How much area does an LED light tower illuminate?

We have had some questions about the amount of square footage the Beacon LED Tower can illuminate, and in general how LED light towers can perform versus the traditional metal-halide light towers.  All good questions.  And like most good questions, the answer starts with "It's complicated."  Complicated because what does it mean to "light up" a certain amount of square feet.  Complicated because not all LEDs are created equal. 

The short answer to the question is that the Beacon LED Tower can light up the same (or more) area than a traditional metal-halide light tower.  You can see those details here.  But you already know we love to get into the details.  So, with the idea that "it's complicated," here is some information to help you understand the long answer.

How does the light tower industry talk about light coverage?

In general, our metal-halide light tower competitors do not discuss light coverage in terms of meeting OSHA standards for the application at hand. Most bulb-based light towers claim the very misleading statistic of 5-7 acres of coverage, which is equivalent to about 217,000 – 305,000 square feet. What they don't tell you is that this coverage is at a very low foot candle rating (max of 0.5fc), or a level of light equivalent to half the brightness of a single candle one foot away (aka not very bright at all).  The Beacon LED Tower can certainly match this claim as our lights are just as bright as the metal-halide bulbs.  But is this the light level you really need for your application?

What about lighting to OSHA standards?

Being lighting experts, we understand that the relevant OSHA standard for construction sites is to provide 5fc of light. Based on our photometric data and physical tests, the Beacon LED Tower with four lights can provide 5fc of light over 15,000 square feet if the light heads are arrayed properly.

This coverage is slightly better than a metal-halide tower light.  One traditional tower light manufacturer, for example, estimates approximately 13,000 square feet of coverage at 5fc for its bub-based towers.

Head to head, the Beacon LED Tower will perform as well or better than traditional bulb-based tower lights.  The question is how much light do you need for your application so that you can estimate the proper number of towers and their coverage.

How does the Beacon LED Tower stack up against other LED light towers?

Like any piece of equipment, you can get varying performance out of it based on how you build it.  You would never expect a VW to beat a Porsche, even though they are both cars and they both use combustion engines.  So, we can't lump all LED light towers into the same bucket.  Some will match or exceed the bulb-based tower lights (like we do), but the vast majority fall quite short. 

The Beacon LED Light Tower is significantly brighter than its direct competitors. One leading traditional light tower manufacturer's LED towers all produce 88,000 lumens compared to the Beacon LED Tower's 120,000 lumens and they require 20% more wattage to do so.

Other brands do offer LED light towers with similar output to the Beacon LED Tower, but use 50-70% more electricity to do so, which then requires you to buy a full diesel generator set, removing any savings you would get.

The Beacon LED tower is among the brightest LED light towers on the market AND by far the best lumen per watt option we have ever come across.  By design.