How to Light a Batting Cage?

Batting cages are used by softball and baseball players to improve their ability to hit the ball. Both indoor and outdoor batting cages need lighting for night practice. Indoor batting cages are used in climates where seasonal weather does not permit such activity.

Lighting fixtures have become more than just a means to gain light. They are standard equipment capable of causing significant improvement in style and performance. Lighting fixtures are available in various models, and a model that suits the batting cage can be selected.

Factors you should know first:

Lux:

The lux (symbol: lx) is the SI derived unit of illuminance, measuring luminous flux per unit area.

Illuminance is a measure of how much luminous flux is spread over a given area. One can think of luminous flux (measured in lumens) as a measure of the total “amount” of visible light present, and the illuminance as a measure of the intensity of illumination on a surface. A given amount of light will illuminate a surface more dimly if it is spread over a larger area, so illuminance is inversely proportional to area when the luminous flux is held constant.

One lux is equal to one lumen per square metre:

1 lx = 1 lm/m2 = 1 cd·sr/m2.

 

A flux of 1000 lumens, spread uniformly over an area of 1 square metre, lights up that square metre with an illuminance of 1000 lux. However, the same 1000 lumens spread out over 10 square metres produces a dimmer illuminance of only 100 lux.

For a batting cage,the lighting requirement is about 200 to 500 lux generally speaking. This lux level is suitable for training and recreational purpose.

Lighting Uniformity

Apart from providing adequate & appropriate brightness for baseball players, we also need to ensure that the illumination has high enough uniformity. High uniformity means that the brightness of each spots on the ground is almost the same. The ways to quantify is to looking at the ratio between minimum lux : average lux or minimum lux : maximum lux. Theoretically the maximum value is 1.

For the recreational indoor softball field and batting cage, having uniformity of 0.5 to 0.6 would be appropriate. Just get in touch with us to acquire much information. Our lighting designer will help.

Larger beam angle

For the low bay indoor batting cage lighting, we can adopt the larger beam angle. The angle of LED lights indicates how wide the beam spread to the ground. Larger the angle, broader the coverage of lights. For batting cage luminaries, we usually select 90 or 120-degree. Then, we need to design how many power the light should be.

 

How many powers do you require？

a. Deciding the lux you will need for the batting cage. For training and recreational purpose, 200-500 lux is fine. According to the purpose of your site, decide the lux you want. If you want brighter, then 500 lux is great.

b. Then, calculating the lumens your court will need. For instance, each 1m2 requires about 2.5W power of LED lights. Therefore, if you have a 100m2 softball field, you will need 250W LED lights.

For instance, the size of your court is 6*9m, so the total area is 54 square meter. Then your batting cage will need 54*500= 27000 lumens.

c. Also, you should take the hanging heights into the consideration.

d. At last, choosing the lights with proper light efficiency, get the watt you will need for the batting cage. For instance, the light you want is 130 lumens per watt, 27000 divided by 130 equals about 208 watts.

If you still can’t decide the wattage you need, please feel free to contact us. It will be great if you inform us about the size of the court, the purpose of the court and the hanging height of the lights. We will give you a suitable lighting solution according to your needs. We are an experienced LED lighting manufacturer for 10+ years and we know the requirement of different sports field.