The Future of 5 and 6 Tier Layer House Lighting
The existing state of affairs
The lighting of 5 and 6 tier layer houses has always been a bit of a challenge. It is it very difficult to get uniform light along the tiers with a similar intensity across all 5 or 6 tiers. What typically happens with traditional staggered type installations is that you get hot spots around the bulbs. This leaves the areas adjacent the bulbs very bright and the areas in-between the bulbs dark with a visible zebra effect along the length of trough. Light intensity also varies significantly between the troughs. The variances in uniformity and intensity of light lead to poor uniformity and performance on the flock.
Besides for the negative impact on bird performance, the farmer is continuously changing dead or damaged bulbs. Lights on the lower levels get bumped and broken during maintenance if they are not raised on expensive pulley systems. Most farmers don’t bother with dimming as it is just too problematic. Nobody likes flickering LEDs, especially not a poultry farmer.
The future of tiered layer house lighting with SUNBIRD
SUNBIRD has specifically designed and developed a lighting system for layer houses. An application so specific that commercially available LED bulbs and Tubes just won’t cut it. The SUNBIRD system is designed to provide uniform light and intensity on all tiers. By using a small 3w LED light every 1.2m along with a 2 up, 1 down layout, we achieve an unrivalled level of uniformity across all tiers in the house. A single unbroken illumination cable runs from the front to the back with no joins along the way. For the lights on the lower lever, we simply loop in a dropper.
The lights are built extremely tough with a 3mm polycarbonate lens, an anodized aluminium casing, an IP69K ingress rating, and a 5-year no-nonsense guarantee. The system operates on low voltage 48V DC which is provided by industrial grade LED drivers sitting at the head of the house. The lights themselves therefore have no internal drivers and therefore no issues. The system dims far better than any other system with its range starting at 0.01V through to 10V over 1000 even and linear steps. Our rivals only start at 1V or 10% which is no good for replicating a Dusk to Dawn setting.
Case Study
Local partner, Plasson SA, were appointed by Jan Marais from Jusmar Eggs to build a new state of the art layer facility in Leeudoringstad, South Africa. The 81 x 12m layer house included 4 rows of 5 tiers. The SUNBIRD Electrical enclosure that houses the drivers and the dimmers was mounted in the control room.
Each illumination cable was fed from the enclosure through to the last light in each line. The installation team first installed the electrical enclosure and then a 3mm stainless steel tensioned support wire above and between each row. The illumination cable was attached to the support wire allowing form a 2m looped dropper after every second light. The droppers were neatly cable tied and illumination cable was also attached to the support wire using cable ties. The illumination cables were powered up and 3W SUNBIRD lights were crimped into place. The installation took a fraction of the time of a conventional installation, there are no concerns about waterproofing and there are no concerns about accidentally damaging or breaking a light.
Feedback from Jusmar Eggs
“We just want to say thank you very much to Stephan and his team at Plasson SA involved in this project. All the houses were professionally finished off and handed over in a spotless condition.
Regarding the lighting, I cannot believe how much light those small little lights give off. We are very impressed! We are so impressed that we now want to upgrade all our other houses to the Sunbird system as well.
In general, we are very happy with the quality of the end product and all the equipment supplied. We really appreciate everything”
Jan Marais, Jusmar Eggs, Leeudoringstad, South Africa
Installation Images
Get in touch with us for a free quote and design for layer house lighting.
Mail us at info@sunbirdLED.com
Established in 2007. 17 Years of experience in designing and manufacturing lighting systems for the global poultry market.