LED Strip Kits
LED Light Bars shine for 2015 as Best New Lighting Product by M Lite Solution
When we designed our UL and DLC listed LED Light Bar and Mini Light Bar retrofit kits, we built them to last long, provide energy savings, while being easy to install. These are a Win-Win for building owners, electrical contractors, and our environment.
Below is a step by step install guide for a better understanding of how easy they are to install. Click the link below to view our PDF attachment for easy install and our product overview flyer.
m-lite-mr-series-led-upgrade-kit-installation-instructions 3 LED LIGHT BARS MR-1100-318-ALC
m lite light bar flyer general
For more information visit online at M-Lites.com
LED Terminology – Kelvin, CRI, and Luminous Flux
LED Lighting Terminology
Color Temperature and Color Rendering (Kelvin and CRI): There are two standard measurements for the color characteristics of light: “color rendering index” (CRI), a term used to describe the extent to which an artificial light source is able to render the true color of objects as seen by natural outdoor sunlight which has a CRI of 100, and “color temperature”, which expresses the color appearance of the light itself.
Color Rendering Index (CRI): Incandescent is used as the base reference of 100 CRI. Compact fluorescent lamps are graded at 82-86 CRI, which is considered high quality color rendering. CRI is a more important consideration for retail lighting design than it is for office lighting. Any CRI rating of 80 or above is considered high and indicates that the source has good color properties. Incandescent lamps and daylight have a CRI of 100, the highest possible CRI. The higher the CRI of the light source, the “truer” it renders color. At M-Lite we strive to manufacture our LED lighting at 80 CRI or better.
Color Temperature (Kelvin): Refers to the way color groups are perceived – the psychological impact of lighting. Color temperature is how cool or warm the light source appears. The color temperature of a light source is a numerical measurement of its color appearance. This temperature is based on the principle that any object will emit light if it is heated to a high enough temperature and that the color of that light will shift in a predictable manner as the temperature is increased. This system is based on the color changes of a black metal as it is heated from a cold black to a white hot state. As the temperature increases, the color would shift gradually from red to orange to yellow to white and finally to a blue white. Color temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin (K). Colors and light sources from the red/orange/yellow side of the spectrum are described as warm (incandescents) and those toward the blue end are referred to as cool (natural daylight). The sun, for example, rises at approximately 1800 Kelvin and changes from red to orange to yellow and to white as it rises to over 5000 Kelvin at high noon. It then goes back down the scale as it sets.
Luminous Flux – the flow of light measured in lumens. With light bulbs, it provides an estimate of the apparent amount of light the bulb will produce. Depending on the application, much of an incandescent’s light is wasted because it’s emitted in every direction. LEDs on the other hand, put out directional light, sending all of the light exactly where it’s needed. This is why an LED producing 500 lumens might be equivalent to an incandescent producing 900 lumens.
Lumens measure how much light you are getting from a bulb. The more lumens means it’s a brighter light; fewer lumens means it’s a dimmer light.
Lumens produced is just one factor of the performance of a light, and sometimes it is misleading. To understand how to fully evaluate the LED product, we need to look the overall system efficiency, optical control, thermal management of the LEDs.
Another factor that can also be very misleading is the life of an LED lights, the life time is defined by how long will the light last before the fixture reaches 20 percent lumen depreciation.
For example, most of the time an LED Light has a life time of 50,000 hours, it does not mean that after 50,000 hours, the LED lighting product will not work at all. It will still be working, but the Lumens it emitts is factored at 20% less than when it was first used.
For more LED Lighting Facts, visit our website at http://www.m-lites.com
Office supply company in Elgin converts showroom to LED Lighting
Rieke Office Interiors : A Green building making the jump to LED
Rieke Office Interiors (ROI) is Certified by the U.S. Green Building Council
LEED®, the “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” Green Building Rating System, is the nationally accepted standard for green buildings developed by the USGBC membership. Full details from the US Green Building Council website. Contact an ROI sales representative for more information about breakthroughs in building science, technology and operations that are available to designers, builders and owners who want to build green and maximize both economic and environmental performance.
The Environment- We care!!
ROI recycles all of its paper, cardboard, plastic stretch film, wood scrap, wood dust and metal. Annually, this is the equivalent of 12 semi-trailers that is being kept out of land fills. So making the switch to LED lighting is a welcomed change for ROI.
To justify our clients investment, we measure the return, and provide our clients with peace of mind, we always provide a comprehensive Client Impact Analysis report that measures, and quantifies the end results of our Energy Efficient LED Lighting upgrade based upon pre-process measurements and information provided by our clients team.
M-Lite Solutions overall goal is the complete success of every LED Lighting upgrade. To that end, we have outlined an anticipated Return on Investment (ROI) in our Analysis. This analysis provides a base line for our clients expectations and the framework for their decision-making.
Cost of Waiting
Retrofitting 57 fixtures to LED Light bars is not a huge undertaking. Our reward comes in many ways. Reike office interiors saves $2000 a year with our upgrade, and together we reduce green house gases along the way. M-Lites gets to show off our LED products to hundreds of commercial building owners, and help them save too.
For more information please email us at Sales@M-Lites.com
The science of sustainability solutions blog post by TheGuardian
Below is a link to a Great Post on: Too big to save: why commercial buildings resist energy efficiency from the guardian.
Below is our comment to the Article:
Creating change in business for commercial buildings like this can be partially done by public awareness, but it will really come down to government agencies establishing more green laws that force building owners into making their buildings more energy efficient.
You see, I am an Inventor, I make my own patented and UL approved LED lighting for schools, and other commercial properties. I have a lot of frustration when I walk into a building with old inefficient lighting that is consuming more energy than needed, and my inventions can reduce their lighting cost by 60 to 80 percent per fixture.
It further bothers me when I have over 10 Billion Dollars of performance leasing funds to fund these types of projects. I have recently offered our services to many city, and state government agencies to do free building case studies to show how we can put money back into the our building owners pockets by converting to better lighting.
The biggest objection I hear is that it is fantastic that we will save all this money, but we don’t have the money to pay for it. That is why, I provide performance based leasing options to all types of organizations, whom qualify, and are seeking to reduce their own energy use.
New, more efficient LED Lighting should lower energy bills, and maintenance cost, and with our performance based leasing programs being calculated so that they can be offset by these anticipated savings, the leasing option is designed to pay for itself. Excuse has been removed!
The savings assessment is undertaken by Eco Lighting Designs (ESCO), and your staff while the equipment lease is provided by M-Lite Solutions. So when I hear we don’t have the funds to pay for it, you haven’t tried us yet.
I welcome the challenge to make every building in our country more energy efficient, so if you are your buildings Champion or LEED coordinator contact me at dave.rozek@m-lites.com
LED Project Funding
Investment in energy-efficient LED Lighting makes sound business, and good environmental sense, especially with the Energy Efficiency Lease options provided by M-Lite Solution LLC.
M-Lite Solution is offering performance based leasing options to all types of organizations, whom qualify, and are seeking to reduce their own energy use. New, more efficient LED Lighting should lower energy bills, and maintenance cost with the performance based leasing payments being calculated so that they can be offset by these anticipated savings, the leasing option is designed to pay for itself. The our savings assessment is undertaken by Eco Lighting Designs (ESCO), and your staff while the equipment lease is provided by M-Lite Solutions.
In the above example M-Lite has provided a performance based equipment lease payment option that is $325.00 lower than the estimated savings.
The LED retrofit was for 360 fixtures for a school that uses it lights for approximately 2000 hours a year, and the initial cost of the project included installation. If this was a building that consumed energy 24/7 the energy savings would have been much higher. Please take in consideration that each building has different efficiency measures, and payments do vary depending on the exact terms of our Energy Efficiency Lease.
For further information on any of our products or services, please contact us at:
sales@m-lites.com
(630)290-1319 (ask for Dave)
How can 371 LED Retrofitted fixtures save one school $70,000 over 5 years
LED Lighting Project: Elementary School in Mississippi
One of the most rewarding things one can do is to bring a smile to a classroom of elementary students faces. We did just that in the Mississippi school system last fall, and we look forward to repeating that process of making children smile in a few thousand more classrooms this year in 2014.
Of course giving kids better lighting in their classroom is a huge personal reward for us at M-Lite Solution LLC, but the school district gained much more than just happy students from their LED Retrofit, and LED Troffer upgrades. (see chart below)
Monthly savings (cost of waiting) chart
To justify our school projects investment, we measure the return, and provided them with peace of mind by doing a comprehensive Client Impact Analysis that measures and quantifies the end results of our Energy Efficient LED Lighting upgrade based upon pre-process measurements and information provided by the school.
Our overall goal is the complete success of every LED Lighting upgrade for our projects, and their decision makers. To that end, we have outlined an anticipated ROI (Return on Investment) on our chart above, and below. This chart above provides a baseline for our expectations and framework for this projects.
Environmental Impact
Not only do we get smiles, and provide our clients with a positive return on investment, but we also get to reduce our planets greenhouse gases by lowering energy consumption with our Led products. It’s a Win-Win for all.
For questions regarding our energy savings products please contact Dave Rozek at 630.290.1319
or email me at Dave.Rozek@M-Lites.com
Cost savings can improve your bottom line!
Can your bottom line use a boost?
Cost savings from a lighting component upgrade project are derived from both savings in energy usage and also savings on future maintenance costs in both the capital expenditure on replacement lamps in addition to the man hour costs involved in making the replacements.
Component upgrading is the term used to describe the process of replacing lamps and tubes in your business premises with new LED retrofit products or LED troffers. The LED lighting upgrades are undertaken to reduce lighting energy costs, maintenance costs, and associated carbon footprint.
Uniquely, We provide a comprehensive and complete commercial component upgrade service, migrating our clients from their existing lighting to high specification, low cost LED retrofit kits, light bars, or troffers to significantly reduce both energy and maintenance costs as well as making a substantial reduction to their carbon footprint.
We have designed and manufactured a complete range of high specification LED products to meet the requirements of any commercial component upgrade project.
We are able to undertake commercial component upgrade projects for all sectors of business and industry as well as meeting any, and all local, and federal government requirements.
Typically, based our projects completed to date, energy cost savings alone fall between 50% and 90% of current lighting energy spend giving a project pay back time of between 6 to 36 months (at typical current energy costs).
To find out what a lighting component upgrade or lighting retrofit for your business will save you please request a survey at
(630) 290-1319, and we will produce you a comprehensive report at NO CHARGE.
LED Retrofit Project at Hawthorn Ridge Apartments: Case Study
Case Study: Commercial troffer component upgrade to LED Retrofit
Hawthorne Ridge Apartments: Woodridge, IL. (Small Retrofit Project)
Component upgrade of 70 fixtures in common areas: 1 x 4 Florescent Troffer to 1 x 4 LED Retrofit Kit (pictured above)
When we reduce a fixtures power consumption by 50 to 80 percent, and we provided the consumer a maintenance free retrofitted fixture it does make you ask yourself, why hasn’t everyone done this yet? At M-Lite, we have often found that the most common reason why the change has not occurred is because the product has not been demonstrated properly as to how it can be cost effective, and pay for itself.
So let’s see how a little investment can become a huge cash savings over a short period of time.
The actual return on investment (ROI) depends on a few efficiency measures below:
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How many hours are the lights in use
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What type of fixture are we upgrading to LED
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How many are we upgrading to LED
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What is the cost per kilowatt hour from the current electrical provider
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How much does it cost to maintain the current fixture annually
The MR14 retrofit kits are the perfect component upgrade for most commercial Troffers that are 1×4 in size. These 1×4 Troffers normally have a 2 fluorescent tubes, and ballast system. Depending upon the age, and type they will consume between 68 to 120 watts. Our MR14 LED retrofit kit consumes 34 watts, so worst case scenario it will reduce the fixtures power consumption by 50 percent.
As you can see from above the “Cost of Waiting” chart, it illustrates how it will cost Hawthorn Ridge apartments almost $900 a month not to retrofit. This is huge for such a small project, and considering HUD will give this apartment complex help with the majority of cost is another plus that we did not even factor in on our project proposal.
Another benefit that this project had was that the install was done by the maintenance staff at Hawthorn Ridge, which is one of the reasons why they will have a return on investment in less than 7 months. Since all projects are different we will customize our reports to factor in your variables, but in the case of this project, the cost of an electrical contractor to do the install would of still hit a return on investment in less than 12 months.
Overall, the goal is to save money, and investing in an LED Retrofit project can do just that. Hawthorn Ridge figures this will allow them to cut energy cost, and generate additional funds for other building upgrades in the future.
For further questions on this case study, please contact Dave Rozek at 630.290.1319
New UL approved LED Troffer: How it can change our lives
Our LED Troffer story:
When my good friend Manny Lin and I looked at how expensive it was to buy a New LED Troffer, we were shocked at the prices that we found. Many of the products that we were looking at to fill the needs on our lighting projects in Mississippi and Chicago were priced from $200 to $600 per fixture. The cheaper units actually didn’t give us enough light and the expensive ones were nice, but were putting our projects way out of budget.
So we went back to the drawing board and looked at out patented LED strip design and drivers. We met with our manufacturing arm and co-designed a NEW LED Troffer with UL approval. This is a huge step for M-Lite Solution, and Eco Lighting Designs being able to offer a LED troffer that retails for less than $100 a fixture, while producing over 5100 lumens of light.
Why is ours different?
The design is simple, and we are not recreating the lighting fixtures design. We have recreated what goes inside of the fixture. Our patented LEDs runs cooler, and our module provides an even flow of electrical current, which increases our LEDs longevity, and lighting output. We feel that the time has come that everyone deserves better light, and this New LED Troffer will do just that.
What type of Return on Investment can we expect?
When you reduce a fixtures power consumption by 50 to 80 percent, and have a maintenance free fixture for years to come, you will position yourself to save money. The actual return on investment depends on a few efficiency measures.
- How many hours are they in use
- What type of fixture was it replacing or compared to
- What is the cost per kilowatt hour from your current electrical provider
- Current annual maintenance of the previous or comparable fixture
Once we know the above factors we can give you an actual estimate of what your savings will be.
However, we recently did a product test on 70 common light fixtures at a HUD apartment complex in Woodridge, IL. and we will give you an example of their cost savings over a 10 year period.
Each lighting project is its own unique project. The reason I say that is, because this apartment complex has its own maintenance department that installed our products. So if you do not, we would have to factor that cost in.
If you notice from the graph, over a 10 year period they will save approx. $96,000 in energy consumption and maintenance. This project hits a return on investment at only 7 months of ownership based on there usage, and it cost them $823 a month not to do it. So as you can see, converting to an LED product from M-Lite Solution is a very wise investment. This is a small project, it gets really serious when we are talking hundreds, and/or thousands of fixtures.
What if we all made the switch:
Think about this? There are 500 million florescent troffers that need to be replaced or retrofitted in the U.S., not counting new construction.
What if we replaced them all and just ball parked what the savings would be?
We ballpark it at 685 Billion dollars in savings, and I think its much higher than that.
Do you think this could give our country or your business a shot in the arm?
Here’s a few things that I think it can do:
- We could hire more teachers
- fix more roads
- reduce our overall debt
- give your business more working capital
- reduce our green house gases
Can you see how this is a doable future for all of us?
We just need to be educated of how these New LED troffers and retrofit kits can give us a brighter future.
Please contact us to make the switch, and check out our new website, it is a work in progress and your input is welcomed.
Our New LED Light Bar System
Benefits of our LED products:
- Designed for long product life of driver and LEDs
- Instant on, and color stability over lifetime of product
- Significantly reduces maintenance costs
- Intelligently and aesthetically designed
- Low energy consumption, 70 to 80 percent power reduction
Features:
Efficency: 90-110 lm/ W
Light output: 2000,4000,5000 lumens
Input power: 20 to 50 watts
CRI: 80+
CCT/ color: 3000, 4000, 5000
Applications: Ideal for indoor commercial lighting installation
- Offices
- Hotels
- Factories
- Schools / Colleges
M-Lites New Led light bar system was primarily designed to be a retrofit option for the outdated florescent commercial fixtures (troffers) commonly found in schools, offices, and factories.
Our MLB series light bar system was designed for easy installation, while providing the highest quality lighting on the market without the high price tag associated with comparable LED retrofit kits.
At M-Lite, our mission is simple. We just take an honest approach to helping others with their lighting needs, and in the process we will reduce the worlds energy consumption one fixture at a time.
Please visit us at our New Website at: www.M-Lites.com
M-Lite Solutions 