LED lighting for tennis court?

[obana48]

does anybody have experience playing on court with LED lighting? How do you feel about the quality of lighting?

Any recommendations for LED manufacturer, colour temperatures of light source and needed power for a single court?

[i3602u]

no don't know anything about it but it sounds cool.

Are you building a court? Why are you wondering?

[obana48]

The court is built years ago. Now I need good lighting for it. I have heared many good things about modern LED lighting for sports (except the price . And I'm interested in experience recommendations. It looks as an economically balanced solution. At least on paper....

Anyone?

[nhat8121]

they installed one at my local park, then took it out b/c it wasn't bright enough and put back the old lights.

so, you probably need to install more of them to compensate, but it looks cool.

[obana48]

Originally Posted by nhat8121

they installed one at my local park, then took it out b/c it wasn't bright enough and put back the old lights.

so, you probably need to install more of them to compensate, but it looks cool.

If I need to install more, than I would go for regular bulbs.

Looks like the solution is good on paper only.... No one can confirm?

[i3602u]

They have the high powered LEDs so I would like at that which is better

[obana48]

I'm answering to my questions Some expert from a lighting forum conclude that the current LED technology is still far from being able to present economically feasible solution for a street and sports lighting. There are several reasons

a. LED chips used in floodlights are still have poor light output. They have even less light output in color temperatures of 3000-6000K (the lower the temperature the warmer the color. And the warmer the light the less output). I believe we need 4000-5000K (daylight with clouds) for a better color rendering.

b. LED chips have watt loss and overheat. They need good conditioning

c. LED chips with hight light output (140-160lm/W) which is on pair with HID bulbs are still very expensive.

d. No one can confirm that LED chips can work 50000-100000 hours. Some people say that in a year or two of work LED chips can loose 50% of their light output.

[infg35cpe]

^yup, that is correct. in my industry i've worked with led lighting and for a tennis court LED's wouldn't be an effective solution at all.
they are best used for smaller applications.
regarding led chips. i've used led chips in several applications for over 2 years now and they have not lost any percentage of their output. they are still as bright as the day they were installed.

[AR15]

The city I live in recently installed LED lights as replacement lights in the overhead fixtures that light a 4 lane divided highway. They seem to work fine for this application. The lights are much higher than tennis court lights, and make me believe that if they were lowered, they would work fine on tennis courts.

[obana48]

Have seen couple of videos on YT showing a single tennis court with LED lighting installed. They use 20 or 24 LED floodlight (10 or 12 floodlights on each side). They replaced 5kW traditional lighting with 2.5kW LED lighting declaring they archive more lux and better uniformity.

Not sure how this costs, but I guess it's much much more than traditional bulbs

[rst]

http://www.elektor.com/news/world-s-....1251280.lynkx

i dont know if this link is factual or a fraud or not???

"Tennis club 'Volley' in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, is the first in the world to employ a fully LED illuminated tennis court."

"LED lighting for sports venues not only results in energy savings due to lower power consumption (typically 30–40%.). In practice the savings can be as high as 50% .........."

"The lighting system is dynamic and complies with all relevant standards for luminosity per surface area. ........."

[vivaana]

I have just seen this post now.
We switched on the first court in 2009 and, until now, we have more than 40 courts lit by Hi-Power LED.
I believe we made very good experience and most of comments from players and teachers at the clubs are more than positive to enthusiastic.
We did it with (mostly) 5000k temperature, in some cases higher but I don't personally recommend it.
The best tech. result we got it's 0,92 uniformity in an indoor double court structure with wooden ceiling.

All of "our" courts are indoor or "convertible" , but we'll switch on soon outdoor courts with 4 or 6 poles each, keeping great uniformity (>0.84). With 4 poles only seems even better at the lighting project level.

I don't think I'm allowed to publish our link here but if you google around you'll easily find some info from Italy.

[vivaana]

this is one our latest installations. 420-435 lux, uniformity >0.85

http://www.carecaled.com/installazio..._sassuolo.aspx

[dje31]

Over time, this is likely to become the go-to solution, but it's a high cost of entry right now. To get the output needed is probably cost-prohibitive at present. Lots of MFR'ing R&D costs to recoup.

That being said, when they get the technology---and price---down, it should be an excellent alternative, and relatively cheap to operate. Instant on / off is also a plus.

[vivaana]

I wouldn't say so ...
Of course it's depending by many factors like energy cost and hours of daily usage but we offered even payback in less than 3 years, in more than a case increasing the lighting level pretty much.
Don't forget that most of the clubs use 400W HID fixtures and the typical decay of those bulbs and fixtures must be considered.
Thanks