Good question. I probably would be thinking $200 just for supply as I would do the work since it is in 12V DC. It is 6 metres wide so I was thinking about 3-4 lights.
Browse Forums Lighting + Lighting Design Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 161Jan 10, 2016 8:19 pm 1960sModernistHome To allow me to best help you, can you give me an idea of your budget? I know exactly what I would use to do the job, but it may not work with your budget... Good question. I probably would be thinking $200 just for supply as I would do the work since it is in 12V DC. It is 6 metres wide so I was thinking about 3-4 lights. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 162Jan 10, 2016 8:35 pm To be honest I don't think you'll do it for $200. If you searched around you could probably find cheap stuff that would fit in that price, but the resultant would probably not be great, and with exterior stuff (especially inground) it needs to be good quality or it will fail prematurely. Inground is probably the harshest area for light fitting as they are fully exposed to sun, weather, mechanical damage and also ground water.
So if you can stretch your budget a bit I would recommend 3 of these spaced 2 metres apart and 1 metre in from the ends, and out from the wall approximately 0.5m. The lights should be installed into a small concrete surround that you can easily form up yourself, perhaps using an ice cream container or small bucket. This helps keep them in place, gives you something to mow to, and gives protection against damage. You'll also need a low voltage power supply or LED driver to suit. Don't take too much notice of the price as you can get these from most lighting outlets https://thelightingoutlet.com.au/produc ... teel-ip67/ The half-dome cover will direct the light towards the wall to eliminate glare and ensure a relatively even illumination of the wall. 2700k/3000k a.k.a. "warm white" is a must for illuminating sandstone to bring out the colour of the stone. It might be worth buying the lights and driver and doing a night-time mock up to play around with the best installation location to achieve the best result. You may find you might need an extra light perhaps. Better to find this out before you've installed them! (I have fancy modelling software that can do this on the computer, but there's no substitute for actually doing it on site) Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 163Jan 10, 2016 9:26 pm 1960sModernistHome Put simply, you generally get what you pay for with lighting, as with most things. There are different grades of quality suitable for different purposes, i.e. residential grade, commercial grade, industrial grade, and a spectrum of quality within each grade. The price you pay also depends on where you purchase from. Typically retail stores are significantly more expensive than electrical wholesalers and some online sellers. It does pay to shop around, but just be careful if buying online to buy from a reputable seller and ensure that what you're buying has Australian approval certificates. With all due respect to electricians, in my experience not many of them know much about lighting principles and probably wouldn't know the difference between a cheap fitting and a good one, especially now with LED. To be fair, I used to be an electrician and at that time I wouldn't have known either. It's taken me nearly a decade in engineering and lighting design to learn. Thanks, think I will stick to main retail outlets. By the way, I just spoke to the builder of the upmarket display home. He said the 2, 3 light fittings were all custom made and a pain to install. They all had to be cut into the slab when it was poured (which I gather is normal) but due to their custom design/shape they were very fiddly/tricky. I'm adding this info in case anyone else likes them because it has put me off using these lights. I could see one light fitting that was poorly fitted (I could see it as I came down the stairs and had a view at ceiling height). They do look good though, but I imagine costly to fit as well as purchase. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 164Jan 11, 2016 6:54 am I can imagine that would have been a pain. That's the other thing, builders and tradespeople hate stuff that's fiddly or requires them to change "the way we do things"... but if it's what you want don't let them talk you out of it just because they don't want to do it. If there is a valid technical reason why something is not a good idea then of course that's different... I've installed the 1, 2 and 3 bay downlights before, they're pretty simple. They come fully assembled and you just cut a rectangle out of the gyprock ceiling and fit them in. Different story though if you're trying to get them to fit in a concrete slab! Building Services Engineer Renovating our 1960's modernist home in Brisbane https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=82091 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 165Jan 11, 2016 7:53 am Bump post... Hope you can review it... Hi 1960MH! Thanks for your advice so far! We have brought these brightgreen LED, https://clearance.brightgreen.com/produ ... downlight/ The 55 degree beam ones with warm white, they are 16w. 1. Your suggestion so far is that they may be too bright? 2. Will they still be considered too bright if we have 2.7m ceiling height or does that only apply for 2.4m high ceilings? 3. In a 4x4.6m room we plan to only have 4 in it, is that enough? 4. Will they be suitable for a bedroom which is 3x3.8m? If not which lights will you recommend! TIA viewtopic.php?f=31&t=75739&p=1299716#p1299716 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 166Jan 11, 2016 8:12 am Building4my3tots Bump post... Hope you can review it... Hi 1960MH! Thanks for your advice so far! We have brought these brightgreen LED, https://clearance.brightgreen.com/produ ... downlight/ The 55 degree beam ones with warm white, they are 16w. 1. Your suggestion so far is that they may be too bright? 2. Will they still be considered too bright if we have 2.7m ceiling height or does that only apply for 2.4m high ceilings? 3. In a 4x4.6m room we plan to only have 4 in it, is that enough? 4. Will they be suitable for a bedroom which is 3x3.8m? If not which lights will you recommend! TIA viewtopic.php?f=31&t=75739&p=1299716#p1299716 Hi there, sorry I must have missed your post. I think with 2.7 ceilings your 16w BG's will be fine. They're possibly bordering on too bright but that is mostly subjective. I don'tthink it would be uncomfortable. 4 of them in your 4x4.6m room will be fine In your 3x3.6m room you could get away with probably 3 or even 2. Maybe one over the bed head, one in front of the wardrobe, and one over where a small study desk or something might go. If you're a stickler for symmetry, installing 4 of them would be fine too. If the BG downlights are dimmable then you can always add a dimmer switch later on if you feel they are too bright. Alternatively you could have your electrician wire them so that they are on multiple switches, so you don't need to switch them all on at once. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 167Jan 11, 2016 8:21 pm 1960sModernistHome To be honest I don't think you'll do it for $200. If you searched around you could probably find cheap stuff that would fit in that price, but the resultant would probably not be great, and with exterior stuff (especially inground) it needs to be good quality or it will fail prematurely. Inground is probably the harshest area for light fitting as they are fully exposed to sun, weather, mechanical damage and also ground water. So if you can stretch your budget a bit I would recommend 3 of these spaced 2 metres apart and 1 metre in from the ends, and out from the wall approximately 0.5m. The lights should be installed into a small concrete surround that you can easily form up yourself, perhaps using an ice cream container or small bucket. This helps keep them in place, gives you something to mow to, and gives protection against damage. You'll also need a low voltage power supply or LED driver to suit. Don't take too much notice of the price as you can get these from most lighting outlets https://thelightingoutlet.com.au/produc ... teel-ip67/ The half-dome cover will direct the light towards the wall to eliminate glare and ensure a relatively even illumination of the wall. 2700k/3000k a.k.a. "warm white" is a must for illuminating sandstone to bring out the colour of the stone. It might be worth buying the lights and driver and doing a night-time mock up to play around with the best installation location to achieve the best result. You may find you might need an extra light perhaps. Better to find this out before you've installed them! (I have fancy modelling software that can do this on the computer, but there's no substitute for actually doing it on site) OK I can see where you are coming from. I was thinking lights on wall itself but I wasn't looking outside the square. The lighting you posted about is much better idea and it lights up the wall. Very classy. I might just do the cable install for now and down the track spend the extra on better lighting as posted. Thanks once more for your great recommendations. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 168Jan 11, 2016 8:33 pm Hi 1960sModernistHome, I have been following this thread and its great for you to offer your knowledge!, I am currently working on my lighting plan for my build and just a few quick questions to clear up. I originally didn't think there was much to picking lights and plotting them down but realised how big of a subject it is and how little i know. Just like to know your thoughts, we have 3.05m ceiling (ground), 2.60m (first floor) and the builder has allowance for x20 Ecogem LED 10w dimmable downlights. Is this sufficient to project enough light from the ceiling especially for the ground floor, is there a rule of thumb on Watt vs height, also how far each LED down light should be placed? Also I have been told that for upstairs Im better off putting in one baton light in each room. Then after handover , replace maybe with an oyster/pendant type light centre, and then put some LED around as there is roof access. Walkways , runpus etc, again just to put one baton light to be switched over later Get the builder to only do the downstairs lighting as it will be much harder post handover. cheers Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 169Jan 12, 2016 9:31 am richiey30 Hi 1960sModernistHome, I have been following this thread and its great for you to offer your knowledge!, I am currently working on my lighting plan for my build and just a few quick questions to clear up. I originally didn't think there was much to picking lights and plotting them down but realised how big of a subject it is and how little i know. Just like to know your thoughts, we have 3.05m ceiling (ground), 2.60m (first floor) and the builder has allowance for x20 Ecogem LED 10w dimmable downlights. Is this sufficient to project enough light from the ceiling especially for the ground floor, is there a rule of thumb on Watt vs height, also how far each LED down light should be placed? Also I have been told that for upstairs Im better off putting in one baton light in each room. Then after handover , replace maybe with an oyster/pendant type light centre, and then put some LED around as there is roof access. Walkways , runpus etc, again just to put one baton light to be switched over later Get the builder to only do the downstairs lighting as it will be much harder post handover. cheers Hi there First things first, and I say this to everyone, try and consider using downlights that have some form of glare cut-off with some beam control. I had to Google the Ecogem downlights and they are the typical el-cheapo builder-spec flat opal type. These have high glare properties and no beam control. They have their place, but personally I wouldn't recommend them for large open areas or high ceilings. Glare issues aside, in terms of achieving decent lux levels on the floor, I really think they would be inadequate for the 3 metre ceilings on the ground floor. Probably ok (just) for the 2.6m ceiling. These flat opal type of downlights work by basically throwing light out all over the place. This is perfectly appropriate for areas like toilets, bathrooms, corridors, laundries etc. But the downfall is that these lights are very high glare so in an open area your eye will be drawn to the glare spots on the ceiling. This has an effect on you (eye strain and visual discomfort), and also has an effect on your perception of the room. It makes it seem smaller because your eyes focus to the nearest source of light (just like auto-focus on a point and shoot camera). Due to the very wide beam, they are also less effective with large ceiling heights because they don't have the "punch" to get the lumens down to the ground or work plane. By contrast, a downlight with good glare cut off and good optical control blocks out your view of the LED light source as the LED is recessed deep into the luminaire, with a reflector used to punch the light down at various beam angles (around 40-60 degrees is good for general lighting). The only time you see the LED source is if you are below the light and you look straight up into it (not recommended...). I have seen plenty of decent residential-grade low-glare LED downlights on the market for around the $40-60 mark. The ones your builder's using are probably worth about $18-20ea or so. If you can afford to spend the extra to upgrade, then I really think it would be money well spent. To upgrade 20 of them would only be around $600, provided your builder is on board (which they should be - you're the customer, it's your house). To see what I mean in real life with the glare issue, have a look at the pictures I posted on page 4 of this thread of downlights installed in my own home. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=80131&start=60 Generally spacings for downlights in a home would be about 2-3 metres for living areas and bedrooms, and a bit closer for areas where you want plenty of light (think kitchens, laundry, study etc) - perhaps 1.5-2 metres. This is assuming the downlight has an appropriate lumen output and beam angle (e.g. something with about 600-800 lumens with a 40-60 degree beam angle). In living areas and circulation spaces I try to ensure I get illumination on the walls. This enhances your perception of the space and makes it seem bigger. There are numerous ways to achieving this, but the easiest way is to use some adjustable downlights shining on walls and artwork. The reflected illuminance is generally sufficient for most activities in living areas, and you can supplement it with some general downlights for when you need more light. I agree that it is probably best to use your builder's allowance downstairs where there is no ceiling access. As long as you can get good ceiling access, changing lighting later on and installing fans etc is relatively simple. Building Services Engineer Renovating our 1960's modernist home in Brisbane https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=82091 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 170Jan 12, 2016 8:54 pm Hi 1960sModernistHome, Thanks for your reply! I thought the builders included downlights were a bit on the cheapo side, will look at upgrading, but need to see what they have available as i doubt they will allow me to supply the lights. I will however be able to choose what I want for the first floor For the ground floor (3.05m) ceilings i was looking at some of the lights you recommended , would https://www.golights.com.au/led-downlig ... s-lighting or https://clearance.brightgreen.com/produ ... downlight/ be better suited 55degrees one? be ok? Is it worth using this one type throughout the house as you mention for bedrooms, corridors, laundry you would use the other type (high glare) such as https://www.golights.com.au/led-downlig ... s-lighting , or would using the low glare be suited for bedrooms as well. What would be an ideal light for the 3.05m space you would suggest? I dont mind spending a bit extra to get it done right The other thing is that I have a big void area at the entry of the house (approx 4.5m (l) x 2.5m (w) x 5.7 (h) ), not really sure on what to light it with but was looking at putting in x1 https://www.golights.com.au/moooi-raimo ... -61cm-89cm 89cm version. Some also suggest to put 1 of each size in (43cm, 61cm, 89cm) , in a staggered height circle formation - that could be an overkill? with a ceiling of 5.7m , there would no point in supplementing a big pendant light with any sort of downlight ? any suggestions on this ? Oh an also for a dedicated home theater room , what would you generally recommend cheers Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 171Jan 13, 2016 10:01 am You could use either of those throughout - no worries. The only reason I suggested using the high glare ones is because they are a cheaper... The bright green ones look like good value. These are also a possibility and would be similar price http://www.greenilluminate.com.au/products/ The Invis16 would be the low glare type, and the Retrofit would be the cheaper wide beam type. Either of the low glare downlights would be fine for the high ceilings because they have reflectors that direct the light down. A pendant would be the best solution for that space, what you proposed would be great as it would throw light all around onto the ceiling and walls, maximising the perception of the space. As for quantity and configuration, this is really more of an aesthetic design rather than true lighting design (from an engineer's point of view at least) so really choose whatever look you like. Either a single large pendant or multiple small ones would be fine, just depends whether you want to keep it simple and minimal or more decorative. Theatre room I would recommend some downlights in the ceiling for general lighting, and then some separately switched low wattage wall lights for watching movies. Maybe something like this - https://www.domuslighting.com.au/interi ... 27%2319965 Building Services Engineer Renovating our 1960's modernist home in Brisbane https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=82091 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 172Jan 13, 2016 5:25 pm 1960sModernistHome Building4my3tots Bump post... Hope you can review it... Hi 1960MH! Thanks for your advice so far! We have brought these brightgreen LED, https://clearance.brightgreen.com/produ ... downlight/ The 55 degree beam ones with warm white, they are 16w. 1. Your suggestion so far is that they may be too bright? 2. Will they still be considered too bright if we have 2.7m ceiling height or does that only apply for 2.4m high ceilings? 3. In a 4x4.6m room we plan to only have 4 in it, is that enough? 4. Will they be suitable for a bedroom which is 3x3.8m? If not which lights will you recommend! TIA viewtopic.php?f=31&t=75739&p=1299716#p1299716 Hi there, sorry I must have missed your post. I think with 2.7 ceilings your 16w BG's will be fine. They're possibly bordering on too bright but that is mostly subjective. I don'tthink it would be uncomfortable. 4 of them in your 4x4.6m room will be fine In your 3x3.6m room you could get away with probably 3 or even 2. Maybe one over the bed head, one in front of the wardrobe, and one over where a small study desk or something might go. If you're a stickler for symmetry, installing 4 of them would be fine too. If the BG downlights are dimmable then you can always add a dimmer switch later on if you feel they are too bright. Alternatively you could have your electrician wire them so that they are on multiple switches, so you don't need to switch them all on at once. Thanks a lot for your reply! It's been very helpful! viewtopic.php?f=31&t=75739&p=1299716#p1299716 Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 173Jan 14, 2016 4:03 am Hi 1960s The area above our stairs has now become a tall void. It was a fix for a drafting error by our architect. Looks great though not that efficient. Anyho, builder has suggested and we agree this area would benefit from light in terms of a feature or pendant as it's quite high for downlights (maybe 4 meters or more?? The fix wasn't off plan so I don't really know but it's quite tall.. Maybe 4.6) I'm wondering if a pendant then above the dining area down below which is sort of adjacent would be too much? As if you are sitting at the end of the table or looking that way then both would be in your line of sight. Not sure, what do you think? If not I guess you would go with dimmable downlights? Tricky as don't want to provision for a light then not put the downlights in, if I want to decide later. We've chosen these for above the island Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Cheers Leksie Custom knockdown rebuild Newcastle NSW viewtopic.php?t=78271 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 174Jan 15, 2016 1:47 pm 1960sModernistHome No worries. You can get resin filled heat shrink, which when shrunk creates a waterproof join. It only works with smooth cables through, so if you use two core garden cable it's not a smooth circle. You don't need to use conduit but I really do recommend it. Differential ground movement can break or damage the cable as small rocks rub the cable, termites are more likely to damage it, and human damage from shovels etc is more likely. It could be any sort of fairly rigid plastic tubing. Just something to give it a loose protective layer and a bit of room to move. You should be able to pick up 4 metre lengths of 20mm grey conduit for a few bucks and grab a handful of couplings and elbows. You could then save money by using 2 core TPS electrical cable instead of the expensive 12v garden lighting cable, and in my.opinion would be a better solution. You could perform your joints in a 20mm 3 way or 4 way junction box and then fill the junction box right up with silicone With 12v wiring you need to make sure the connections are made well. 12v does not like bad connections because the low voltage simply doesn't have the oomph to get through a "bottleneck". I always twist together and solder, or use a screw connector, terminal block, or splice connector. Twisting together really isn't sufficient in and of itself. Really need that extra pressure of a screw or splice terminal or solder. Hi 1960MH I am haveing a hard time deciding on the best way to waterproof my splice joints, i was hoping to use those resin connectors but i cant find anything that would suit a 3 way conenction for 3.3mm2 wire. So ive thought about making my own resin joints using sillicone, would the following be ok 1. Strip all 3 wires back and twist together. 2. Solder wires together 3. insert into 40mm length of 8mm clear hose (http://www.perthirrigation.com.au/listP ... LEAR+VINYL) 4. fill inside hose with Sillicone 5. tape up with electrical tape.. Also, with sillicone, can any sillicone be used, i was reading somewhere that RTV sillicone is the best way to go which can be bought from bunnings, not the cheapest though: http://www.bunnings.com.au/selleys-310g ... e_p1231042 Thanks Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 175Jan 15, 2016 2:16 pm The big issue with 12V DC is light weight cable and voltage drop. That is the big problem rather that the splicing and joints. Get as heavy a cable you can afford for cable runs. That requirement makes 12v DC lighting expensive for garden works. Voltage drop is enemy of 12v DC. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 177Jan 15, 2016 3:45 pm Voltage drop is nowhere near as much of a problem as it once was with halogen lights. A 5W LED now performs the job of a 35W halogen so your load, and therefore voltage drop, is reduced by a factor of 7. I just used an old roll of Cat5e with 4 of the conductors twisted together for positive and the other 4 connected together for negative, giving a total cross sectional area of around 0.8mm2. Your inventive resin joint should work fine. Just make sure you fill it up good and proper. I'd imagine any old roof and gutter silicone should be fine. Selleys All Clear is probably best as it forms a skin pretty much straight out of the tube so you don't need to worry as much about it running out all over the place. Building Services Engineer Renovating our 1960's modernist home in Brisbane https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=82091 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 178Jan 18, 2016 11:09 pm Hi 1960sModernistHome, firstly thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise. I'm a first time poster, but been reading a while here (should have posted earlier). Could you please recommend some suitable LED downlights for the plans below (pink markings approx for where lights will be positioned). My guess is we should have had more recessed lighting points in the living area (based on your 3w per m calculation, given its almost 25m2), but it's probably too late to change this now (gyrocking went up last week). Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I was looking at either:
All points are scheduled to be recessed. The kitchen has a standard ceiling height (2.4m), while the dining and living are raked from a height of about 3.6m down to 2.4m hence the selection for gimble lights. Any recommendations to get out of the predicament would be greatly appreciated. Cheers. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 179Jan 19, 2016 7:21 am You don't appear to have any lights over the benchtops against the outside walls. When you would be prepping a meal in those areas at night you'll be working in shadow. Stewie Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 180Jan 19, 2016 2:27 pm To be honest, I think you might be a few short. Never fear though, if you go with some dual downlights like these you should be fine, just get them fitted with some good LED lamps and a proper LED driver. You can aim them wherever you like then. http://www.gentechlighting.com.au/produ ... ctangular/ Building Services Engineer Renovating our 1960's modernist home in Brisbane https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=82091 You should check your detail drawings, it may show downpipe within brick pier. 14 14089 I work with owner, he/she is my man on the ground and I instruct them when to visit the site and take photos and I have other tools in the bag. 4 15265 Ardo That is so funny! I wonder how many people know who Larry Haun is these days. I have a couple of young guys we call Mo 1 & Mo 2 who run a crew of 6 boys and… 9 15510 |