Hey, how about an LED flat panel for your ceiling?

By | August 18, 2011, 10:25am PDT

Summary: MaxLite is pitching its latest technology as a retrofit option for fluorescent lights housed in drop ceilings.

Imagine sticking a few dozen notebook computer displays up into the ceiling to replace the fluorescent tube bulbs that are already there, and you get an idea of how MaxLite’s Direct-Lit LED Flat Panels might look.

The panels (pictured) are designed to work within a typical drop ceiling, where they can be retrofitted to work with existing building controls, motion sensors, timers and daylight harvesting systems. MaxLite offers a five-year warranty on the technology, which is rated to last up to five hours. The lights are supposed to operate with a color rendering index of 85, and they come in warm white and cool white models (color temperature of 3500K or 5000K). They are approximately 35 percent more energy-efficient than the company’s existing edge-lit LED panel technology.

The Direct-Lit LED Flat Panels are available in three different sizes:

  • 1 foot by 4 feet (45 watts)
  • 2 feet by 2 feet (45 watts or 60 watts)
  • 2 feet by 4 feet (60 watts)

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Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green technology and corporate sustainability issues.

Disclosure

Heather Clancy

Writing publicly about what the high-tech industry is actually doing to help itself and the world get greener or more sustainable is one way I figure I can contribute more meaningfully to said effort. I am also a big OMG-kind-of-fan of smart leadership, which is why the goodly folks who publish this blog let me go on about this topic and why I am always on the hunt for forward-looking business management ideas.

My daily writing is focused on looking for topics for my blogs, GreenTech Pastures and Business Brains. I also write often about emerging technology trends such as mobile computing, unified communications and cloud computing. Occasionally, I will pop up at an industry conference in some sort of speaking capacity. In cases where a speaking engagement involves a sponsor that may be covered in this blog, that fact will be disclosed in coverage as appropriate.

My corporate writing work usually consists of crafting research white papers about some aspect of technology. In the event that my commentary (in written, audio or video form) mentions a company for which I have provided consulting advice, I will disclose that fact. However, there is no connection between these projects and the topics that I am covering in my blog.

Biography

Heather Clancy

Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green technology and corporate sustainability issues. Her articles have appeared in Entrepreneur, Fortune Small Business, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. In a past corporate life, Heather was editor of Computer Reseller News, where she was a featured speaker about everything from software as a service to IT security to mobile computing.

Heather started her journalism life as a business writer with United Press International in New York. She holds a B.A. in English literature from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and has a thing for Lewis Carroll.

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RE: Hey, how about an LED flat panel for your ceiling?
hmt3 19th Aug
Can I hit the channel changer and turn on the game while lying in bed if I install this?
Hey, that's a pretty clever idea.
"MaxLite offers a five-year warranty on the technology, which is rated to last up to five hours."

I'm sorry, but can you explain this a little better, it seems they need replacing every five hours, or am I misunderstanding something ...

Thx
Ludo
0 Votes
+ -
How does it compare...
hedly 18th Aug
to CFL lights. I have three 2x4 CFL fixtures in my office. Each has two t-8 bulbs in them. They just replaced the t-12's.
breaks. Oh, wait. I forgot. According to the environmentalist bible, mercury is deadly in fish, but completely harmless in a lightbulb.
A dim bulb to be sure...
@baggins_z
0 Votes
+ -
@go
baggins_z 19th Aug
Mercury can be absorbed through the skin and produces vapors that can be inhaled; you don't need to eat it to be exposed to it. You may not know that, but I can guarantee you the environmentalists who want to control your life do.
0 Votes
+ -
Warranty life span
cabozone@... 18th Aug
instead of 5 hours try 50,000 hour lifespan FYI
Weren't they suppose to be doing this with OLED's by this?
2x4? Not very energy efficient with all the LEDs. The picture looked very nice with all the flat panel lights, however. Plus, the 2x2 is less energy efficient compared to 2x4.

Can they dim down to as low as 0% from 100%?
Can I hit the channel changer and turn on the game while lying in bed if I install this?

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