Adam + Jake Talk Remote vs Onboard Power for Sports Retrofit Lighting Projects

Two Schools of Thought

Adam: Jake, let's talk about
retrofitting sports lighting applications — outdoor baseball fields, football
fields, soccer fields — and some of the challenges that come with those types
of applications, specifically for retrofit, and then the solutions that Wisconsin
Lighting Lab offers. In the last decade or so, there have been two schools of
thought on how to approach these applications: you have onboard power and
controls, or onboard drivers, and then you have remote power and controls. The
approach that we've taken is to offer both solutions, explain the trade-offs of
each one with the customer, and really not try to push any one architecture
because that's all we offer. But you listen to them and educate them so they
can make the best decision for their particular application.

Starting at the Base of the Pole

Adam: So let's start at the bottom of
the light pole and work our way up. If you're retrofitting a baseball field or
a softball field, what's the first thing you think about as far as a remote
power design architecture?

Jake: The first thing I typically look
at is around the base of the pole — I look and see if there's a panel that's
existing there. If I see a panel there, it's probably not because they have
remote drivers or remote ballasts — it's probably actually because they have a
disconnect down at the base of the pole. It was kind of common, especially with
the HID stuff, to have a disconnect lower. Those disconnect panels are quite a
bit smaller. There's usually a lighting contactor and some type of disconnect
inside. I look at that because that means there's some type of hole already in
the pole, and the electrical is coming from the inside of the pole to the
outside. Sometimes it can be coming from the outside, but most of the time it's
coming from the inside. The reason I'd look at that is because we might be able
to reuse that hole — that might be a good starting point for us if we're using
remote driver panels.

Contractor & Engineer Responsibilities

Adam: When there is a remote power
application, what are the contractor or engineer in charge of from a material
standpoint versus what are we in charge of supplying? If it's remote power,
we're supplying the remote power and control cabinets, wiring harnesses, a
junction box at the top of the pole. From an electrical standpoint, where does
the contractor's or the engineer's responsibility start and stop?

Jake: For a retrofit, assuming remote
drivers, it would start at the service panel. You'd probably want to take a
look at that again. There's typically a disconnect, maybe a contactor on the
pole itself, but that's all being fed from somewhere — whatever the electrical
room is, wherever it's coming from, a panel just in the middle of a field.
There's usually a disconnect at that location too, and lighting contactors. The
first thing I would say is, make sure those contactors — a lot of times they're
very old — make sure they're in good shape and seem to be working. I have seen
it where they will blow fuses in the field once new infrastructure gets put on
it. The big difference — like the HID lighting versus the LED lighting — that's
a significant change to the circuit and how it's been operating for the last
20–30 years. So the first thing is, make sure that type of equipment is up to
date, in quotes, because that equipment doesn't really get bad, but it can age
and degrade.

Jake: Aside from that, adding surge
protection if it doesn't exist on those panels is probably a good idea. That
would be something we always recommend, especially for LED installs.

Adam: And one of the positive benefits
of remote power is, inside of our panels we have fusing, we have surge
protection, we have some of the power protection equipment that you don't
typically have for an onboard driver application, where the drivers and the lighting
equipment are up on top of the pole. So the contractor, the engineer — review
the panel, the contactors, make sure everything's going to work okay when you
start consuming half the power that you were with HID. But really, once you
feed the pole with the right AC power, our system really takes over from there.

Adam: There are some mechanical things
that need to happen with drilling poles out and attaching the panels. But if
you have a lighting system that's 20, 30, 40 years old, you not only have to
worry about the panels and the poles being fed, but you have old wiring and old
harness running completely through the pole. There are some major benefits to
being able to gut the pole essentially and have new electrical, because the
hope is that you don't have to replace the lights for another 10, 20, 30 years.
By that time, all the electrical running through the pole could be many, many
decades old. So contractor, engineer — make sure the power is good to the point
of the pole. From there, we have fusing, surge protection, a harness. That's
really the positive benefit.

Onboard: Electrical Trade-Offs

Adam: Can you go into a little bit
more detail in that scenario with onboard? What would be some of the negative
trade-offs from an electrical standpoint from your perspective?

Jake: Starting with the things you
already highlighted — the existing wiring, the existing conductors going up the
pole. A lot of that stuff has been up for 15 to 30 years, probably a rough
average. It's been swinging around. There's probably some strain relief in
there, but the wire's still swinging around, they're hitting each other,
there's sharp edges in the pole. You could have a lot of damage to just the
insulation of the conductors. You see crazy things all the time with job sites.
Anytime that you can replace that, and it's a relatively low cost to replace,
that's always a positive. As far as replacing — when we're supplying remote
power, it's already part of our system. We're including it.

Adam: And for larger applications,
when there is remote power, there's controls. The cost differential between our
onboard setup and a remote power setup — they're essentially a wash, because
there's some economies of scale that kick in with the control system. The
fixture can be smaller if it's a remote power fixture, which also helps from
some structural points of view. But as far as the electrical system, when you
buy a remote power setup, not only are you getting new lights, new drivers, a
new control system — you're getting brand-new wiring running through the pole.
If the cost is essentially the same as onboard, that is a huge benefit from a
maintenance and longevity standpoint. It doesn't mean that onboard drivers
aren't a good way to go in a lot of cases, but if cost is not a determining
factor and you can upgrade your electrical system, you would want to highly
consider doing that.

Drilling Poles & Mounting Panels

Adam: Let's look at some of the
negative trade-offs of remote power. I think a lot of them revolve around the
mounting and mechanical side of things. You're working on many jobs right now,
both on the design side and in the field. What are some of the things that
contractors are concerned about when it comes to remote power and the
mechanical side, and how can our team assist them through that process?

Jake: The big concerns would just be
the first initial understanding that if you have an existing steel pole in the
field and there aren't any provisions in that pole — which a lot of times there
isn't — sometimes you might get lucky and have a lower box like we talked about
earlier, but you have to drill into that pole. It just is what it is. Some
contractors are wary of that just for structural reasons. I've never run into
an issue where I've seen a structural issue with that, but that doesn't
obviously mean that it won't come up, depending on the age of the pole. We
always tell customers to take at least some understanding of what's going on
with the current pole — how rusty it is, things like that. There are local
options in many cases to connect with an engineering firm. It's a very small
percentage of the overall project to have a structural professional engineer
come out and do a review. For larger projects, we do have access to engineering
firms that are very familiar with these poles. They can do an inspection, they
can check for loading and stress — that oftentimes doesn't happen, but that is
the owner and the end user's call. Know that you have local resources, and also
we can help connect you with resources if you want to ensure that everything is
structurally sound.

Jake: So through-holes have to be
drilled, and then there's also mounting of the panels. The way our panel works
— it's mounted via a bracket that uses straps, like banding, stainless steel
bands. Occasionally the existing poles are much larger than the standard bands
go, so we just need to know at least roughly what the diameter of the poles
are, just to make sure we're providing the right amount of banding and the
right brackets. The straps — we've never had an issue with them. They're kind
of finicky, kind of a pain in the butt sometimes to deal with, but there's not
really a better way to do it on an existing pole, unless you want to weld or
machine and adjust the pole even more, or drill into the pole again. So that's
what we use. Contractors are used to using that type of banding — they use it
for conduit and stuff, traffic lights, telecom infrastructure, antennas, things
like that.

Dropping the Harness

Jake: And then the next thing,
honestly, gets easy after that. The next thing you have to install besides the
lights at the top of the pole is the wiring harness, and that's obviously very
easy. We make it, it's all labeled, every fixture is individually labeled, it's
quick-connects. So that part is relatively easy.

Adam: How is it done for retrofit? I
can't imagine they're trying to throw it up from the bottom.

Jake: Generally it's done from the top
down. If you have to cut a hole at the top, or the hand hole, or there's
usually a handle at the top — you can cut a hole at the top for our top panel.
Also, the top cap comes off generally on these types of poles. Sometimes
they're welded on if they're really old poles. I just ran into a job where that
had happened.

Adam: The top caps were welded on?

Jake: Oh really — they tack-welded
them on. They weren't supposed to be, but they're very old poles. I don't know
if maybe one fell off at one point or something. Electricians used to carry
field welders, apparently.

Adam: Interesting.

Jake: So yeah, they would drop it from
the top down. We cut them to length. They're the exact length as they need to
be, with a little bit extra to spare just in case the panels can't be mounted
exactly where you want them to be.

Jake: The last thing to mention with
retrofits — on a lot of these older poles, the bulbs were changed by people
climbing up them. So we're running into a lot of poles with climbing structures
on the back. The workaround for this right now is, we're suggesting the panels
to be mounted on the front of the pole, which honestly aesthetically dresses it
up a little bit, because that's the side that people are looking at — breaks up
the pole structure.

Adam: It kind of looks a little bit
nicer. We can also dress up the panels even beyond just changing them — we can
paint the front covers, we can put logos and things on them.

Jake: So that's just another thing to
keep in mind. If there are climbing structures and they aren't necessarily
removable and you can't really get around them, the panels would just have to
go in the front. It's never been an issue.

Install Pain Points: What's Common to Both Systems

Adam: So at this point, the contractor
and engineer have double- and triple-checked the electrical system up until the
point of the pole. We've field-machined a few holes in the pole to mount — or
to run the wires, the harness through the incoming AC, and then our DC harness
that goes to the top of the pole. Then we've used banding straps, similar to
traffic structures, to mount the panels. We've dropped the harness for each
panel from the top and then utilized a top hole to have the DC harness exit the
pole. If you're very honest, what are some of the pain points beyond some of
the obvious things?

Jake: So just getting past the
drilling of the poles first, for the remote driver panels — that does seem to
be a touching point that a lot of guys will be a little bit afraid of doing.
That's always going to come up. Guys will use mag drills or something like
that. We always recommend — we can always work with the on-site people to make
sure they've got the right equipment, right size hole, and everything.

Adam: I think that's another important
thing to point out. Us, as a smaller, medium-sized lighting company — a big
portion of our value is support. Whereas I think people that are used to
working with very large lighting companies, they don't necessarily get support
once they start to install. When we do a project like this, we're on the phone
with the contractor daily. You and I are working on a project right now in
Milwaukee for a large high school — we're going to be down there on site. Just
knowing the contractor will have assistance along the way, I think eases some
of that concern.

Top-of-Pole Bracket Challenges

Jake: The next thing is just going up
the poles. The existing brackets are the biggest issue — figuring out a way to
mount the lights to whatever is out there, and making sure whatever is out
there is suitable for the fixtures and in good enough shape. The job I was
referencing earlier — they had cages at the top of the pole, which is very
common with HID lighting. You climb up the pole, they had climbing structures,
so the panels went on the front on this one too. You climb up the pole, you
stand in the cage, and you change all the bulbs. That's just what you did 30
years ago, 20 years ago.

Jake: The problem with the cages is, a
lot of them are old and in relatively rough shape. They're not usable now, and
they're very heavy at the top of the pole. This end user decided they were
going to take them all off — in this case they had to saw them off. The poles
were not rusty at all, they looked like they were in great shape. Whatever
angle iron they used to construct the cages just looked pretty rough. Actually,
when they took them down and I was looking at them at the ground level —
because it's always hard to tell up on the pole versus at ground level — they
didn't look bad. They could have reused them. But just to be safe, they were
like, we're just going to take them off, put new cross arms on. So they used a
cross arm with a U-bolt, replaced all the baskets. That obviously added a ton
of labor, because normally you're just trying to figure out how to put the
light on what's existing.

Jake: So the bracket situation at the
top of the pole isn't always just a perfect one-to-one fit. Being flexible on
site and thinking on your feet a little bit sometimes — because we're talking
about lights that are 60, 70, 80 feet in the air. It's not ever going to be a
perfect match to what anyone can provide unless we're climbing up the poles,
unless we have a lot of good information up front, which is tough. Getting up
to those fixtures takes a lot of work, a lot of cost. We understand why people
can't get us all the information up front, so we try to do our best to provide
a solution that can fit a variety of things.

Adam: These are for applications where
we did not do a pre-site visit — essentially relying on the contractor or the
owner to relay information. We do have applications where we'll do a
pre-install or, even during the sales process, go and visit. We can take pictures,
fly a drone, do some of the inspection. But you're talking about cases where
the first time they get to the top of the pole might be when they install.

Jake: That's probably more common than
not. It does get tough, because a lot of times you're thinking on the fly.
Contractors are great at that. All the contractors that we work with are great
at thinking on their feet and figuring this out in the field. A lot of times
we're on the phone with them trying to figure it out with them.

Jake: Going back to this job I keep
referencing — we never knew what the top diameter of those poles were. We
provided brackets to mount to the top of the poles. We used a U-bolt design,
which is great because it gives us a little bit of range to play with, since we
weren't sure how big the poles were. It's really hard to tell, if they're not
our poles, what the existing diameters are. In those cases, we have a U-bolt
design that can cover a few inches of range. We still have to get roughly
close, but it at least gives us a little bit of play. It ended up working out
perfectly, which was good, because we didn't have a lot of information up
front.

Jake: To kind of wrap that part up —
the brackets themselves can be tough. There's a lot of variety in brackets:
angle iron brackets, big baskets, tubular brackets, even bull horns —
tube-style brackets where you have to put a tenon adapter on top. Just knowing
the type, the tenon adapter diameter — those can vary quite a bit. All those
little things play a big role into making sure the job goes smoothly.

Adam: And what you just described
there would be the case for onboard and remote?

Jake: Yeah, that doesn't matter. This
is the mechanical attachment of the fixtures themselves.

Pre-Aiming: A Major Time Saver

Adam: With our fixture design, we have
a pre-aiming system that corresponds to the lighting design, and that is a huge
savings for the customer and for the contractor. Some of our large competitors
have proprietary systems where you have to use their bracket, you have to use
their full system, otherwise it doesn't work. With our system, we have the
flexibility to use it on a variety of different mounts. There are also a lot of
companies that don't offer any pre-aiming, so the contractor has to set the
up/down, they have to set the left to right. Regardless of our system, the
fixtures come pre-aimed, which, when compared to some of the other options in
the market, offsets a lot of the time and labor to drill a few holes in the
pole.

Jake: It also offsets a lot of phone
calls. We do a pre-commissioning call where we go through the aiming diagram,
everything like that. We tell them about the pre-aimed mount, and they're very
excited about hearing that, because they don't have to mess around with aiming
the lights either at the top of the pole or at the base of the pole before they
bring them up. It just takes a lot of responsibility off of them. Contractors
have a ton of responsibility, so anything that we can soak up kind of helps
them a lot.

Jake: We're talking about this, and
the worst parts to me are literally everything that you have to do no matter if
you have a remote driver system or an onboard driver system — the mounting of
the lights you have to do no matter what. So the trade-off of having remote
drivers versus not — there almost isn't much.

The Full Trade-Off Picture

Adam: I think there are just different
trade-offs. So for instance, the mounting of the fixtures — that's a wash, and
we offer ways to make it easier. With remote power, you save time and materials
and get a higher-quality system from an electrical standpoint, but there is a
little bit more on the mechanical side. With an onboard system, there's less
mechanical stuff to worry about, but you have a lot more to worry about on the
electrical side.

Adam: If we start at the top of the
pole — the way the fixtures mount, that's basically the same for an onboard
setup. In many cases, the contractor has to source some type of junction box or
power hub. We do offer a suite of products for that, but in some cases the
contractor wants to do it on their own. So they have to consolidate all the
leads from all the fixtures into a power hub at the top, they have to inspect
all the electrical running through the pole, they have to make sure that's
adequate to support the new system. In a lot of cases they have to source
fusing and things for the base of the pole. Whereas for remote power, a lot of
that is taken care of.

Maintenance: Set It and Forget It

Adam: Then you consider maintenance.
We have so few maintenance and warranty issues — almost zero when it comes to
the LED chips themselves, the LED components. In my mind, the things that you
want in the hard-to-reach locations are the things you don't want to have to
maintain. We don't really have any issues with LED chips. The drivers protect —
if there's a power issue on site, which is where most problems with sports
lighting systems come from, the driver acts as a fuse and protects everything
downstream of that, which in most cases are the LED chips themselves.

Adam: So with a remote power
application, the things at the top of the pole are the things you have to worry
about least — it's set it and forget it. You're getting a new electrical
system, new harnesses. The things at the top of the pole in the hard-to-reach location,
you don't have to worry about maintaining. The drivers are in easy-to-reach
locations from a step ladder. You don't need to get a lift. If there are issues
on site, you can get to them.

Adam: One of the biggest downsides
with an onboard setup — when you have controls and you have 120 fixtures on a
job site, there are 120 controllers that have to go on, basically one per
fixture. So you go from having one control system to manage at the base of the
pole to now having sensitive electronics at the top of the pole. Not only are
the drivers at the base of the pole, but the control systems — anything that
might have to be serviced or maintained, the most susceptible stuff — is in the
easiest-to-reach location.

Adam: All in all, when you look at
material costs, labor costs, site electrical upgrades — remote versus onboard —
maybe the remote is slightly more expensive all things considered, but you're
offsetting so much from an electrical standpoint and from a maintenance
standpoint.

The Best Onboard Jobs Resemble Remote Power

Jake: Just to keep in mind — as we're
talking through remote versus onboard, a lot of the time, contractors,
especially some of the better installs that I've seen that have onboard drivers
— drivers at the top — they will just go ahead and source a panel that's going
down below to put a disconnect or fusing or something like that inside.

Adam: That's a great point.

Jake: They'll pull the old wiring out
anyway. Contractors sometimes are disconnected from decisions that are made
about this stuff. I might talk to a contractor and he'd be like, I didn't even
know you guys offered that. I would have asked the end user or the distributor
to throw that in with this system, so I didn't have to source it myself. That's
a very common thing. They have to already — like you said before — there's a
junction box at the top of the pole, they've got to source that. Sometimes
they're sourcing the wiring that's in the pole too, just to replace it. There's
a lot of old infrastructure that should be replaced.

Adam: So what you're seeing is, the
jobs that are done right — the onboard jobs — they end up resembling our remote
power system in a lot of ways, with the exception of having the drivers and the
controllers at the base.

Jake: Exactly. They still source a
panel, they have a way to protect those circuits at the bottom of the pole,
they gut the pole of the existing electrical, they run new wiring. It's all the
stuff that we're taking care of.

Adam: And the other big benefit —
we're getting several jobs like this a week. Contractors are having a hard time
sourcing things, where we have inventory and stock of this stuff. When they go
to install something, they don't have to run around locally and find the
junction box or find the fusing, or contact us and size things. We can take
care of a lot of that at the factory. It just makes their life a lot easier.
There are certain things that have to be done locally, but we do try and
support as much of that as possible.

Jake's Recommendation

Adam: Anything else? Jake, if you were
putting in a sports field — a baseball field, a softball field — what route
would you go, and what would be some of the considerations?

Jake: The major considerations would
be where it's located and what the power looks like. Retrofit specifically —
just what the power looks like. I would definitely put a Type 2 surge protector
on whatever's feeding the electrical to the field. That's a must. It just seems
like, for whatever reason, fields — especially older sports fields — they kind
of get the bottom-of-the-barrel power being fed to them from wherever they're
being fed from. So that would be the first place I would go.

Jake: And then I would go remote
drivers 99.9% of the time. It just — everything becomes so much easier. We
obviously try our best to make sure that the fixtures are going to last.
There's only so much we can do to prevent driver failure when there's electrical
issues with the grid. There are obviously going to be acts of God, like
lightning strikes, things like that, that are always out of everyone's control.
Just being able to have direct access to the most important components running
the lights is, I think, the most important thing. That's keeping your field
lit.

Jake: We've done jobs where we've sent
extra drivers, just because we can. We know that maybe the area is just more
susceptible — maybe it's down in Florida, more susceptible. We're just being
realistic with the job site locations. We understand things happen, so we'll
throw in a few extra drivers just for the maintenance people to have on staff
or on site, just as a freebie type of thing.

Wrap-Up

Adam: Well, very cool. I think we
covered a lot of good stuff. We offer a lot of options for remote and onboard.
We will not try and sell something just because we have limited options. We
offer options for every type of application, and we'll consider budget,
consider support, consider everything before finalizing a design architecture.
We can do both options. I think this outlines a lot of the trade-offs of each
one.

Jake: There's obviously a lot of
variables, and every single job is unique. Anything that we need to do to help
make things go smoothly, we will try to do.

Adam: Cool, man. Well, thank you very
much.

Jake: Yeah, thank you, sir.