There is more bad and just plain wrong information out there then right. It's very hard to find the people that are willing to take the time to learn enough to make it pay when anyone can go to the hardware store and buy a package of bulbs for $.99 Do not think that you can just pick out the one with the most lumens, longest life, and lowest price. Waaaay too much more goes into it then that.
*Jack, The information that you have provided isn't sufficient to make any specific recommendations. In fact, it appears to be somewhat contradictory. For example, you stated the lamp diameter is 4 3/4". In the lighting industry lamp diameters are expressed in 1/8th's of an inch so your lamp is a "38". This would lead me to speculate that it is a 150 PAR 38. The overall length you listed is 6 1/4", but the PAR lamp has a MOL (maximum overall length) of 5 5/16", so that indicates that it might not be a PAR. Incidentally, PAR stands for Parabolic Aluminized Reflector. There is a type of lamp known as an "R" lamp that has an MOL of 6 1/4", but that lamp has a diameter of 5" and is known as an "R40" for "reflector, 40/8ths of an inch in diameter.PAR lamps are made of a heavy heat resistant glass, and the front has either a prismatic (or diamond) pattern that denotes a flood light, or a stippled front that provides little dispersion of light and denotes a spot light. R lamps are made of a much thinner glass, similar to the lamps you use at home in a table lamp. The front face may have a moderate level of "frosting" (actually etched or sandblasted into the glass), or a very light level of frosting. The moderate level denotes a flood light, while the very light level is found on a spotlight. Regardless of being a PAR or an R, flood lights cause the light to spread out and cover a wide area. Spot lights concentrate light and are used to highlight objects or punch light down from high mounting heights.Can you provide a better description of the fixtures. How far inside the fixtures are the lamps recessed? Do the fixtures have concentric black rings (or baffles). How high is the ceiling, and at what height are the fixtures mounted. I've worked with churches with ceiling heights ranging from 14 feet to 60 feet, and they all described them as "high".Finally, can you provide the information printed on the new Philips lamps?
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"I have a large, old, downtown, church with, of course, limited finances that is looking to brighten up their main sanctuary and altar. The church recently replaced all the high sanctuary bulbs with lamps that are small odd shape Philips lamp, certainly not a conical reflector style but an odd small bulb shape. I suspect they are metal halide lamps. The metal shades on fixtures appear to be cutting down the amount of light in the sanctuary. The bulb is sets way up the metal shade which is not reflective. The church is essentially looking for the brightest, whitest, long lasting (not so easy to replace these bulbs, cherry picker must be rented), most energy efficient lamp whose shape fits the existing fixtures and can be safely used given the rating of the existing circuits.
The bulbs that worked fine for the last 20 years were GE Reflector Floods AF5, 150W, 130V. The old bulbs look like a standard flood light with a face diameter of 4-3/4" and 6-1/4" long from the tip of the screw socket to the top of the domed face. What are your suggestions? Thanks."