Field Hockey Pitch LED Lighting
To continue the hockey game at night, we need proper field hockey pitch lighting. The size of hockey field is around 91 x 55 meters, to light up such the large area, we usually adopt high power outdoor flood lights up to 1500 watt to 4000 watt. Apart from adequate brightness, the best lighting system of field hockey play areas should be anti-glare and flicker-free, so as to improve the vision of the players and audiences. Let’s take a look at how to light up the hockey stadium or club with LED, and what you can enjoy after LED replacement of metal halide, HPS, mercury vapor lamps.
* Note: In addition to the lux levels inside the hockey arena, we also consider if there is any significant light leakage that affects the surrounding areas.
Hockey Field Lighting Design
Unlike other commercial lighting, sports field lighting is more challenging because we need to tackle more issues. The first one is brightness.
1. Lux levels for Hockey Pitch Lighting
Generally, the brightness level increases with the standard of the competition. For the recreational or community hockey club competition, the lux level would be around 200 to 300 lux. For national tournament, it takes approx. 500 to 750 lux. If the hockey arena is designed for holding international tournament like Men’s & Women’s Champions Trophy, Commonwealth Games or World Cup, we need to have up to 1000 to 2000 lux horizontal illumination.
We need to consider both horizontal and vertical illumination. Horizontal lighting means the brightness on the ground while vertical lighting is for the face and body of the hockey players. Vertical lux level is an essential parameter when it comes to FHD or 4K TV broadcasting because it allows the camera to capture the movement of the athletes clearly.
The challenging task is to maintain the both horizontal and vertical lux levels in a comparable ratio says 1:1. Our lighting designer will deliver the best DIALux photometric lighting plan for different needs. We customize the lights in case-by-case basis because we understand every project has their unique pole arrangement and lighting requirement. Please feel free to drop us a message to acquire the free lighting opinion.
2. Uniformity
Due to the limitation of the pole and luminary arrangement, it is normal to have bright and dark spots in reality. However, it would not be bearable if it is significant enough to after the hockey players’ performance.
The lighting uniformity is measured in a scale from 0 to 1 (max). It is the ratio between the minimum lux and average, or minimum to maximum lux on the ground. The lighting uniformity requirement for the professional matches is about 0.7. We deliver quality lighting solution having 0.7 to 0.8 lighting uniformity.
3. Avoid Strobing
Observable strobing strains the players and audiences’ eyes. It also affects video recording. The flickering issue is especially significant if you are using fluorescent, metal halide or other gas discharge lighting fixtures. To provide better lighting for field hockey stadium, we develop flicker-free LED lights that support up to 5000 to 6000 Hz high speed camera that captures the fast-moving puck and hockey stick. Let’s take a look at our demonstration.
4. Reduce Light Pollution by Using Anti-glare Lens
Sometimes we will use up to 5000 to 20000 watt LED lights for a hockey field. Poor optics will lead to severe light pollution to the surrounding areas. It affects not only the living quality of the citizens nearby, but the surrounding wildlife. We adopt the patented lens cover which concentrates the lights to the designated area, which reduce >93% light leakage.
Advantages of Using LED Lights for Field Hockey Stadium
If you are hesitating whether or not to use LED lights, or replace the existing HID lighting with it. Let’s explore the merits of using LED lights.
1. Higher Durability
One of the greatest incentives is that we can enjoy a more long-lasting luminaries after replacing to LED. Comparing to halogen bulbs, LED has 10 times higher life span. We can save tones on money on buying the new lights, as well as the installation cost in each replacement. Our LED sports lights have 80,000 hours life span, or over 30 years using time.
Besides, LED is more durability because it has better IP rating. Our LED lights have IP66 function, and thus it is suitable for outdoor high mast lighting. It functions normally in stormy and other adverse weather conditions.
2. Higher Energy Efficiency
LED consumes less energy to provide the same lumen brightness. Do you know different types of lighting devices have their own luminous efficacy (energy efficiency)? Our LED lights have 130 to 140 lumens per watt, while halogen bulbs have only 10 to 15 lumens per watt, and metal halide 75 – 90 lumens per watt.
It is worthwhile to make this investment because it gives many long-term benefits, although is initial cost is slightly higher than the conventional lighting.
3. Higher Flexibility
Since we have our own R&D team and factory, we can customize the LED flood lights according to different needs. For instance, after acquiring the ground lux & uniformity requirement, pole height, number of pole and other essential information from our clients, we will deliver tailor-made lighting solution (having different structural design, power, beam angle, lens, driver, etc) that best fit to your scenario.
For more information, please feel free to drop us a message at email beatus@ledsmaster.com