Design & Engineering Services - Southern California Lighting Technology Center
Commercial Signage Lighting Tests Conducted
In the past, most internally illuminated commercial signs used T12HO lamps and magnetic ballasts.
In October 2005, businesses with illuminated signs were required to employ high efficacy lighting using one of two compliance options:
- A lighting power allowance for internally illuminated signs
- The use of electronic ballasts and other specific energy-efficient lighting technologies.
This project focused on the second option.
Four signs were constructed to test each of the four lamp and ballast technologies:
- T5HO with electronic ballast
- T8HO with electronic ballast
- T12HO with electronic ballast
- T12HO with magnetic ballast
Tests compared the photometric and energy consumption performance of each configuration. Internal sign temperature, connected load, average luminance, luminance ratio and color rendition were measured.
A luminance camera was used to create a high resolution mapping of the light output from each sign. This measurement technique uses a digital camera where the charged coupled device sensor (CCD) serves as an array of light sensors. A set of pictures at different apertures and exposures is taken, then imported into customized software which is calibrated to the camera. This software analyzes the data and creates a false-color luminance map as shown above. From this map data, maximum, minimum and average luminances were obtained.
More information is in the Commercial Signage Lighting and Controls Final Report (PDF).