LightTools Case Study: ERCO, The Light Factory
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The Spherolit reflector is a
breakthrough design that allows easy and flexible
adaptations to be made to a variety of architectural lighting
applications, including narrow spot,
flood, and accent lighting.
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Industry
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The Goal
ERCO, headquartered in Lüdenscheid, Germany, specializes in producing engineering hardware and software for architectural lighting. ERCO’s indoor luminaires, outdoor luminaires, and lighting control systems comprise an extensive range of lighting equipment for architectural lighting solutions.
ERCO set out to create a breakthrough reflector design that would allow easy and flexible adaptations to be made to a variety of architectural lighting applications, including narrow spot, flood, and accent lighting. ERCO used LightTools to create the innovative Spherolit reflectors, which are distinguished from conventional reflectors by their three-dimensional spherical curvature that can be shaped for specific light distributions.
“Throughout the development of the Spherolit reflector technology, I
could rely on my LightTools simulation results,” says Dr.
Matthias Bremerich, chief illumination engineer at ERCO.
“LightTools predicted critical features in the light distribution
with high accuracy. Using its powerful virtual prototyping capabilities,
we saved several iterations of hardware prototypes.”
The Design
The Spherolit technology supplies various light distributions from a series of reflectors with identical footprints.
Spherolit images courtesy of ERCO
Accurate source modeling was crucial for the development of the
Spherolit reflectors. In LightTools, ERCO defined a source model
that shows all details of measurements of an HIT (metal halide) lamp in
the near field and far field.
LightTools analysis images courtesy of ERCO
The symmetric and asymmetric light distributions are achieved by a dedicated layout of cushion-shaped reflector facets. Parametric design and macro programming in LightTools made this possible.
The Results
The breakthrough and exclusive technology in ERCO's Spherolit reflectors presents an ideal light quality and offers many practical advantages to lighting designers and users. The Spherolit reflectors are now successfully used in several new product lines. ERCO has effectively invented an entirely new, central element of lighting technology.
“To develop this new generation of Spherolit products was a tough challenge,” says Dr. Bremerich. “Without LightTools by Optical Research Associates (ORA) and support from their German distributor OEC AG, we would have had a lot more work, effort and money to reach this important goal. ERCO is a highly successful company in the area of developing, building and trading luminaires, and we are quite happy to be able to rely on our partners ORA and OEC for the design of innovative new products.”
