Industrial Light Bulb

Industrial light bulb: the one that lasts the whole shift in workshops, warehouses and industrial buildings

A bulb that switches on at seven in the morning and stays on until the shift changes has nothing in common with the one in your living room, even though both screw in the same way. On the outside they look alike. Inside they share almost nothing: the available lamp base changes, the electronics powering the diodes change and, above all, the way heat is drawn out of the unit changes.

You buy it by the numbers, not by adjectives: the base your installation requires, the wattage you genuinely need, the colour temperature that suits you, how long it runs and in what environment. With those five facts to hand, the order closes with no surprises and no returns.

What makes an industrial light bulb interesting is that it is the quickest replacement on the table. You don't touch the ceiling, you don't pull new cable, you don't change the luminaire and you don't stop work. You screw it in, and a light point that has been consuming like a heater for twenty years uses a fraction of that power the very same afternoon. In industrial lighting there are few interventions with that ratio of effort to result.

That said, it isn't right for everything. A bakery workroom with a three-metre ceiling has very different lighting needs from a warehouse with high racking, and there are situations where the right answer is a different family of luminaire. Send us the mounting height before you order and we'll confirm whether this is the right product or whether that point calls for something else.

We manufacture LED luminaires, so what you buy comes off our own line. On an order of forty identical points, that means that in two years' time, when one fails, you replace it with exactly the same product and the difference doesn't show in the row. Order a single sample and fit it in your worst spot before placing the large order: it is the cheapest check there is.

The four differences are decided when you buy, not when you fit: lamp base, driver and heat dissipation in an industrial LED bulb compared with domestic LED lamps

The first dividing line is the base. In homes almost everything is covered by the 27-millimetre screw base and the small decorative sizes. When wattage goes up, the large base appears: the 40-millimetre one fitted in street lighting and in luminaires suspended at great heights. No living-room bulb gets anywhere near that.

The second difference is inside and can't be seen in the photo. A domestic bulb has its power electronics squeezed into the neck, sized for eight or ten watts and for short periods of use. When that same design has to sustain fifty or a hundred watts twelve hours a day, it runs out of headroom, and that component fails first, not the diode. Products designed for industrial applications use a power stage with greater thermal margin and with protection against the voltage spikes generated by an installation with motors starting up nearby.

The third is heat, and it decides everything else. An LED doesn't radiate heat forwards: it concentrates it at the junction, and it has to be drawn away from the back. The domestic bulb gets by with a plastic housing and a token heat sink, because it will never have to shed much. The industrial one has a finned aluminium body, a large exchange surface and sometimes the entire body acting as a heat sink. If the junction runs hot, light output drops from the first month and the unit ages prematurely. It is not a cosmetic detail.

There is a fourth point that gets overlooked and causes nasty surprises on site: weight. A large-base unit with a metal body weighs considerably more than a domestic one, and not every lampholder or bracket supports it equally well. It is also worth checking its operating position, because many require vertical mounting with the heat sink facing upwards so that air can flow through the fins.

Put the four together and what you get is low energy consumption that holds up over time, not just on the afternoon you screw it in. All four are decided at the point of purchase, not during installation: tell us what wattage you need per point and which luminaire it goes into, and we'll confirm the product that can handle those operating hours.

Measure the space before placing your order: E27 and E40 bases, from standard E27 bulbs and the E27 T120 format to high-wattage E27 LED lamps

The letter and number on the product sheet are not an internal manufacturer's code: they describe what you are going to screw in, and they are the first detail to settle in the order. The E comes from the Edison screw and the figure is the diameter in millimetres. E27 measures twenty-seven and E40, forty. The highest-wattage products in the catalogue use the 27 mm base, and when the old luminaire has the large base, the solution is an adaptor, sold separately and cheaper than replacing the entire fitting. That is why neither fits where the other goes, and why there is no doubt about whether it will fit: either it measures what it measures or it doesn't.

The 27 mm base is the de facto standard. It is found in wall lights, workshop shades, suspension strips and most of the lampholders you already have installed, so replacing is simply a matter of unscrewing and screwing in. It covers everything from the couple of watts of a signal beacon to the medium wattages that light a small warehouse or a working aisle.

The large base comes into play when wattage really goes up. It is the one used in street lighting and in luminaires suspended far above the floor, and its advantage isn't only electrical: the contact surface is larger and it supports a big, heavy metal body far better.

Then there is the other half of the nomenclature, the part that describes the bulb shape. In a T120 and a T38, the figure after the T is the body diameter in millimetres. The first is wide and compact, with fins arranged around the neck; the second is a slim, elongated tube. Neither says anything about wattage. They tell you whether the unit fits.

That is the most expensive mistake with this product, and also the easiest to avoid. It gets ordered by wattage, the order arrives and it won't go into the fitting. Measure the clear space inside the luminaire before placing your order, especially if you are fitting it inside a globe, an enclosed shade or an acrylic diffuser, where length will limit you as well as diameter.

If you don't know what's installed, the reference is usually stamped on the lampholder itself or on the luminaire's plate. And when a project mixes both bases, finalise the distribution of points first and order afterwards: switching base halfway through installation costs more in labour than all the materials put together. Send the list of points with the base type and the measurement of the space to comercial@factorled.com and we'll return the products that fit, with quantities already worked out by zone.

From 40W, 60W and 80W E27 halogen to high-power LED: the brightness and beam of an LED bulb that actually reaches the floor

A watt is not a unit of light; it is a unit of consumption. It stopped being a useful reference the day we stopped buying incandescent bulbs, yet it is still used out of sheer habit: everyone has internalised how bright the old-fashioned bulb was. That memory is useful as long as you translate it.

A 60W incandescent bulb delivered around 800 lumens and consumed the full sixty watts; the rest of the energy was lost as heat. That is the domestic scale, and hardly anyone buys on that basis for a workshop.

In industry the comparison is made against something else: what gets removed is usually not incandescent, but a discharge lamp that stopped delivering what it said on the box years ago.

By contrast, a 100W LED bulb reaches full output the instant you flick the switch, restrikes without waiting and keeps its light output much steadier throughout its life. That is why replacement wattages surprise anyone who hasn't seen it yet: 40W or 60W doing what previously required a discharge lamp of more than twice that. A high-performance source delivers more light for every watt consumed, and that is the end of the comparison.

That leaves light distribution, which is the most neglected aspect. A bulb is not a spotlight: it emits over a very wide angle, and in wide bodies with diodes spread across the sides it approaches 270º. That works in your favour when the luminaire has a reflector and needs the source to radiate upwards too, so the light bounces back. It works against you when you want to concentrate light on a workbench: for that, the right product is a floodlight.

Direct replacement only works if the original luminaire was designed for a source that radiated in all directions. If the reflector was designed for a small, concentrated point source, changing the geometry of the source changes the distribution on the floor, and you may end up with more installed light output and a worse result on the work surface. That calculation is done beforehand, not after climbing the ladder. Tell us what you are removing and the height it lights from, and we'll tell you which wattage to replace it with so you don't fall short or pay for watts that will never reach the floor.

The T38 industrial LED filament bulb, 24W, 4000K, E27: no dark side at the back, the filament LED for fittings where a wide body won't fit

It is worth knowing what you are ordering with this one, because it is nothing like the previous type. A conventional LED is a block of chips mounted on a board that is screwed against a heat sink. The filament type works the other way round: the chips are arranged in series on a long, thin strip coated with phosphor, and that assembly is held inside a glass bulb.

What you gain with this design is distribution. The filaments emit in all directions, so there is no dark side behind the lamp, which is exactly what happens with a flat, board-mounted body. In a wall light with a diffuser, or in any glass luminaire where the source is visible, the difference is obvious without instruments: the whole fitting lights up instead of showing one bright spot and leaving the rest dark.

Heat takes a different route. There is no aluminium block here: heat spreads along the filaments and dissipates through the glass surface and the air inside. It works well as long as wattage stays in the medium range and the lamp is ventilated. Enclosed in a sealed globe flush against the ceiling, this construction suffers the most of all.

The T38 body follows the same logic. Being a narrow, elongated tube, it fits where a wide-bodied lamp won't: enclosed wall lights, wall-mounted luminaires, signage, decorative façade lighting. With 24W and a 27 mm base, you cover the average height of a workshop or a warehouse aisle without changing anything else in the installation.

At 4000K this combination is the most requested for work areas, and the reason is practical: it is the colour temperature that lets you tell apart the colour of a cable, a label or a machined part without the room ending up looking like an operating theatre.

Where it doesn't fit: anywhere with impacts or heavy vibration. Glass is glass. For a bench next to heavy machinery, go for a metal body. On its own ground it is an efficient, long-lasting light source; outside it, it performs well below what the product sheet promises. To find out whether it suits your case, all you need is the measurement of the space and the type of diffuser: ask via the website chat before placing your order and save yourself a return.

Colour temperature is what causes the most returns in LED lighting: warm light 3000K, neutral light 4000K, cool white 5000K and cold white from 6000K to 6500K

The kelvin scale doesn't tell you how much light a lamp gives; it tells you what colour that light is. Two units with the same light output and a different colour temperature completely change how a room is perceived, and this is the attribute that causes the most returns when it's chosen by eye from a mobile phone screen.

At the lower end, 3,000 kelvin gives a yellowish tone, close to that of the traditional incandescent bulb. It works in an entrance hall, a rest area or the customer-facing part of a warehouse. It is a poor choice for a workbench, because it softens contrast and makes it harder to tell a brown cable from a black one.

4,000 kelvin is the most requested setting for work. It neither yellows nor tips into blue, it renders the real colour of materials reasonably well and it can be worked under for a full day without fatigue. Workshop, warehouse, assembly line, bakery workroom: unless you have a specific reason to move away from it, stay there.

From 5,000 kelvin upwards, perceived contrast increases. It shows in visual inspection, in assembling small parts and in any task that involves spotting a surface defect. At the extreme, above 6,000 and up to 6,500 kelvin, the light is distinctly bluish: it gives an impression of more brightness than there really is, suits quality control and cold rooms, and becomes tiring as the shift wears on.

There is a second figure that gets forgotten and matters as much as colour temperature: the colour rendering index. A CRI of 80 is the reasonable minimum for general work. Below that figure colours look dull and goods look grey, however many watts you have installed. When you really need to distinguish colour (wiring, textiles, food, paint), the minimum rises to 90 and it is not negotiable.

In shops and retail premises the rule is reversed: it isn't the task that decides, it's the merchandise. A clothing display needs high colour rendering and a tone close to warm; a delicatessen counter needs something completely different. Different colour temperatures can coexist perfectly well in different areas of the same building, on one condition: within the same room, every point must have the same colour temperature. A row with two temperatures is noticeable from the entrance and there is no way to disguise it.

If you have to decide quickly and the space is for work, go for neutral or cool. And if the building mixes rooms with different requirements, order both temperatures together and save yourself a second delivery charge: they arrive together, are distributed by room on unloading and the replacement is done in a single visit.

An LED doesn't burn out, it degrades: a long service life of 10,000 hours, energy savings and the lumens, lm and energy efficiency that matter

Hardly anyone reads that figure correctly. An LED doesn't burn out: it degrades. What is declared is not when it stops lighting, but how many hours it takes for light output to fall to a percentage of the initial value, usually seventy or eighty per cent. At that point the lamp still gives light, just less than you paid for.

And that calculation depends on one variable above all others: the temperature at which the junction operates. The same product fitted in an open, ventilated luminaire, or enclosed in a sealed globe against a ceiling with trapped heat, produces results that bear no resemblance to each other. Durability isn't set by the catalogue; it's set by where you install it. That is why units with an aluminium body and a generous heat-dissipation surface age better, and why the mounting position is stated on the product sheet.

The other half of the story is consumption. The figure to look at is not the wattage on the box but the efficacy: how much light the unit delivers for every watt it consumes. Always ask for it in relation to the complete luminaire and not the chip, because they are two different numbers and the second always looks more impressive.

In practice this translates into two measurable things. First, low power consumption that behaves the same on the first day as on the last. And second, a lower heat load in the room, which in summer and in enclosed premises shows in how hard the air-conditioning has to work.

The EU energy label ranks products by class and is useful for comparing at a glance, although it doesn't replace the two figures above: two products in the same class can have very different service lives depending on how they are built inside.

To do the sum that really matters, multiply by your hours. Those of a warehouse that opens at seven in the morning and closes at eight in the evening are not those of a plant room that is lit for twenty minutes a day. The replacement pays for itself in the first case and takes considerably longer in the second, and knowing this in advance avoids presenting a calculation that doesn't hold up later. Our warranty starts at three years and extends to six across part of the range, and that cover handles exactly what no curve can predict. With trade pricing activated, the volume discount applies automatically once each tier is passed, and if you resell, the catalogue can be customised with your logo and details before you show it to your customer.

Dust, vibration and ambient heat: where the bulb holds up and where you need a street light or an LED ceiling light

Dust does two things, and both are bad. It settles on the bulb and steals light; anyone would expect that. What people don't expect is the second: it builds up between the fins and forms a blanket that stops heat escaping. The junction temperature rises, light output drops and the unit ages prematurely, even though from below it seems to shine just the same.

In joinery, in milling, anywhere the air carries suspended particles, a bare source is not the answer: it goes inside an enclosed luminaire that can be wiped clean from the outside. And where the dust is combustible, the equipment must be certified for that atmosphere, which is a different product category altogether.

With vibration, LED starts with an advantage, because there is no incandescent filament to break and no electrodes to wear out. It easily withstands levels that used to finish off the previous technology. The weak points are two others. The screw base, which under sustained vibration can work loose and make poor contact, so at loading bays and under overhead cranes it is worth checking the tightness at the first maintenance visit. And the glass bulb, fragile by definition: if there is any risk of impact, use a metal body and a protected luminaire, never exposed glass.

Ambient heat is the most ignored variable and the one that takes the most years off a lamp's life. Product sheets state an operating temperature range for a reason. Under a warehouse roof in August, six metres above the floor, it is a good many degrees hotter than at forklift level, and that is the air the lamp has to cool itself with. Add an enclosed diffuser with no ventilation and you will be asking twice what it can give.

There are three scenarios where the right answer is not a screw-in source. Outdoors without a sealed luminaire, because moisture and temperature swings get in where they shouldn't. In street lighting, where the E40 base is still fitted in many units but the project is solved with a dedicated luminaire on a column. And in high-ceilinged spaces, where distribution requires calculated optics and spacing, not an omnidirectional source hanging from a lampholder.

Indoors, the line is simpler. If the ceiling is low and you want even light with no hotspots, a flat light or a panel distributes light better than any point source. The rest of the lighting solutions in the range, from the weatherproof batten to the floodlight, exist precisely to cover what a bulb can't cover well. Before you decide, describe the environment at that point: suspended particles, machine vibration and the temperature under the roof in August. With those three facts we'll pin down the right product, which is sometimes this one and sometimes a complete luminaire from the range.

Before you climb the ladder: 230V and 12V, dimmable, remote control and what to do with old bulbs

What voltage do they run on, and what happens if my circuit is extra-low voltage?

The 27 mm and large-base bulbs used in workshops, warehouses and shops connect directly to mains voltage, the same as any socket. They don't need a transformer or an external power supply: all the electronics are inside the lamp itself. If your circuit is extra-low voltage (caravan, boat, battery-powered panel, standalone lighting), the unit must be rated for that specific voltage. Screwing a mains lamp into a battery circuit won't light it, and doing the reverse destroys it instantly. Always check the voltage printed on the neck before fitting anything.

Can the brightness be dimmed?

Only if the product sheet explicitly says so. A standard unit can't be dimmed, because its internal electronics are designed to operate at a single operating point; forcing it with an old wall dimmer causes flicker, buzzing and early failure. Dimmable versions say so and usually require a dimmer compatible with LED loads, which is not the same one used in the incandescent installation. Decide before you buy: what isn't designed for it from the start can't be converted later.

Can they be controlled remotely or with presence detection?

There are versions with a built-in receiver that respond to a remote control or an app, as well as presence detectors that switch on only when someone enters the area. In a warehouse with aisles visited three times per shift, a detector performs far better than any manual control, because the savings lie in the hours when nobody is there. Before mixing components, check which protocol each one uses: combining two different systems in the same installation means doubling up on accessories.

What do I do with the ones I remove?

They don't go in general waste. Fluorescent tubes and discharge lamps contain components that require separate collection, and LED lamps fall into the waste electrical equipment category. They are taken to a recycling centre or a collection point for electrical waste. If it's a large changeover and you're removing several hundred points at once, arrange collection before installation starts: piling up boxes of removed material in a walkway ends up becoming a safety problem.

How do I buy with trade pricing, and how long does delivery take?

Once your account is approved, you see the trade price applied on every product sheet, with volume discounts according to quantity. To open the account we need your registration form together with your company documents, or your self-employed registration if you work for yourself. Stock ships from the warehouse without delay and you get the estimated lead time for your area when you confirm the order; the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla go through the DUA customs document first, and we'll phone you before the parcel is dispatched. Shipping costs are calculated in the basket based on weight, volume and zone, and you see them before confirming payment. If something isn't right, returns are accepted under the conditions published on our returns page, with the original box intact, return carriage at your expense and the RMA processed from your customer area.

If you have your list of points to replace in front of you and aren't sure, send us the base type, the wattage of what you're removing and the mounting height at comercial@factorled.com, or ask us by phone on 91 805 67 67, or on mobile 654 777 000. We manufacture the range, so the product you fit today can be replaced like for like in two years' time. And if you resell, parcels can ship without sender details and the product range can be connected to your shop with daily updates.