How many veggie burger luminaires do we have?

Read this blog from Car Talk. Jay Leno on cars is always interesting.

Have you heard the veggie burger theory? I hadn’t either, but it goes like this, according to Leno. “They make it look like a hamburger, but when you bite into it you go, ‘Phaaa, it doesn’t taste like a hamburger.’ Auto companies will take a Volkswagen Rabbit or something like that, pull the engine out, add in batteries, and now you have something that’s less than what you started with.”

Now let's get to lighting. Here is a LED luminaire. Before anyone even gets the idea, this is not a pick on LEDTronics session; just an example, and if it wasn't totally crap then I couldn't pick on it ... oh wait. Read all that gibberish and you see some great marketing. This "uses half the area of 4ft lamps" is my favorite; who cares? I've been at this lighting thing for 15 years and I don't recall picketing and strikes over the size of troffers in grid ceilings.

The "800" unit outputs 2753 lumens at 36W = 76 lpW. Not bad all-in-all; sure beats the 50 lpW a lot of these products tout as "great". However, I have to just laugh at it replacing a 2x4 troffer. Excuse me? What color is the sky in your universe? I yank open my trusty Acuity PSG (hey, if you like somebody else, you will find the same troffers with the same basic performance) and find a run-o-the-mill troffer. Let's say I want to be uber-green; I'm going for a 2-lamp with a Osram QHE ballast. i.e. "High Performance T8". There is another blog post on this subject, and please go read it; it will change how you spec troffers at minimum.

What we've got is a Lithonia 2GT8 G 2 32 MVOLT OS10ISX with a Osram FO28/835/XP/SS/ECO lamp. 82% efficiency. 2725 lumens per lamp. I get 3932 lumens total at 48W = 82 lpW. What do you think cost is on this thing? I'm not a pricing guy but the base troffer is not $50 and the options probably add maybe $10.

Do you think anyone makes a $60 LED troffer ... that is 7% less efficacy ... that likely doesn't even put out enough light to get you viable illuminance at 8x8 on center? I'll bet you the lowest price you get is at least 3X that. Who knows why.

‘Phaaa, it doesn’t taste like a hamburger.’