The high ceilings found in house of worship spaces require powerful lights to provide even coverage over large spaces. Traditional high-output lighting fixtures give off excess heat, burn out often, and are costly to run and maintain. Low voltage downlighting transforms house of worship spaces by providing improved light performance, dependable longevity and up to an 85% reduction in electricity usage. The time and cost savings from simplified installation, less frequent maintenance, and reduced electricity usage alone provide a quick return on investment. Environmental Lights, a leading provider of high-quality, low voltage lighting solutions, has provided exceptional results in house of worship spaces for years.
Environmental Lights’ (EL) Remote Voltage Illumination (REVI) System enhances lighting in large areas while saving end-users time and money. Atlanta, GA-based AVL systems integrators, Strata relies on the REVI system for their house of worship projects to deliver architectural lighting to their clients with results that exceed expectations. The REVI Low Voltage Lighting System is fully configurable and made up of two main components: rack-mounted power supplies and driverless fixtures.
The REVI Low Voltage Lighting System provides Class-2, low voltage illumination to meet the unique needs of large auditorium spaces. REVI XL downlights deliver up to 9,300 lumens from a single fixture, ensuring bright and even coverage across your entire auditorium. REVI fixtures feature smooth dimming down to 0.1% and offer monochrome, tunable white, and RGBW functionality, enabling you to transform your environment in an instant. The REVI system is fully DMX controllable and enables control synchronization of house lighting with stage lighting, so both can be easily managed from a single platform.
Ease of installation
Ease of installation and maintenance is another key differentiator between Environmental Lights’ lighting solutions and traditional alternatives. The REVI system features driverless fixtures and centrally located, rack-mounted power supplies to extend the longevity of the lighting system. Not only do driverless fixtures greatly reduce the amount of heat given off by downlights, but they also allow users to host power supplies in a climate-controlled utility room that can be accessed without the use of a scissor lift to reach the ceiling.
Environmental Lights offers a wide variety of mounting hardware that is compatible with REVI XL downlight fixtures. They offer stems, surface mounts, and cables that let you achieve the optimal appearance in your auditorium. These mounts can accommodate both flat and slanted ceilings. Recessed fixtures are also available.
Energy Savings
Environmental Lights prides itself on the quality of light, but also on the energy savings they provide for auditorium spaces. The REVI System is an efficient solution that guarantees significant savings and a rapid return on investment. In the case of Cross Pointe Church in Gwinnett County, GA, REVI enhanced overall light coverage while simultaneously reducing power utilization by a whopping 85%. In the case of Easley, SC’s Rock Springs Baptist Church, a 3,500-seat auditorium, after installing the REVI system in place of their previous lighting, they were able to reduce the necessary power load from 50 20A circuits, down to 8 20A circuits. Meanwhile, their light coverage went from an uneven 10-15 foot-candles (FC) of light to an average of 35FC of evenly dispersed light across the entire auditorium. Both installations were Strata projects.
STRATA SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS
The AVL systems integration firm Strata designs and installs audio, video, and lighting for houses of worship and performance spaces. They are a REVI Certified Platinum Dealer, who have worked extensively with Environmental Lights and completed numerous REVI low voltage lighting installations. The Strata team tells us in their own words about their choice of using the REVI systems that they’ve installed in a range of HOW projects.
On why the REVI downlight system is the right choice for Strata’s HOW projects
Strata was one of the first AVL system integrators in the U.S. to adopt Environmental Lights’ REVI system. When REVI was introduced to us, we quickly realized the potential to offer our clients superior quality architectural lighting at a very competitive price. Once you understand how REVI works, you easily see that it’s a better way to light. Even coverage, excellent color rendering, high output, low power consumption, exceptional reliability, easy maintenance, and low installation costs are all part of the equation.
Worship centers and sanctuaries routinely have ceiling heights in the 25’-to-40’ range and the architecture of most of these spaces makes servicing traditional high-voltage fixtures a time consuming, expensive, and sometimes dangerous affair. REVI downlight and pendant fixtures contain only an LED emitter, a heat sink, and a reflector—no electronics. The fixtures are powered by multi-channel power supplies (drivers) installed in a remotely located equipment rack. All serviceable parts are in the power supplies, not the fixtures. Imagine never having to rent a lift to access a light!
The fixtures are very well-built and reliable. Strata has surpassed two dozen REVI installations nationwide, which collectively represent well over 2,000 fixtures, and we have yet to see a failure from an installed light. Of course, the inherent low power requirements and low heat generation of LED fixtures apply here. Resultant power and HVAC savings can provide a relatively quick ROI, which makes the facilities and accounting folks who measure those parameters very happy.
On key features of the REVI downlight system that Strata finds are a benefit on projects
Our Lighting Designer, Michael Scott, coined the term ‘affordably bright’ for our REVI installations because photometrically, the coverage is exceptional, and REVI lights have an output of up to nearly 10,000 lumens each. That means it’s easy to cover large spaces with fewer fixtures than with most other lighting products. And where in halogen fixture days it was prohibitively expensive to light a large space to a level of more than 20FC, all our installations achieve a minimum of 30FC with many approaching 50FC.
Strata also finds the REVI acquisition and installation costs are much lower than high-voltage lighting. High voltage and DMX runs are all concentrated in the centralized power supply racks. No high voltage is required by individual fixtures, so no electricians are needed to install the lights. Our install crews handle the lights and low voltage, 16-gauge 2-conductor cabling from the power supplies to each fixture at a lower cost than traditional electricians.
The output quality from REVI fixtures is absolutely beautiful. CRI ratings of 92+ tell part of the story, but we believe there is some secret sauce Environmental adds because they look even better than that. Clients routinely comment on how nice the light makes their room feel. Color temperatures can be specified as a fixed color of 3,000K to 5,000K, variable/tunable white, and RGBW. The power supplies are the unsung heroes of the REVI system. Located in a rack on a catwalk or in an equipment room, they provide low voltage power to the lights, smooth dimming down to 0.1%, emulations that create the traditional on/off ramp of incandescent lights, and even strobe effects, and DMX control over each output channel. Per channel DMX control means our clients have full control of every light in their installation—no more zones, unless they want to create them. Nearly all our clients do some level of video production and REVI power supplies provide constant current power to the lights (no PWM), which means they have no refresh rate and thus no flicker to interfere with camera images.
On working with Environmental Lights
We love working with Environmental Lights. They are more than a manufacturer, they are partners. They seem to feel the same about Strata because they recently named us as their very first REVI Certified Platinum Dealer. This recognition is for Strata’s contributions in advancing REVI product development through numerous installations and collaboration on product enhancements. Environmental’s engineering team has been especially open to feedback we provide from the field and our work together has surfaced in several product enhancements that have come to market. That cooperative mindset explains how Environmental constantly innovates and adapts to market needs. Environmental Lights is one of the early innovators in LED lighting. Their years of industry experience has a resulted in a seemingly endless array of products. Those options are challenging us to think outside of normal architectural lighting and create designs that include more specialty lighting in our upcoming projects.
