For a business, uninterrupted supply of electrical power and faultless operation of machines and equipment is a must to ensure success. This is true for most businesses today, regardless of the industry they are in and the scale of their operation. After all, your employees won’t be able to work if their computers don’t receive a constant power supply. The inventory in your warehouse may get spoiled if the cooling and heating systems you have installed there are not functioning at an optimal level. So, it won’t be wrong to say there is much that can go wrong, electrically, for a business.

One of the least understood terms in LED Lighting is efficacy, or in simpler terms, how efficient is the light. It is typically measure in lumens/watt. Today, efficacy is becoming more and more important because efficacy varies greatly from product to product. What the consumer needs to be wary of is that you should not be mislead into thinking that just because you are switching from HID or fluorescent to LED that you are getting the best savings available. You also need to look at how efficient the LED product is to maximize the savings.

Here is an example of how this works. Let’s look at a two USA Made competitors LED Retrofit Kit compared to our 4th generation LED kit. All three units are designed to replace 400W HID

From this table, you can see that all products produce over 13,000 lumens, with the MyLEDLightingGuide product producing the most at 14,528 total lumens. It also consumes the least amount of energy of the three units at 105 watts, compared to 130 and 135 watts. For the record, all three products come with a 10 year warranty on the head and a 5 year warranty on the driver. MyLEDLightingGuide also offers a 10 year warranty on the driver as an optional upgrade.

But what does this all mean in terms of saving you $’s. Let’s take a typical scenario. Let’s say these retrofits are installed in MyLEDLightingGuide 105W retrofit kit. Multiply this number over 10 years and by the number of fixtures you have to replace, and this is real dollars. And let’s not forget the MyLEDLightingGuide retrofit kit is also much brighter than the competitors products.

So efficacy is important. It saves you money. But a well designed kit will also produce more light. Just think, without efficacy we wouldn’t have as great of savings, nor would we have more light production from the same amount of power.

Efficacy is huge in the world of lighting, and it is only going to get better year by year. Technology improves, lights improve, and thus; efficacy improves. In 10 years, lights that will be made are probably going to be 5x improved then they are today. And since they are already super efficient today, just imagine that times 5. Now that is efficacy!

The strike doesn’t even have to be a direct hit on your home but can occur within half a mile.  As a matter of fact, the majority of surges that most people take are from problems at someone else’s home or somewhere further down on the power company lines.  A surge doesn’t have to be lightning; it can come from an automobile accident that hits a power pole or even from a routine maintenance on the main power lines when they turn the power back on.  This off and on of the power with the main electrical lines can send surges into your home or business that I have seen destroy lots of electronic equipment and appliances.

Almost every home has multiple computers, and expensive home entertainment systems.  Even our appliances are high-tech with monitors built into the doors of refrigerators and laundry appliances with electronic controls.  These items are especially vulnerable to spikes in your home’s electrical current that may cause melted circuit boards and overheated wires.  Repairs to these expensive gadgets are much more costly than replacing a blown out light bulb or electrical outlet.

Under-Cabinet LED Lighting Kit is available for purchase that contains a plug-and-play LED light strip, push-button dimmer, remote, 12V power supply, and connection accessories. If you want to build a custom kit, follow the steps below the diagram to ensure that you get everything you need.

3. Select a dimmer or controller

For single-color LED strip light setup

Select the power supply large enough to operate the amount of LED strip light you need to use. If you want to control the brightness of your light strips, you will need a Single-color dimmer shown installed with a non-dimmable power supply

For color-changing LED strip light setup

Follow the instructions above for the single-color light strip setup. However, instead of a dimmer, use a RGB color-changing light strip installation

4. Use an LED amplifier for long runs of strip

Depending on the strip chosen and its maximum run (the number of strips that can be installed consecutively before needing amplifiers), you will need to install an light strip interconnect cables. It is best to purchase a length of strip that is more than your application requires. For example, if your project requires 8 1/2 feet of strip, we recommend purchasing 9 feet of strip to ensure that you have everything covered.