today we're going to look at the Estrella linear lighting system from Ricoman
we've seen a lot of lighting products on the channel but none that physically look like this
Gordon so where would I use this type of light for him yeah you're right Gary we've done lots
of lighting products that possibly used in the residential applications down lights some led
strip yeah but this linear extruded system from Ricoman is for those commercial applications so
i'm thinking retail i'm thinking office spaces yeah what you've brought in there that that's
typically what we think of in terms of office lighting of the past where you had that 600 by
600 ceiling grid the fluorescent may have been replaced now by led panels but the lighting in
that kind of space is pretty uninspiring and you say that but now when you look up i'm seeing no
suspended scenery i'm actually seeing the building behind it i'm seeing trunking i'm seeing trey and
i'm seeing things a little ice gordon yeah and that's that a lot of retail space a lot of yeah
food outlets yeah they remove the ceiling and yeah leave the services up there and yeah you've
got to paint them black and obviously where do you put the lighting in that kind of environment
and that's where this sort of system comes in and then beautiful lighting systems like this where
we're actually not just lighting the space down we're lighting space up yeah and that's a vaulted
ceiling like that can be quite challenging to light because where do you put the lights
how do you get back to them to for cleaning and things like that so yeah this is again
where you'd typically find this kind of linear system hanging from the roof
so let's look at the suspended option first and you can see there this unit hangs from a wire
which is a wire and clutch mechanism allowing you to set the height and it simply clicks into the
extrusion profile on the back nice and simple i like that very simple we like simple ideas
uh can we surface mount the same thing so you can yes obviously yeah i like the wire hanging option
but obviously you can mount that to the surface of the ceiling so this would go straight flat up
to the ceiling with a mounting clip in there so we insert a clip into here which is good to see
then we clip the light fitting in yeah okay so let's uh let's do okay we've been coming closer
look at this first profile okay yeah so this is the rectangular profile that's both used for the
surface mount version and the suspended version right it's a common set of components across
the front so you've got this rear channel here where you put your mounting clips
okay and then obviously the front surface where you have your main light source now this main
light source comes in lots of different options so this is a version with a low glare louver in white
here's the same option in the black extrusion with the logo louver in black i like that one yeah very
nice we can go for a narrower beam option okay i'll bring that in as well so you'll see some
more directional lenses there again it's all the same profile so that's the good thing about this
is if you had a large installation with lots of different lighting effects you wanted to create
right you can use it's the same profile you're actually looking at exactly the same thing but
you've actually got a different light coming out there yeah and there's one very special one that
i thought was probably a real standout one in the range we've got a wall wash optic okay so
johnny bring it have a little look at that so i thought this was very clever when you showed me
it that wall there has a uniform light falling all the way down how does that work Gordon here well
that's a that's a special lens system gary that um you'll see there's a directional light and it's
a kind of non-linear light so it puts more light at the bottom of the wall than it does at the top
and obviously that means when you're looking at the wall it looks very evenly illuminated and
that's been created by that lens there and it's actually got a sticker on it and that sticker's
pointing at the wall is that correct yes so yeah if you get it the wrong way around obviously you
end up not washing the wall you end up washing the person looking at the wall um but that's
great if say you're in office handy hat possibly a white board right yeah or you're in a retail
environment you wanted to light the shelves evenly from top to bottom you know you obviously want the
produce to stand out regardless of where it is on the shelf obviously the expensive stuff at the top
as we always know yeah that that is the lens you'd use for that and that's a that's a really useful
addition but the fact that it doesn't change from possibly the light you're using for the main
source of the room right just keeps everything nice and yeah fresh and yeah uniform yeah
everything looks the same yeah but it's all giving the slightly different light and i really did like
that because even that wall colouring as you look down as you pan down on the video footage you saw
it was like well that light is just the same all the way down yeah so that that's a bit special
and then obviously we've got these local options here we've got this very log layer option here
which is in this is the recessed version that you can actually mount into a ceiling structure what
this one here yeah this one here something right okay let's have another yeah closer look at i've
got some how you would mount that hefty looking clips on it yeah yeah so again you screw this
mounting bracket into the back of the profile right there's the side profile so you could see
where it would be cut into the ceiling you've got that that bezel layer to hide obviously a
cut point yep and then you just screw these screw mount brackets on i'm not going to let them go
no it could be a painful moment so we've all been there yeah yeah and that's again
another option so again you're keeping that same look and feel across a whole project
yeah that's yeah again clever clever stuff and then okay the last of the clever front facing
optics is this as i said this low very low glare one here right flip that one on so you'll see I'm
getting now a lot of light on the desk yes but you're looking at this from the side the viewer
sees it from the camera you don't actually see where the light is coming from so as i'm looking
on my eye height there actually i don't see any light really i'm just seeing the side of this and
then when i look down yeah that that's that's yeah i'll let you tilt that sort towards the
camera and then eventually start seeing the light source themselves and actually it is very bright
but in a lot of applications you want you want you want to see the light on the surface not where the
light's coming from and that helps in areas where there's possibly a lot of computer screens and
things like that yeah so that's uh possible switch it off now let's have a look at the lens design
on that because it is it is something a little bit different right okay so if we go in there
so again you can see that led light source quite a long way back in the fixture it is and
then there's the there's a reflector element and then this the the little glare part of the front
yeah that i mean that that does exactly what it says it's going to do it literally you had the
desk and obviously didn't like anywhere else yeah so then the final the final bit let's flip back to
the back right okay yeah i did notice that earlier on we've got light coming out from both sides on
this one so let's turn that one on okay yeah so so this is something and if you ever ever want a rule
of lighting as a good friend Ray Molony says check out his webinar on lighting design uh you
want to light the walls and the ceiling this light element here is to light the ceiling right okay
so you're down light so that would be suspended hanging down the light would be bouncing up and
obviously we've also got light coming down yeah so you've got a different very wide light going up at
the ceiling yeah so like that and then our narrow diffused light or whatever we need or that wall
wash light hanging down so again more flexibility if you flip back to one of the projects
yeah i think it was this one here yeah and that's the kind of light source that was used in there
and it's a brilliant light source because you don't actually appreciate it i think that's
another rule almost and it you know good lighting you don't notice it you know it's bad lighting and
that's where i think this system really comes into its own if you want to mix things up you
can also add some spotlight into the extrusion profile as well perhaps you want to pick out a
specific piece of art on a wall or another feature in the room and the beauty of those spotlights is
of course you can rotate them into the position in which you want to angle the light gordon
now we could be here all day talking about obviously the number of combinations you can
have between those lighting options the up lighting options the mounting options but
then of course you layer in the options for emergency lighting yeah and controls
dimming to go with that and this is a really flexible system that yeah you could probably use
the one system to light an entire building in loads of different ways
this is Estrella linear lighting system for Ricoman are you using a linear lighting system
please comment below we'd love to hear your comments what's your go-to light in
a commercial environment please leave those below and we'll try and get back to as many as we can