Bright Idea
Women’s handbags maker KAM Manufacturing, Van Wert, Ohio, has reduced its showroom energy costs by replacing the conventional incandescent lighting in its display cabinets with energy-efficient LED technology. The changeover has greatly reduced KAM’s energy consumption and reduced its maintenance needs, while also helping to boost product appearance.
The cabinets were made by National Door and Trim, and each stands 4 ft. wide by 7 ft. tall, with four adjustable shelves of display space. They originally were illuminated by an incandescent fixture that consisted of eight 18 watt lamps driven by a 150W power supply.
After an energy audit, it was decided that Osram Sylvania’s Linearlight Dragon Slim with an OT75 power supply was a better solution. It provides fine-binned LEDs in a low-profile system, matching the needs of the under-cabinet application.
Each Linearlight LED strip offered the same light output performance with a warm 3000K color temperature for only 7W of power—decreasing the energy consumption from the existing source by more than half. Cabinets are an ideal application for LEDs, according to Osram Sylvania, because they can take advantage of the technology’s low profile and directional nature.
Additionally, the OT75 power supply only uses 75W of power, optimizing the LED performance and again cutting the power needed by 50%. The entire LED solution uses only 56 watts total and still provides comparable illumination performance for the cabinet shelves that highlight the handbags displayed.
In implementing LED technology into its cabinets, National Door and Trim used a low-voltage wiring system to power the lamps, which was not possible with the incandescent bulbs. Also, it was able to install the LED strips in the front lip of each cabinet shelf, creating a unified light distribution and hiding the actual light source. In addition, the LEDS helped enhance the merchandise on display by preserving the color integrity of each product.
“We established that LED technology would be a perfect match for the KAM display application—LEDs do not produce IR or forward heat, so the source highlights the purses without fading or deteriorating the fabrics,” said Rick Chengery, Osram Sylvania commercial engineer. “In addition, LEDs give KAM Manufacturing the ability to increase the application burn time from 8-12 hours to 24 hours daily while reducing the energy load of each cabinet significantly and helping to achieve a relative ROI on the project upgrade.”