The average consumer hasn’t really been exposed to all the LED landscape lighting products that are available in the market today, and you don’t really need to go looking for all of them – there are thousands! -- unless you find it interesting. Just listen to me and I’ll give you the enlightenment skinny, so to speak.
In the landscape lighting industry we have three major LED options to choose from. We can use LED lamps in regular outdoor lighting fixtures. I have written in the past about the good and bad when it comes to using LED lamps in the landscape.
There is also the completely potted and sealed LED fixture which encapsulates all the workings and cannot be opened, repaired or manipulated. This is my personal favorite. It is impervious to the outdoor elements. The downside to this fixture is that the designer must know the amount of lumens they need, the desired beam spread and the color of the light that they want for each fixture location. This usually isn’t a problem for the seasoned designer, but can be a big issue for the novice who is still learning the craft of outdoor lighting design.
Last, and possibly least, there is the product that is marketed to us as the “all-in-one fixture.” Manufacturers and distributors claim, “You can just change out the chip to make the fixture brighter.” Or “If something goes wrong, just pop it open and replace the chip board.” Then they give us accessories that allow us to change the beam spread and light color. They promise versatility and flexibility in one fixture – easily managed by the lighting professional. All of this sounds great, right?
WRONG! What we are working with in this case is electronics - we are talking about circuit boards here, not just light bulbs and lenses. If I can get into that light fixture and play with that circuit board, care to guess what else can get into that fixture? The worst enemy of ALL electronic circuit boards: WATER. This is usually condensation but it’s still water.
And what happens when circuit boards get wet? Absolutely - they FAIL.
It does no good to say that your LED chips will last 50,000 hours when your circuit board won’t last a year in the landscape. So far, I have not found a single fixture that allows access into it that has stood up longer than a year. Not a single one. I did try them, I promise. I have had to replace every one of them at least once, and I’m scared of what will happen to those that are still out there. I’m sure I’ll have to replace those as well in the near future, but I assure you, it won’t be with the same product. It will be with a completely sealed and potted fixture that I can’t “fix” if something goes wrong with it (which rarely happens). Then, if something does go wrong with that sealed fixture, I just pull it out and replace it with a brand new model. I don’t leave the old fixture there and just replace a part that is going to FAIL AGAIN as soon as it gets a little moisture in the fixture again.
So, when your lighting contractor suggests, “This fixture is great because I can manipulate it like this or that,” then duck for cover. Insist that the contractor either use high quality LED lamps which are designed and tested to be used in outdoor lighting fixtures and have a warranty which reflects that; or they use a completely sealed and potted LED fixture with a long full replacement warranty. Don’t settle for anything less. You’re paying for high quality LED products and you deserve just that and nothing else.
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