IEPC Corp.'s Re-Lamping Program Ensures Brightness, Energy Savings Over Time
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HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., May 8, 2007 - IEPC Corp., a product development company specializing in lighting controls, is offering a 5-year re-lamping program as part of the lease or purchase of its VB400 lighting control to allow customers to maintain the level of brightness and energy efficiency down the line as they first experienced when the lamps were newly installed. IEPC provides new lamps with the installation of its universal ballast, and replaces them at the end of each year for the first five years. The program guarantees that at the end of five years, customers' lighting will provide the same brightness as it did the day it was installed while continuously demonstrating significant cost and energy savings.
With traditional ballasts, there is an inability to respond to on-demand lighting changes and to know when to re-lamp, which wastes energy. Also, lamps stay on to avoid start-up time and they draw more power but have reduced output. As lamps age, they become less bright over time and burn more energy to maintain the same level of brightness. Users may resist replacing old lamps due to perceived costliness, but the real question is what costs more-replacing old lamps with new or continuing to use old ones that burn more energy to achieve equal or less brightness than when they were new?
"Most lighting systems drive lamps too high and actually make them less bright over time. Lamps degrade as they age and if you don't replace them regularly, in the end it just costs the customer more money due to inefficient energy use," said Ron Flores, president of IEPC. "Our customers save money by re-lamping because they can control the energy used with the VB400."
After the first six months, if necessary, the lamps are set to draw 90 percent output, which will keep the brightness consistent with that of the original installation. At the end of the first year and for the next four years, IEPC replaces all the lamps and once again sets the new lamps for 80 percent output, upping that to 90 percent after six months if necessary.
"At the end of the fifth year, our customers will enjoy the same level of brightness in their locations as they did on day one," said Flores.
The VB400 lighting control is a stand-alone energy management system that reduces demand on power in real time. It combines solid-state electronics with advanced control features to provide customers with energy-efficient control that reduces the number of ballasts and amount of re-wiring necessary to install a typical fluorescent system, while increasing the brightness and life of the bulbs.
The VB400 delivers high efficiency and enables programmable control, manual control, remote control, and aggregate control to provide high-performance lighting that is energy efficient and easily integrated into a demand-response scenario. The solution replaces magnetic ballasts, timers, relays, control panels, and the intensive wiring required to connect each lighting fixture to all other external parts, as well as to the control panel. It offers energy management and energy savings features which conventional matched sets of HID ballast and lamps, newer electronic HID ballasts, and T5/T8 HO fluorescent ballasts cannot match. The LC (a number of VB400s linked via software) is flexible enough to be integrated into most existing control software platforms such as Echelon and others.
The VB400 lighting control contains an advanced highly-efficient electronic ballast and features several microprocessors to regulate the current flow and optimize performance, extending the energy savings. The VB400 also features a photo cell, as well as dimming and timing controls with thermal monitoring and on-board, real-time diagnostics, that indicate replacement time for re-lamping, further extending lamp life.
The VB400 lighting control provides universal input voltages from 90V to 300V; variable output wattages from 200W to 400W. It also features a small footprint of 6x6x4 inches; compliance with TUV/UL, and FCC standards; and controlled start-up and shut-down to extend lamp and ballast life. The VB400 lighting control is designed for indoor and outdoor lighting applications and meets existing and proposed energy-efficiency guidelines, such as Title 24 in California.
The VB400 and VB400N controls are available immediately through a pilot program with IEPC. For more information, visit www.iepc.cc , email vbsales@iepc.cc or call 714-892-4443.
About IEPC
International Engineering Products and Consulting Corp. ("IEPC") of Huntington Beach, California was founded in December 1997 originally as a contract engineering company, and incorporated in January 1999 as a California C Corporation. Privately held, IEPC now specializes in developing lighting control products. For the past four years the company has concentrated on an energy management system that replaces magnetic ballasts, timers, relays, control panels and the intensive wiring required to connect each lighting fixture to external parts with one standalone unit.
