What is the Standards for Billboard Lighting?

Guideline for Billboard Lighting

Billboards are everywhere in our lives. Large and small ones stand in front of us, and the night lighting of billboards has become a major focus of billboards. At present, metal halide floodlights are the main lighting of billboards, and the power is 250W / 400W. However, with the sharp decrease of global resources, energy conservation has become an urgent matter LED light source emerges as the times require. As a new generation of light source, LED has gradually entered people’s attention.

Introduction to traditional lamps

Metal halide floodlight

Product Type	Wattage	Voltage	Lumens	Lifespan (H)	Cable connected	IP Grading
Floodlight	250W	220V	21000	10000	φ8-10	IP65
	400W	220v	33000	10000	φ8-10	IP65

 Introduction of LED flood light

Product Type	Wattage	Voltage	Lumens	Lifespan (H)	Cable connected	IP Grading
LED Floodlight	100W	110~265V	11000	50000	φ8-10	IP65
	160W	110~265 v	16500	50000	φ8-10	IP65

Comparison between metal halide floodlight and LED Flood light

Most of the traditional industrial and mining lamps are 250W or 400W high pressure sodium lamps and metal halide lamps, which can be replaced by 100W led floodlights and 160W projection lamps. Compared with the characteristics of new LED lamps, there are obvious differences.

Items	400W metal halide lamp	250W metal halide lamp	250W high pressure sodium lamp	100W LED lamp
Daily power consumption	80 KWh	50 KWh	50KWh	22 KWh
Monthly electricity bill($)	$279.41	$176.47	$176.47	$77.65
Annual electricity charge($)	$3,388.24	$2,117.65	$2,117.65	$931.76
Five year electricity charge($)	$16,764.71	$10,588.24	$10,588.24	$4,658.82
In five years, LED lamp can save $12106 than 400W metal halide lamp and $5930 than 250W metal halide lamp and sodium lamp

Note: the above data are only electricity charges, and the maintenance costs during the period are not included, which is also a large expenditure.

Lighting Requirements for Billboards

1. Color rendering requirements>65
2. The correlated color temperature requirement of the light source: 4000K
3. Illumination requirements (lux)

3.1 Dark card surface and dark environment: 500lux

3.2 Light surface and light environment: 500lux

3.3 Dark card surface and light environment: 1000lux

4. Uniformity requirements (UI)

Minimum illuminance of the card surface/Average illuminance of the card surface > 0.4

Outdoor advertising lighting, as a way to promote products at night, plays an important role in product sales and is widely adopted by the market economy.

At night in the city, a good outdoor advertising lighting can not only create a vivid, bright and colorful commercial atmosphere, but also beautifully brighten people’s living environment.

The main outdoor advertising lighting methods are:

1. Floodlight advertising, through the floodlights installed on or near the billboard to illuminate the billboard, highlight the screen and text of the advertisement at night to express the main body of the advertisement.
2. Inner-illuminated advertising: generally box-type advertising, the surface of the box is made of translucent materials such as acrylic resin, PC board, frosted glass, etc., built-in light-emitting tube, the lighting can not be seen directly, and the daytime effect is more beautiful.
3. Neon advertising: use neon lights as the decorative light source for advertising, and use neon tubes to form advertising images and texts. Through the control system, the tubes emit lights of different colors, flicker, and change various light effects.
4. Use optical fiber, light pipe, hologram, display screen and other new materials and new technologies.

Among the above outdoor advertising lighting methods, cast-light lighting is the most widely used and most economical and intuitive method today.

Design Requirements for Outdoor Floodlight Advertising Lighting

The design of advertising projection lighting must meet the overall planning requirements of the urban landscape, and its setting location, form, shape, color and specifications must be in harmony with the surrounding environment, and it must not blindly pursue night lighting effects that affect traffic, municipal public facilities and the people Normal life.

Good advertising lighting must not only illuminate, but also be beautiful, artistically attractive, and avoid light pollution and energy waste.

Advertising lighting is not the protagonist of advertising, but a means to show the different effects of advertising during the day and night. During the day, the sun is not controlled, and at night, the lighting can be designed scientifically and reasonably according to the needs, and determined according to the best brightness level and brightness distribution.

Use appropriate light sources and appropriate lamps to display the artistic concept and charm of the advertisement.

Improper advertising lighting will make the excellent advertising lose its artistic style, and if the glare occurs, it will directly affect the effect of traffic lights and traffic light signs, and may even cause accidents.

1.Selection of Outdoor Projection Lighting Types

Because the billboard itself has the composition and color that are in line with the characteristics of itsrecommended
products, the choice of projecting light source is mainly based on its light and color characteristics.

Avoid using colorful and colorful lighting design, otherwise the advertisement itself will lose its artistic appeal.
The light color of outdoor advertising lighting refers to the color temperature and color rendering of the light source.

Color temperature: Let the observer feel warm and cold. When the color temperature is below 3000K, the light color starts to become reddish, giving people a warm feeling. When the color temperature exceeds 5000K, the light color shifts to blue, giving people a cool feeling.
Therefore, it is advisable to use light sources with a color temperature below 4000K in summer or subtropical areas. The color temperature of the light source caters to the public’s preferences, which will make the advertisement achieve a compelling effect.

CCT (K)	Feel	Light Source
<~3000	Warm	Incandescent lamp, quartz lamp
3000~5000	Neutral	Tri-color fluorescent lamps, metal halide lamps, etc.
>5000	Cool	Tri-color fluorescent lamps, mercury lamps, etc.

Color rendering: refers to the degree of display of the real color rendering of the advertising content by the light source, and the color fidelity. The wavelength of visible light is between 380nm and 760nm. The closer the light wave emitted by the light source is to the wavelength of natural light, the more realistic the colors we see.
Since the advertisement itself has gorgeous colors, its lighting should adopt a high color rendering light source to truly show the colors and levels of the advertisement itself.

CRI	General CRI	Light Source
I	Ra>80	Incandescent lamp, high color rendering fluorescent lamp
II	60<Ra<80	White fluorescent lamp, daylight fluorescent lamp, metal halide lamp
III	40<Ra<60	Warm white fluorescent lamp, fluorescent mercury lamp
IV	Ra<40	mercury lamp, HPS lamp

2. Selection of outdoor advertising projection lamps

Billboards are common media in public places and traffic arteries. The selection of lighting fixtures should be based on the billboard’s material, reflectivity and ambient brightness. The brightness of the same luminous flux projected on the billboard carrier of different textures is different, and the advertising atmosphere created by the lamps with different light distribution curves is also very different.
Generally, projection lamps are divided into two types of high-intensity lamps according to the light distribution beam angle (that is, a narrow beam with a spread angle of less than 10°, and a wide beam with a spread angle of greater than 10°). According to the light distribution of the lamp, there are symmetrical and asymmetrical. Depending on the reflector, there is also a difference between wide and high.
Because of the large beam angle and high luminous efficiency, wide-beam symmetrical light distribution lamps should be used for short-distance advertising projection lighting as much as possible, but for long-distance, ultra-high billboards, narrow beam lamps should be used, and should be based on advertising.
The length and width ratio of the brand and the installation position of the lamps should be high or wide lamps. The number of lamps and the power of the light source should be increased or decreased according to the reflection coefficient of the billboard and the surrounding environment.

Billboard Lighting Design Steps

The lighting is perfectly integrated with the original billboard surface to achieve the unity of lighting and art. We generally divide the lighting design of the billboard surface into the following steps:

1. Research phase

At this stage, the design scale is determined mainly according to the requirements of the advertisers and the functions that the advertising space investors need to meet. A comprehensive understanding of the characteristics, functions, styles, social and historical backgrounds, and materials of the cards, especially the design The designer’s creativity and design intent make the lighting style determined by the design unify with the environment. In addition, the designer must also consider the site conditions, such as local people’s love of colors, customs, and power supply.

2. Analysis phase

According to the design ideas obtained in the investigation stage, determine the key content of the lighting project, highlight the personality in the lighting, determine the main and secondary observation points, and determine the overall guiding ideology, including the brightness distribution and color tone of the entire board.

3. Design conception stage

After completing the research and analysis on the basis of understanding the situation, I entered the design concept. The engineers in this stage of construction will consider: the level of brightness (illuminance). Our designers will design with reference to the relevant illuminance recommended by the International Commission of Illumination (CLE) based on the material of the illuminated surface, the background brightness, and the characteristics of the light source. Lighting method, The designer determines the lighting method according to the structural form of the board and the connotation to be expressed. The choice of light source and lamps, preferentially choose lamps from world-renowned lamp manufacturers such as Europe and the United States. The number of lighting equipment, engineers according to the relevant drawings of the design and the illumination requirements of the lighting design Determine the number of lighting equipment and materials used. To prevent light pollution from lighting, when designing lighting, design, install and debug in strict accordance with relevant standards.

4. Scheme design stage

The designer implements the research and analysis on the corresponding billboards, and draws the corresponding renderings and design plans for advertisers and related experts to review.

5. Construction drawing

According to the design plan, the electrical design engineer performs the last step in the design procedure and draws construction drawings.

6. construction stage

When all the design procedures are completed, the engineering department organizes the installation personnel to carry out construction according to the construction drawings. During the construction process, the installers strictly implement the relevant specifications, standards and design documents, and formulate practical construction steps, construction methods and technical quality measures in a timely manner.