- The world of LED Downlights
has become increasingly complicated
for what's a pretty simple product.
And so when a new model launches to market,
you can't help but ask yourself,
"Why do we need another downlight?"
Well, the newly upgraded flagship range of FType downlights
from Luceco lighting answer this question
by making electrician's lives easier,
while not forgetting that the end user
spends way more time with the downlight
than the electrician ever will,
and even if you are a wholesaler,
you're going to love these too.
There's three groups of product in the range
with specific features and target customers for all.
First up, there's the essence range.
These are the entry level fitting, simple, clean
and affordable.
But just because their budget
doesn't mean the quality or performance are compromised.
The first thing that caught my eye on these
when taking them out the box was just how compact they are.
Those of us who are getting a bit long in the tooth
will remember the days when downlights used to require
a separate transformer or driver
that would usually be flailing about
during the installation,
leading to more connections than a train journey
to our studios in the north.
Coupled with that
you'd have to remove any thermal insulation
within about a 15 metre radius
to prevent the transformer from melting.
So all in all, you'd have a fairly messy untidy solution.
Well, what a time to be alive it is now.
Everything this fitting needs
is contained in this small low profile housing
on the back of the downlight
and even the connectors don't protrude out of the side.
And speaking of the connectors,
this brings me to one of the things
that I absolutely love about this range of fittings
and that's the lid that covers the terminations.
Now, bear with me
because there is a genuine reason that I love this feature.
A long time ago,
I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD.
Now, that's a term that gets banded around
quite a bit nowadays,
mostly by people who just like to be neat and tidy.
I'm even a bit loath to apply it to myself
and prefer to think
that I've got obsessive compulsive tendencies
as I've pretty much got it under control
and it doesn't impact on my life very much.
However, this wasn't always the case,
and one of the ways that it used to manifest itself
was in the obsessive checking and rechecking
of terminations that I'd make on site.
This isn't a terrible practise for an electrician
and I suspect I'm not the only one who has that habit.
However, it isn't half time consuming
when you're trying to get a job done.
And this is the reason
that I love the installation side of these fittings.
For starters, the terminals are push fit,
meaning you don't have fiddly little screws to do up
and double, triple or even quadruple check.
They follow the Lon Lon pattern,
and once the cables have been quickly and neatly installed,
the lid closes down and clamps the cables in position
to prevent strain on the terminals.
However, rather than hiding the terminals away
behind a blank piece of plastic,
the lid has this little window built in,
meaning that after you've finished
terminating the conductors
and just before you push it up into the ceiling,
you can peer in and make sure the conductors
are firmly in place, haven't moved around,
and are in the right connections.
This increases the safety of the installation
as you can literally see
that the cables haven't popped outta the connections
and aren't going to cause arcing
leading to serious problems down the line.
I think that is innovation at its best,
simple, functional, and transferable.
If you're connecting the fittings
to a 1.5 mil twin in CPC cable, the lid clamp's closed
and there's no reason to do this screw up
unless you just like the added reassurance of doing so.
If the lighting circuit is fed in 2.5 mill instead,
maybe to over convult drop or a high impedance
on a long circuit, then the screw must be done up
to ensure that it's properly secured.
However, the end user isn't interested
in the mental struggles of the installing electrician.
So what benefits did they get?
Well, for the essence range, there's a warm 3000 Kelvin
or cool 4,000 kelvin version available.
The fittings are incredibly efficient
giving out over 120 lumens per watt,
a serious consideration in these days
of bewildering energy prices.
They'll last a long time at 25,000 hours
and a three year warranty
but they're also just great looking when installed
with a market leading low profile bezel
that's interchangeable with other great finishes
like brush steel, polished chrome and matte black.
That low profile bezel and the clarity of the optics in here
mean that once this is installed
it still looks like an absolutely premium down light
which means your customers will be really happy
with the finish.
So for a simple, cost-effective, basic installation,
these fittings are your go-to option.
But as an electrician
how do you like the sound of a little bit of upselling?
The essence fittings are dimmable, which is great,
but if we move to the next tier upper fitting
to the mark two,
we enter the exciting world of dim to warm.
So when you dim the fitting down
it doesn't just lower the light output from the fitting.
It actually changes the colour temperature of the light,
creating a warmer cosier feel to a room.
But that's not the only upgrade that the mark two offers.
It also comes with a five-year warranty
and a longer lifetime for the LEDs of 40,000 hours.
There's also an upgrade to the types of fittings available.
There's three variants of this fitting,
so the customer can have a flat fitting
with the light source closer to the front
for a clean streamlined effect on the ceiling.
There's a regressed version
with the light source set a little further back
for instances where glare needs to be reduced.
And finally, there's an adjustable fitting as well
where some directional light is required.
Looking to the back of the fitting
it looks quite similar to the essence
with that anxiety reducing safety increasing window
to the connections on the top.
However, you'll notice that there's these switches here.
These are key to making your life as an electrician simpler
because you can provide a broad range of light output
in different temperatures at the flick of a switch.
Well, at the flick of two switches, at least.
On the back of the mark two fitting,
there's these two switches
and you can see that they're slightly different
between these two variants.
On this one, the left hand switch
changes the power rating of the fitting
which ultimately means it changes the lumen output.
This output will vary slightly,
depending on what you have the other switch set to
as this one changes the colour temperature
from E to W to C to D.
That's extra warm, warm, cool
and daylight white respectively.
The other variance of the mark two has the same switch
for changing the power rating and hence the lumen output.
But you'll notice the other switch
only has settings for warm white and cool white.
If you set the switch to warm white on this variant
it enables that awesome dim to warm function
that can be used as an upselling opportunity
to your customers.
I just really want to make the point here
that these switches are not intended
to allow the end user to swap between different light levels
and temperatures throughout the day.
The idea is that they allow wholesalers
and electricians to order and stock
fewer variations of fitting.
So you don't need to think about
ordering specific outputs and temperatures
depending on the room you're installing them to.
You can order an entire house worth of fittings in one go
and simply adjust the switches to the desired output.
It also has the additional advantage that
if the customer doesn't like the temperature or light level
it's very easy to adjust post-installation
without changing the whole fitting.
And finally,
those interchangeable bezels we mentioned earlier
also feature from the mark two and cleverly,
you can use the bezels from the essence fittings
on the flat version of the mark two.
Now, with all of this functionality,
you might be wondering where is there left
for the top tier of dam like the FType Ultra to go.
To find out the killer feature in this fitting
that makes electrician's lives even easier,
check out this video right here.
If you'd like to know more about mental health issues
like OCD, anxiety or depression,
then check out the free training package that we've made
on "Health and Safety in the Workplace"
by clicking the link in the description below.
All that remains in this video is to say,
thank you very much for watching.