Dr. WenTao Kuang, Managing Director of Kosnic, tells us about the company’s latest emergency lighting solutions.
When tasked with an emergency lighting installation scenario for thefirst time the expectation is that it should be simple and straightforward. After all, it is a legal requirement to include provision for escape route lighting in all new commercial buildings. However, when it comes to managing and upgrading existing lighting fixtures and fittings that provide illumination for an emergency situation, the best product and system choice is not always obvious.
Back to the drawing board
Emergency lighting is part of the fire safety provision of a building and cannot be ignored. Changes in a building’s layout requires the addition of emergency lighting or an upgrade of an existing light source to ‘emergency-ready’. Not forgetting the overwhelming need to switch from inefficient CFLs to eco-friendly/energy-efficient LED technology, these are testing times for installers.
Kosnic’s product development team, based in Newbury, undertook extensive research amongst customers to identify key issues that influenced product purchase decisions when adding or upgrading existing lighting to emergency-ready. ‘Speed’ and ‘ease’ of installation were the overwhelming factors that affect final product choice. High visibility emergency lighting is often positioned in awkward-to-access pedestrian areas: corridors, stairwells etc. A significant reduction in time spent to retrofit each unit was a compelling reason to buy or specify. Armed with these findings, Kosnic’s Technology Centre in Shanghai proceeded to develop a solution.
A straight retrofit
The Kosnic LED DD is a low maintenance, energy saving lamp that offers a like-for-like replacement for traditional CFL DD lamps – simply remove the old CFL and slip the Kosnic LED DD tray directly into the same lamp holder.
“As an independent Fire Safety Contractor, estimating the correct amount of time to undertake necessary lamp upgrades is critical. Ideally, I need everything to go smoothly. Kosnic’s LED DD lamp helps me a lot to achieve this because it’s so easy to install and quick to set-up, and the shorter install time allows me to quote for much larger pr ojects.” Steve Perry, Independent Safety Contractor, SP Fire
With a 30,000 hours rating – at least three times the lamp life of a standard CFL DD lamp – it can deliver an average energy-saving of 64%, so running and maintenance costs are reduced and a cleaner, brighter light delivered.
Other systems that offer emergency pack upgrade kits require a hard-wire connection into the LED tray – this is unnecessary hassle and can add considerable time to the job and can be very costly on large projects with inaccessible lamps. Kosnic’s LED DD lamps come with a patented built-in socket and LED indicator fitted as standard on the LED lamp, which means that the comparative connection of the emergency pack is reduced to a simple socket plug and play operation – it takes just seconds. The emergency module then just needs to be secured into the fitting and wired into a mains connection.
Cost saving
In addition, the lamp’s corridor function ensures light is only delivered when needed. The Kosnic LED DD 12W and 18W are available with a Microwave Sensor for improved operational efficiency. If the sensor detects no movement the lamp automatically dims to 10% – reducing energy and maintenance costs. The motion detection range and time duration is fully adjustable by simply flipping a corresponding dipswitch.
Light only when it’s needed
The unit also has a ‘light-sensitivity’ function that measures the ambient light threshold so that it can be set to not illuminate if the ambient light is above this level, again delivering significant energy and maintenance cost savings.
The LED DD lamps are also installed as standard into IP65/IK10 rated bulkhead luminaires (emergency option comes with the emergency pack already wired in).
LED DD lamps not only provides an eco-friendly and energy-efficient alternative to CFLs, but the plug and play emergency ready pack is an inventive yet simple resolution to the labour- and cost-intensive problem.
