Hill Technical Sales Blog

Hill Technical Sales is pleased to announce the completion of an LED retrofit of its main office in Arlington Heights Illinois. Hill Technical Sales, a provider of OEM components for Power, Thermal Management and the Imaging Industry (founded in 1966) was looking for a lighting solution to both reduce energy costs and improve light levels for its office and data center.

Hill Tech took advantage of new LED lighting to increase the light levels and provide a more pleasing working environment by:

• An improved and appropriate light distribution pattern.
• Better color temperature and CRI, which increases the ability of the human eye to render color.
• The removal of the offensive “buzzing” of the old magnetic ballasts.

All this was accomplished while at the same time achieving our primary goal of decreasing energy costs. These energy cost reductions are in both the lighting electricity used and electricity needed for the air-conditioning, because of the wasted heat produced by the old inefficient magnetic ballasts. When the ballasts were removed during the retrofit, they were so hot you could almost “cook an egg on them” one employee commented.
Although the new energy efficient lights will save Hill Technical Sales substantial money on its annual energy bills, another reduction in cost comes from improved maintenance. The facility was still using the old 4 ft. T12 40-Watt Fluorescent tubes which needed to be replaced approximately once per year. Another saving is in the reduction of recurring labor required to replace the ballasts and cracking Bi-Pin Fluorescent Lamp Sockets, to keep the facility lighting in good working order.  Also not to be over-looked is the recycling costs of the failed Fluorescent tubes.

LEDs are a bonus in terms of maintenance savings as they last many more times as long as virtually all conventional lighting solutions (100,000 operating hours or more for LEDs). Total savings on energy and maintenance were estimated to reduce this cost by 25% per year.

The project entailed the one-for-one replacement of 20 existing troffer lights composed of four T12 40-Watt 4 ft. linear Fluorescent tubes each, and eight 50 wall halogen display lamps. Both lighting types were replaced by a superior LED designed for the particular application.

Hill Technical Sales President, Andrew Hill, stated “It’s a virtual no-brainer for us to take advantage of the long-standing and apparent performance improvements of LED lighting”. Below is an image of the project before and after the LED retrofit. Notice there is no perceivable illumination difference; however the colors now appear slightly brighter and sharper:

Hill Technical Sales is pleased to announce the completion of an LED retrofit of its main office in Arlington Heights Illinois.

Take a look at how the installation proceeded step by step at: LED Lighting Retrofit