Often we tend to underestimate the correct lighting of an enclosure, but experience teaches us that to effectively and safely carry out the operations of setting up and maintaining a machine or system it is necessary to … see well!
Lighting in designing an electrical panel
What is the most common error in the lighting design of an electrical panel? Truly, human error. If the numbered cables, the terminals, and the colors do not appear very clear, we are going to complicate the work of the operator, increasing the risks. An optimal solution is the use of LED lamps: they consume only a few watts, have a duration much longer than the entire life cycle of the device that hosts them, covering “extended ranges” of power.
How to choose LED lamps
And yet, LED lamps are not all the same: there are distinctive elements between models and manufacturers, even if it isn’t always immediately obvious.
Today, we explore together five features to consider for a complete, effective evaluation that is suited to the needs of using LED lamps:
- Color rendering index (Ra) – Although not present in the datasheet, it is the most important factor to distinguish the colors of the cables because it describes the ability to faithfully return the colors of an illuminated object and it is a dimensionless index ranging from 0 to 100.
- Luminous flux – it is expressed in Lumen and indicates the luminous intensity. Generally, a flow between 300 and 380 Lm allows the wiring to be adequately illuminated. But beware: over 400 Lm there is the risk of dazzling the operator!
- Length of the “luminous solid” – The beam of an LED traces a cone of light from the source to the illuminated surfaces. For this reason, cabinet lamps are developed on a cylindrical shape. With the same lamp length, we always consider how much of the printed circuit area is occupied by LEDs.
- Diffusion – The surface treatment of the covering helps to extend the width of the “solid” and widen the illuminated angle and a certain degree of opacity is preferable to a transparent surface.
- Wiring – For perfect illumination of every corner of the electrical cabinet, it’s good practice to install more than one lamp, generally by orienting the luminous solid from the ceiling. In this area, the wiring is not always easy and even here the design of the product can make the difference.
Lumeis: Fandis FLL LED lamps
Fandis FLL range has been designed to summarize the best of these five aspects: with the color rendering equal to 87 and an emission surface of 61% of the printed circuit distributed on 40 LEDs, it offers one of the most extensive coverages and perfect visibility. Furthermore, the quick-fit connectors on both ends of the lamp allow you to wire up to ten daisy-chain lamps, with optimized dimensions and cable routing.
To learn more, visit the website fandis.com and discover our Lumeis products for electric panels, or leave a comment to this article. One of our technicians will answer you as soon as possible. If instead, you are looking for our LED lamps for the Food & Beverage sector, click here!
Leave a Reply