Everything You Need to Know about LED Retrofit Kits

Because LED lights use only a fraction of the energy consumed by traditional filament and fluorescent bulbs, LED retrofit kits are a smart way to cut total energy costs to your business or facility.

By using an LED retrofit kit, your business can replace a traditional light bulb (or lamp) with an LED equivalent, without replacing the existing lighting fixture or lighting installation.

If you don’t yet know the difference between and LED lamp, light, bulb, and fixture, not to worry. TCP is here to help you learn everything you need to know when choosing the right retrofit lighting solution.

Or, if you know you need a custom and comprehensive lighting solution for your lighting upgrade, consider Pro by TCP, an end-to-end lighting solution designed exclusively to serve businesses interested upgrading their lighting.

What is a LED Retrofit Kit?

Not all lighting fixtures are created equally.

In large lighting installations, like commercial lighting applications found in commercial offices, one lighting fixture type is often used repeatedly in a vast grid.

In offices, lighting fixtures are often made to fit in drop ceiling layouts. These fixtures, sometimes called  “troffers” because they look like an overturned troff with a light in the center, are the most common.

Like all traditional lighting, troffer fixtures have dimensions that allow for traditional bulbs to fit, heat to dissipate, drivers and wiring to sit, and anchor points for attaching or placing the fixture in a its desired location.

Because LED lighting is lighter, thinner, integrated, and puts out less heat than a traditional fixture—like our troffer—  it can require a kit to correctly refit the older fixture.

An LED retrofit kit is usually little more than an LED light with an integrated connection allowing the new lamp to easily sit in the old fixture.

New Lighting Technology Makes a Big Difference

New lighting technology has made lighting small, more lightweight, and more efficient than ever before. Using an LED lighting retrofit kit allows you to upgrade to the benefits of LED lighting without incurring the costs of replacing all your lighting fixtures. And, because the upgrade is typically as simple and changing a bulb, it cuts down on expert labor expenses.

But that’s not all. LED lighting offers superior CRI, or Color Rendering Index. This means choosing to upgrade for energy efficiency also gets you a visibility upgrade, too!

Types of LED Light Fixtures

LED lighting fixtures include both the lamp and the hardware casing in which the lamp goes. LED lighting fixtures are typically composed of the following three components:

• The bulb (sometimes called the lamp, or Luminarie)
• The casing (or “housing”)
• And the drive

Unlike traditional lighting fixtures, LED lighting fixtures are often “integrated”, meaning they are all one piece, with the light, the fixture, and the driver combined. This is possible because of the small size of light emitting diodes, lightweight design, and vastly reduced heat.

However, integrated also means you cannot change the lamp without changing the entire LED fixture. This isn’t a problem as LED lighting can last for decades!

When replacing a traditional light fixture with an LED retrofit kit, you may need to replace some or all of the components included in the fixture.

If you want an unconstrained selection of LED options, you may have to commit to replacing the fixture. While there many retrofit kit solutions available, not every existing fixture can be retrofit.

Styles of lighting fixtures include but are not limited to:

• Troffer lighting
• High Bay Lighting
• Low Bay lighting
• Sky bay lighting
• Linear lighting
• Canopy Lighting
• Wall Pack lighting
• LED UFO
• Panel Lighting
• And many more…