Professional Lighting

Professional lighting from the manufacturer: the luminaire that declares what it delivers and can still be replaced years later

Buying lighting for a business is nothing like buying a single bulb. Professional lights are chosen on what the data sheet declares: real system flux, efficacy in lm/W, degradation criterion and the part number of the driver. Never on the wattage printed on the box. That difference doesn't show in the product photo: it shows two years later, when a unit needs replacing and you have to decide whether you change one component or throw the whole fitting away.

We manufacture part of what we sell and assemble the rest with identified components, so we can put in writing what goes inside each reference. That is what lies behind the highest quality any brochure promises: not an adjective, but an LED chip with a name, a driver with a declared curve and a range that still exists when you order again.

We wrote this page for people who buy with judgement and with an invoice: electrical installers, maintenance managers, purchasing managers, architects, technical offices and resellers. If that is your case, send the documentation for your business to comercial@factorled.com and we will have your company account open before you need it, with your trade price applied from the very first order.

What follows is buying criteria, not a shop window. What separates a fitting designed to work ten hours a day from one designed to be switched on for a while, which lines of the data sheet you should demand before comparing two quotes, and what gets decided at the moment of ordering because it cannot be added afterwards. With that settled, the conversation with us comes down to quantities and dates.

Two identical quotes stop being identical the moment you ask for system lm/W: how to choose between lighting products with the data sheet in front of you

The figure most often dressed up in this sector is efficacy. One manufacturer declares the lm/W of the bare module, before the light passes through the diffuser and without subtracting what the driver consumes. Another declares it for the finished fitting, measured exactly as you are going to hang it. Both write a similar number and they are not talking about the same thing.

Always ask for system efficacy, with diffuser and electronics included, and you will see two quotes that looked like twins separate on their own. The same goes for life hours: a bare number says nothing. You need to know how much flux the unit retains once it reaches those hours and at what ambient temperature the measurement was taken. The same LED reference that holds up in an air-conditioned shop degrades far sooner under a sheet-metal roof in August.

With those two lines on the table, the decision stops being intuition. System flux, real efficacy, degradation criterion, working ambient temperature and driver type: five lines that fit in an email. Send us those from the quote you are evaluating and we will tell you whether our high light output equivalent meets that level or not. Choosing the best option between two similar units is settled with a subtraction, not with an act of faith.

The driver sets the service life, not the diode: that is why a professional lighting unit opens up, gets repaired and stays in the catalogue

The LED diode is rarely the first thing to fail. What gives out sooner is the electronics feeding it, and that is where it is decided whether the fitting lasts one season or the whole payback period. That is why we work with OSRAM, Bridgelux or Lumileds chips and with Philips, Moso, GXtronic or Sosen drivers: components from leading brands, with known curves and predictable behaviour once the body heats up.

The practical consequence is the one that matters to you. A professional fitting opens up: the driver has a part number, it is ordered as a spare and replaced without taking down the rest of the installation. The consumer-grade one is sealed at the factory, and when the electronics go, the whole unit goes in the skip. Working with spare parts available changes the real cost of keeping a hundred light points running, and that calculation is the one to take to the client.

The housing does the other half of the work. Aluminium with enough surface area to shed the heat, fins oriented so that the air circulates and ventilation designed for the real mounting position, not for the photograph. A driver forced to run a few degrees above its design point loses service life in a measurable way, and that loss appears on no commercial data sheet: it is charged on the second trip up the platform.

There is a third point that gets forgotten until installation day: the compatibility of the dimming signal. Not all drivers accept the same protocol, and a unit bought without that box ticked does not become dimmable afterwards. LED technology has brought down the cost of the light point and moved the complexity into the electronics; whoever sells it to you has to be able to tell you what is inside, reference by reference.

Sealing, beam angle and colour tone are specified by where the fitting goes: the type of lighting that solves each work area

The protection rating is chosen for the location and not just in case. IP65 is what you ask for where there is dust, damp or hose-down cleaning, and it is the usual benchmark in outdoor lighting, on loading bays and at any point that takes water from the side. Inside an office or a showroom, demanding it makes the fitting dearer and gives you nothing in return. And on a street lighting project the conversation shifts axis again, because what governs is the mounting height and the distribution across the carriageway.

The beam angle does more for the result than the wattage. Narrow optics push the light down to the far end of a tight aisle; wide ones cover area with a low mounting point. Changing the aperture without touching the power rearranges the whole distribution, and it is the cheapest correction there is when the layout does not add up. A compact 6W recessed format solves an office ceiling where a floodlight would be absurd, and the other way round.

Colour tone and colour rendering are the two lines that cause the most returns. Colour temperature is set by task: warm where you need to create atmosphere in a customer-facing space, neutral for a long working day, cool only where inspection takes place. The rendering index governs as soon as there is merchandise to show or colour to judge, because below Ra 80 the product looks dull and at the point of sale that is visible from the door. All of this adapts to the use before ordering, never after hanging.

Extend the installation without the new run showing: the lighting solutions still in the catalogue when it is time to grow

This is the argument you only understand when the second order arrives. We manufacture a good part of the portfolio, so the reference you installed does not drop off the list the following season nor change its colour tolerance between production runs. When you extend a floor, the new run goes in with the same housing, the same aperture and the same white as the one already up there, and nobody can tell where the old installation ends.

Continuity shows in the small things too. Brackets, reflectors and the rest of the accessories stay common within each family, so a failed unit is replaced with what you already have in the store. Building a lighting system in phases, one floor this year and the next one after, only works when whoever supplies you keeps the range going; with campaign stock, every phase starts from scratch and the whole thing ends up looking like a collage.

Dim, group by zone and close the order: lighting control is not added after the installation is up

The dimmable version of an LED unit is specified at the factory. If the driver inside does not accept the signal, no accessory will fix it, and the only way out is replacing the whole unit with the platform set up again. Decide before ordering which lines are going to dim, where they are governed from (wall, remote or building management) and which zones are grouped under the same control.

In entertainment the protocol is another one. There you work with DMX-512, and what decides the installation is having the channel count and the addressing resolved on paper: DMX controllers are ordered together with the fixtures, not once everything is already hanging. Choosing the right DMX for the number of units you are going to govern is what lets you program scenes per show and repeat them afterwards without touching anything.

That same desk is what gets the most out of LED effects: RGB mixing per channel, dynamic whites and moving heads that change position and beam within the same show. Without a decent console the intermediate tones come out muddy and the rig stays at the level of coloured light. With one, the installation does exactly what the technician has written, night after night.

One technical data sheet for the whole job: the product range that saves you mixing two standards in the same project

Buying each family somewhere different works out expensive in a way that never appears on the invoice: two colour criteria, two data sheet formats and two people to call the day something fails. A wide product catalogue under a single technical standard avoids exactly that. The replacement screw-in lamp, the recessed LED spotlight in the office ceiling, the LED strip on a counter and the yard floodlight all come from the same measurement criterion, so they compare with each other without translating anything.

Outside the building the scale changes. LED floodlights of high power cover facades, manoeuvring yards and pitches, and the jump to a high-output unit is decided by the mounting height and by the angle, never by the wattage on its own. That block is the one asked for by large retail sites with their own car park, by industry, retail, public administration and sports facilities, each with its own level requirement and its own uniformity criterion.

The stage line plays on the same board. A narrow-beam spot to cut out on stage, a wash that floods the backdrop, the gobos that print the pattern on the floor, the laser built into high-end heads and the desk that governs it all: kit bought by the DJ setting up his own booth, the nightclub refitting a room, the audiovisual productions and the DJ and events companies that rig and de-rig every weekend. Supplying those jobs without subcontracting anything is what separates a complete supplier from one that only covers half the work.

Open a business account and personalise the catalogue with your logo: buying professional lighting at the best price, with technical advice

The business registration is settled once and marks every order that comes afterwards. You send us to comercial@factorled.com the registration form together with the proof of your activity: incorporation deed and tax registration if you operate as a company, or the equivalent document if you work on your own account. Once reviewed and approved, your user changes tariff, and when you enter the online shop you see your price on every product page, with the quantity breaks already applied and without having to request a quote for each line.

From there three more things open up. A catalogue listing branded with your logo and your details, which you hand to your buyer as documentation of your own. Dispatch with no visible sender, when you are supplying the job of a third party. And the feed of our range into your website, refreshing stock daily, if you sell online without a warehouse of your own. Deferred payment is assessed separately, company by company, and has to be approved: raise it when you open the account and not with the truck already loaded.

At the other end of the telephone you get technicians, not an operator with a script. Send us the plan with dimensions, heights and the use of each area and we return the DIALux simulation: how many points fit, where they go and with what aperture. That work is included, because a properly sized order saves the return for both of us. For anything urgent you have the website chat, 91 805 67 67 and customer service by email, with personalised advice on what you already have installed.

The shipment leaves the warehouse with fast delivery, and the material is covered by 3 years of warranty as a starting point, reaching up to six years depending on the product. What it costs to get it to you depends on the package and the destination: the basket prices it before you confirm payment, so the invoice brings no surprises. On a large installation that backing weighs more than any other line, because it replaces whatever fails without opening a discussion.

Five answers from our professional LED lighting experts before you close quantities

What paperwork do you need in order to apply the business tariff?

The registration form and proof that you carry out the activity. As a company, the incorporation deed and the tax registration form; on your own account, whichever registration applies to you. All together in a single email to comercial@factorled.com, because the process always jams for the same reason: one document is missing and it has to be chased again. Once the file is reviewed, your user is left on the professional tariff and the quantity breaks apply on their own, without you having to remember them at each purchase. Deferred payment is processed in parallel, so mention it in that first email if you are interested.

I am fitting out one floor now and the next one next year. Will I get the same reference?

That is precisely why we manufacture. When the line is our own, the series does not depend on what the next container brings: the housing, the standard beam angle, the LED module and the colour tolerance between runs are all maintained, so the second phase goes in identical to the first. Tell us on the first order that there will be continuity and we note the reference on your customer file. For very large installations it is also worth settling the brackets and the reflectors from the start, as those are what costs most to match afterwards.

The material arrives damaged or I have a box left over: how do I resolve it?

The first is decided at the delivery: if the outside of the packaging shows a knock, write it on the delivery note before you sign. When the damage appears on opening, tell us straight away, with the package unhandled and with photographs if you can take them. To return goods by your own decision there is a window set out in our terms, and the box must come back as it left: with no labels or tape stuck on it, with the inner packaging, the manuals and the parts that came with it. The carriage on that return is paid by you, and a portion is deducted from the value of the product when any of those conditions fails. The request is opened by RMA from your customer area and nothing is dispatched until it has been approved.

I do not know what power or what beam angle to order for my premises. Do you calculate it for me?

Yes, and it is what we recommend before closing quantities. We need the plan with dimensions, the clear height up to the mounting point, the use of each area and the level required by the client or by the project. With that we build the DIALux simulation and return how many units fit, where they go and with what aperture, plus the recommended colour tone by task. Half an hour of calculation beforehand avoids the two expensive invoices of this trade: buying units that fall short and having to set the platform up again to put it right.

I sell to third parties. Can I supply your range without setting up a warehouse?

You can. We synchronise the range with your website and the stock is refreshed every day; when a sale comes in, we prepare it here and dispatch it without the package showing where it has come from. The system pays off with references of high turnover and low volume, because as soon as the package grows the carriage eats the margin and it is better to consolidate shipments. And if you want to present the range under your own brand, the listing branded with your details is exactly the document that is handed to the end buyer.

Open the account before you need it and have the tariff active the day the big order comes in. In professional LED lighting the difference is not made by the catalogue you look at, but by what you can demand in writing before you sign: send us to comercial@factorled.com the plan, or the quote you are comparing, and we answer with numbers on the table.