Holophane Vantage

Typically, when we are making recommendations for one-to-one replacement of 400 watt metal halide fixtures if a customer wants more light, we recommend going to a six lamp T5HO fixture. While there are other great options for one-to-one replacement like six lamp T8 or the newest generation of metal halide fixtures, these were thought to deliver only equivalent light, not more. However, I saw something today that has changed my mind on that.

One of our Holophane Reps was doing a lunch and learn for an engineer and a large part of the presentation was centered around the newest generation of metal halide lighting, the 210 watt MasterColor Elite. Since he had worked with this engineer on a food processing application where a six lamp T5HO enclosed and gasketed fixture was specified, he thought he would run the numbers with the 210 watt MasterColor Elite to see how the light levels compared. The results were stunning. He was able to achieve exactly the same light levels with the MasterColor Elite system with nearly 40% energy savings (the MasterColor system uses 227 watts in comparison to the T5HO system that uses 360 watts). In this comparison they used a Holophane 210 watt MasterColor Elite Vantage fixture against their six lamp T5HO EMW fixture.

210 Watt Master Color Elite

The advantage comes from the size of the light source and the efficiency of the fixture. Whenever you can reduce the size of the lamp, your fixture becomes more efficient because you can control where the light goes more precisely. Since the 210 watt MasterColor Elite is 50% smaller than a standard 400 watt metal halide, and is certainly a lot less surface area of lighting than six T5HO lamps, the fixture becomes efficient enough that the MasterColor Elite’s 20,800 mean lumens are equivalent to the T5HO’s 28,500 mean lumens.

So, even I have to be reminded sometimes that we can’t just look at lumen data for lamps because the efficiency of a fixture can make such an impact on delivered light. Going forward, especially for food processing customers, I will know I have another option for increased light with the 210 watt MasterColor Elite. Please contact Joe Gangl at 651-769-8019 for more information. Hope this was helpful!