This FAQ lists common questions related to LED lighting design, specification, installation, and usage as well as general questions about Lunera Lighting. If the question you are searching for isn't listed or if you are unsure of its answer, please contact us for assistance or to submit your question.

 

1. Who is Lunera Lighting?
Lunera Lighting is an American company started by a small team of experienced lighting designers and energy experts who believe in the potential of LED technology to create beautiful, functional lighting products that can be part of a greener solution to the world's energy needs.

2. What are the advantages of using Lunera's LED lighting fixtures?
LED fixtures offer the potential for energy savings, extended lifetime, cooler operation, ease of control, and, as in the case of Lunera Lighting fixtures, enhanced beauty over fluorescent fixtures.

3. Can Lunera lighting fixtures replace fluorescent fixtures in commercial applications?
Yes. Lunera fixtures are simple-to-install replacements for standard 2' by 4' fluorescent fixtures. Their unique distribution and comparable light output allows them to offer significant energy and maintenance savings in an aesthetically pleasing package.

4. What is the warranty for Lunera fixtures?
Lunera offers a standard 5 year warranty with an option to purchase an extended warranty. The expected typical life of our fixtures is over 15-18 years.

5. Can you dim Lunera fixtures?
Yes. Lunera fixtures are fully dimmable. We offer smooth continuous dimming at 0-10 volts.

6. What certifications and listings do your fixtures have (ex. UL)?
Lunera fixtures are UL, ETL, and FCC certified. They are Damp and Dry rated.

7. Do Lunera fixtures come in different color temperatures?
Yes, Lunera fixtures come in a variety of color temperatures(3000K, 4000K, 5000K) from warm to cool white depending on your personal preference and application.

8. Are Lunera's fixtures appropriate for use in the energy-conscious home?
Absolutely. Lunera fixtures do not suffer the ill effects of frequent on/off switching and overheating like compact fluorescent lamps.

 

9. What types of buildings are compatible with Lunera Lighting fixtures?
Commercial offices, schools, retail, medical offices, hospitals, laboratories, parking garages, manufacturing facilities, industrial warehouses are the most popular today.

10. Do Lunera Lighting fixtures work under Title 24 requirements?
Yes. Specifying Lunera's product can assist in achieving or exceeding Title 24 requirements without compromising the quality of light. Lunera's fixtures are also dimmable, meeting Title 24's standards for lighting controls.

11. Do Lunera fixtures help with LEED?
In addition to energy savings and controllability, Lunera's fixtures are free of any hazardous materials such as mercury or lead. This will assist in additional LEED points.

12. What is the Light Power Density (LPD) for Lunera fixtures?
The LPD varies by product. For example, the 2x2 Grid fixture is 0. 62 watts per square foot and the Suspended fixture is 0. 35 watts per square foot (review the specifications for the most current information).

13. How do you install a Lunera fixture?
Our 2200 Series can be mounted in a grid or sheet rock ceiling. Wall mounting options are available. The 6400 Series is suspended using aircraft cable. Please contact Lunera for additional installation information.

14. Is there anything special required to upgrade lights to Lunera?
No. Lunera's fixtures are available with 120 and 277 volt power supplies. The electrical requirements are that of any standard lighting fixture.

15. Are your lights compatible with building controls?
Yes. Please contact Lunera's customer service department for a list of compatible manufactures.

16. Can a single power supply unit (PSU) power more than one Lunera fixture?
Yes.

17. Do you have fastening kits for seismic bracing?
Lunera's 2200 Series grid lay-in fixture is packaged with clips for seismic bracing.

18. Do all your fixtures have hanging kits?
Yes, as options. Aircraft cable suspension is one of our fixture options. Other options are available upon request. Please contact Lunera.

19. What is the lead time for orders?
Our typical lead time is 4-6 weeks, however, please contact Lunera's customer service department for up to date lead times or to discuss special order handling.

20. Can Lunera fixtures be installed end to end?
Yes. Lunera's thin, infinity edge allows placement of fixtures end to end to provide the appearance of long, seamless runs.

 

21. How accurate is the calculator on the website?
We use your actual historic data to drive our analysis. Our lighting consultants and reps use a sophisticated tool and are available to create an analysis of your facility space payback. Contact Lunera for a space audit.

22. What is a typical payback for Lunera Lighting fixtures?
2-3 years, depending on the light source your are replacing.

23. Do I get a discount if I order a large volume of your product?
Yes. We give discounts based on volumes.

24. Do you offer financing?
Yes. We have several financing packages available. Each typically offers instant positive cash flow. Contact a Lunera Sales Rep to learn more.

 

25. How do LED fixtures help the environment?
LED fixtures in general have the potential to last five times longer than typical fluorescent fixtures. That reliability and longevity enables a more efficient use of natural resources.

LED fixtures typically consume less energy to produce the same amount of light as fluorescent fixtures. Reduced energy consumption helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus supports efforts to impact global warming.

Lastly, LED fixtures do not require the use of mercury, a toxic chemical used in the construction of fluorescent lamps.

26. What are the carbon savings with LED lights?
LED fixtures typically reduce energy consumption by 25%-50%, more when dimming controls are installed. Not every fixture comparison will produce an exact 30% savings. If a building realize 30% energy savings, the CO2 emissions will be reduced by one ton per fixture over the course of 10 years.

27. Are Lunera fixtures recyclable?
Yes. Lunera offers a recycling program that ensures that every part of our fixtures will be recycled. Instead of throwing away a Lunera fixture, send it to Lunera and we recondition, recertify, and reuse certain components in new fixtures and recycle the parts that cannot be reused.

28. How does a Lunera fixture help with LEED?
Lunera fixtures require less electricity and thus contribute to a reduced Lighting Power Density (LPD) that will maximize the maximum allowable LEED points for light products.

29. Do Lunera fixtures use any mercury or lead or hazardous substances?
No. Lunera chooses the best quality components that have the least environmental impact for our fixtures. Our fixtures do not contain hazardous substances.

However, no supply chain is perfect yet so we acknowledge that some of our component suppliers may use hazardous materials in their manufacturing process, something we hope can be reduced over time and has less impact over the long life of our fixtures.

30. Is the packaging recyclable?
Yes. Lunera fixtures arrive in recyclable cardboard packaging with biodegradable packing foam.

31. Where are Lunera fixtures manufactured?
The manufacturing facility is located in Northern California. Components are sourced locally if possible.

 

32. What is an LED?
LED is the common abbreviation for a light-emitting diode. Each individual LED consists of a semiconductor diode that emits light when a current passes through it. The electronics industry has used LED technology, a digital light source, since the 1970’s as indicator lights for various electronic devices. In more recent years, LED technology has progressed to the point where it is viable for general lighting applications.

33. How LEDs commonly used in the lighting industry?
LEDs are commonly used in aesthetic, effect, or specialty lighting applications including architectural highlighting. For example, most traffic signals, crosswalk signals, building exit signs, and automotive tail and direction indicator lights now use red, green or blue LEDs.

34. Have LEDs always been used in general illumination lighting?
No. Early attempts to apply LEDs in general illumination lighting failed because they didn't meet the lumen-per-watt output or color requirements. Technology has advanced to the point where using LEDs for general illumination is now viable. Lighting industry experts are gaining a better understanding of how to capitalize on that technology.

35. How has LED lighting design changed?
Conventional approaches to developing general illumination LEDs often involved retrofitting existing fixtures to house the new LED technology. Instead of investigating the benefits and challenges of LEDs, many early attempts simply used traditional lighting standards and housings. The problem was that LED technology breaks all traditional rules, and it quickly became apparent that old thinking couldn't be applied to this new technology.

36. Why don't LEDs function as efficiently in traditional fixture housings?
An LED module may physically fit into an existing housing, but that housing doesn't leverage the inherent qualities of the LEDs. Standard housings can't handle the challenges of LED thermal management, which is vastly different than thermal management for traditional incandescent or fluorescent lamps. Also, the optical design used in most traditional fixtures doesn't maximize the LED's efficiency.

37. What are the advantages to using LED lights?
LEDs bring several advantages to the lighting industry, including high efficiency and durability, and superior life over other lamp sources, greatly reducing required maintenance. This translates into energy savings, maintenance savings and an overall reduction in cost of ownership over the product's lifetime.

38. What's the difference between efficacy and efficiency?
Efficacy is concerned with the amount of light (in lumens) produced by a certain amount of electricity (in watts). On the other hand, efficiency is a term that is typically dimensionless. For example, lighting fixture efficiency is the ratio of the total lumens exiting the fixture to the total lumens initially produced by the light source.

39. How do you evaluate LED fixtures?
Lumen output is only part of the story and can be misleading. To fully evaluate an LED product one needs to review the overall system efficiency, optical control, thermal management of the LEDs, and know at what point in time the fixture will reach 30 percent lumen depreciation. Fixtures with good optical efficiency and thermal management will be able to deliver more lumens, on average, than traditional HID fixtures.

As the Department of Energy concluded in its Solid-State Lighting (SSL) Commercial Product Testing Program, "Until the field of SSL technologies and supporting knowledge matures, any claims regarding performance of SSL luminaires should be based on overall luminaire efficacy (i.e., from testing of the entire luminaire, including LEDs, drivers, heat sinks, optical lenses and housing), to avoid misleading buyers and causing long-term damage to the SSL market."

40. How are LEDs able to outperform HID?
Super-bright white LEDs have the advantage of minimal lumen depreciation, better optical efficiency and high lumens per watt. This means these LEDs can be used to replace traditional HID luminaires. LEDs also have a vastly longer life span than traditional lamp sources. The fixture design also must be designed to leverage these inherent advantages of LEDs. A Total Systems Approach is needed for an LED product to bring all these features together. LED fixtures also have an environmental advantage in that they contain no mercury, last longer and produce less waste, and they are made from fully recyclable materials. Furthermore, the extruded aluminum heat sink is manufactured using 77% post-industrial recycled material.

41. If an LED fixture has lower initial lumen output than a traditional HID light, how can LED claim to deliver lumens more efficiently than HID?
When you average delivered lumens over the course of 60,000 hours, you'll see that LED outperforms a 400-watt MH lamp operated in a horizontal position. (60,000 hours is used for this comparison to show three full life cycles of the HID).

The MH's lumen depreciation, as well as optical and ballast losses, quickly reduce output of the HID system. Note that there are three relamps over 60,000 hours. Conversely, LED has significantly better lumen maintenance and a more efficient driver. Also note that the LED fixture typically doesn't need relamping from zero to 60,000 hours.

42. How does ambient temperature affect LED efficiency?
LED fixtures must be designed with junction temperature thermal management as a key component and use the correct LEDs. These products will then be robust enough to operate in most ambient temperature applications. Unlike fluorescent sources, cold temperatures do not negatively impact the performance of LEDs.

43. What is junction temperature?
Junction temperature is the temperature at the point inside the diode where the light generated. Maintaining a low junction temperature increases output and slows LED lumen depreciation. Junction temperature is a key metric for evaluating an LED product's quality and ability to deliver long life.

The three things affecting junction temperature are: drive current, thermal path, and ambient temperature. In general, the higher the drive current, the greater the heat generated at the diode. Heat must be moved away from the diode in order to maintain expected light output, life, and color. The amount of heat that can be removed depends upon the ambient temperature and the design of the thermal path from the diode to the surroundings. [Source: DOE]

The Department of Energy advises: "Heat management and an awareness of the operating environment are critical considerations to the design and application of LED luminaires for general illumination. Successful products will use superior heat sink designs to dissipate heat, and minimize junction temperature. Keeping the junction temperature as low as possible and within manufacturer specifications is necessary in order to maximize the performance potential of LEDs."

44. Why Does Thermal Management Matter?
http://www.netl.doe.gov/ssl/general_illumination_thermal_matter.htm
[Source: DOE]

45. Do I have to replace LED diodes?
An LED typically does not burn out like a standard lamp, so individual diodes do not need to be replaced. Instead, the diodes gradually produce lower output levels over a very long period of time. If one LED fails, it does not produce a complete fixture outage.

46. Why is the life span of an LED measured as lumen depreciation?
The life span of an LED is vastly longer than that of incandescent, fluorescent or HID lamp sources, generally lasting 50,000 hours or longer. Although the LED rarely ever burns out, product life span is measured by lumen depreciation.

The Illuminating Engineering Society's (IES) current standard for calculating the life of an LED as the point at which the LED reaches 30 percent lumen depreciation. A 100,000-hour rating is not equivalent to lamp life rating. LED life is rated where it has reached 30 percent lumen depreciation. At 100,000 hours an LED would still be operating, but at a decreased lumen output.

47. How long is 100,000 hours?
Based on how long a fixture is illuminated per day, here's what 100,000 works out to:

 

48. Can LED fixtures help reduce glare?
The key metric in glare is luminance—how "bright" on object appears. It is a function of size of the object. LEDs are smaller objects that can actually increase the potential for glare, but the Lunera luminous plane offers a larger surface area than other LED products and traditional light sources as well. As a result, we are able to mitigate the issues of glare.

49. How is solid state lighting better than fluorescent lighting?
Independent studies repeatedly report a general dislike for fluorescent technology. People characterize the light quality as harsh or unfriendly and complain about the color of the light in their 1, 2 or 3 lamp fluorescent fixtures.

Because Lunera is able to "attack with numbers"—use many LED sources instead of one lamp, we are able to tailor a light prescription to meet people's needs. Whereas fluorescents often produce too much light, Lunera is able to emit the exact, appropriate amount of light to perform tasks. Whereas fluorescent light is very green, Lunera offers soft, white light solutions that make you look and feel better in it.

50. How are Lunera fixtures closer to natural light than fluorescent fixtures?
Fluorescent lamps have a high component of green light in them that looks unnatural.

"Attacking with numbers" enables us to combine many LEDs of different color characteristics. In aggregate these many LEDs are able to better match the unique spectrum of daylight. The result is a more natural and beautiful quality of light.

51. Do LEDs produce more shadows than fluorescent fixtures?
Most LED fixture manufacturers create harder shadows than other technologies which can be a distraction.

Lunera, however, has created a prescription of uniform, milky-white light that is much softer with singular almost imperceptible shadows.