Volleyball Court Lighting Designs

FLAGSTAFF ATHLETIC CLUB
Volleyball Court Lighting Project
Flagstaff, Arizona
March 2009

PROJECT DETAILS
RLLD Design was contacted by an athletic club in Flagstaff, Arizona that was interested in upgrading their volleyball court lighting system. The club had many members, and boasted was a 4-court sand volleyball commercial facility which was used by local leagues for games and tournaments. Over the years, the lights had deteriorated, and the club management decided it was time to consider replacement options.

CHALLENGES CLIENT WAS FACING
The existing lighting system was woefully inadequate for a multi-directional, fast moving sport such as volleyball. The existing court lighting system consisted of nothing more than a set of wooden poles and quartz halogen lamps. While these courts definitely needed more foot candles in the play areas, there were two things we had to keep in mind while proposing them system. One was dark sky regulations. Arizona has some of the most restrictive lighting ordinances in the nation, so we had to carefully study the lighting code book from the City of Flagstaff to find the most appropriate equipment options.

The second challenge was client budget. Operating costs had risen over the years, while membership had remained static. The client asked us to propose two volleyball court lighting systems at different price points so they could determine which one would work best for them.

LIGHTING DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
The four court layout was also a considerable challenge for our design team. It offered very little room for interior pole placement due to safety concerns. All volleyball court lights would therefore have to be mounted on perimeter poles.

The interior court boundaries would suffer from lower levels than rest of court surface, but foot candles levels would still meet acceptable minimums.

PHOTOMETRIC ANALYSIS SOFTWARE HELPED TO DEVELOP A CUSTOM LIGHTING PLAN BASED ON IESNA STANDARDS.
It was necessary for us to maintain an average of 24 foot candles throughout the entirety of the playing areas. With the eight pole lighting system, we were able to achieve a max to min ratio of 2.3: 1. We were also able to show the client a rendered 3D view of all four volleyball courts to completely illustrate the lighting system and its capabilities.

FINAL SYSTEM PROPOSED
For fixtures, we decided to use our CXL Series court lights as they were full cut off, and specifically designed for all volleyball court sports lighting kit situations. We proposed two different layouts—an 8-pole layout, and a 4-pole layout. We strongly discouraged the client from going with the 4-pole system because the luminance levels were sub-par at best.

Although the cost was higher, the client eventually opted for the 8-pole layout. The simple design of equipment fit with the club aesthetics, wind load capacitance met with regulations, and the CXL series fixtures met with all dark sky ordinances. RLLD further assisted the athletic club by consulting with the local electrical contractor to properly place, orient, and install equipment.

OTHER SPORTS LIGHTING FIXTURE INFORMATION:

Baseball Field Lighting
RLL Design baseball lighting fixtures feature sophisticated optics and advanced reflectors that generate superior lumens per watt output in comparison to competing models.....

Soccer Field Lighting
Soccer field sports lighting fixture design depends a great deal on the height of the poles you choose, which is why RLL Design inventories a wide range of light poles and pole mounting accessories so you can position your athletic field lights at that appropriate levels.....

Tennis Court Lighting
Tennis court lighting kits are designed by RLLD sports lighting experts to produce optimal footcandle levels and excellent color rendering. A variety of optical systems and sophisticated reflectors keep the light centered in the court.....

RLLD Commercial Lighting carries a wide variety of industrial, sports lighting commercial grade light fixtures. If you can not find what you are looking for on our website contact us toll free at 1-866-654-3961 and we will find it for you.

Check out our glossary of lighting terms and commercial lighting blog for answers and tips to many lighting issues.Our home office is located in Houston, Texas with warehouses located throughout the United States that enable us to service all 50 states including Sault Ste Marie, MI (CIU), Cleveland, OH, (CLE), College Station, TX (CLL), Port Angeles, WA (CLM), Charlotte, NC (CLT), Columbus, OH (CMH), Champaign, IL (CMI), Hancock, MI (CMX), Cody, WY (COD) and Colorado Springs, CO (COS).

Gymnasium Lighting & Gym Lights

What are the best fixtures to use for gym lights?
Metal halide lights are almost always the best luminaires to use in gymnasium and athletic sport field lighting. They are frequently found in school gyms, clubs, and recreational basketball courts and provide a robust source of white light with a high CRI.

What is the best way to mount gymnasium light fixtures?
The ceiling height is around 25’, so the best mounting height HID lights is 22’ above the gym floor. To protect the basketball court lighting against accidental ball impacts, using die cast aluminum luminaires suspended on hooks or safety chains to allow the fixture to swing with the impact if hit during a game.

What wattage works best in most gyms?
Due to increasing improvements in HID technology 400 watt lighting fixtures have replaced 1000 watt luminaires in most gyms. Lower wattage fixtures allow you to incrementally increase foot candles by installing more lighting fixtures in closer proximity to one another. At the same time, they give you much better control of the light and are much more effective at shielding players and spectators from glare.

1000 watt luminaires almost always produce excessive glare and have to be specially phosphor coated to create more comfortable distribution of light. This coating is an additional cost that isn’t worth accruing for yourself or passing on to your client, and it generally results in disappointing results because it diminishes not only glare, but luminance levels in general by as much as 15%. Pulse start metal halide lighting fixtures, on the other hand, can produce anywhere between 20-80 foot candles of light in gymnasiums of any size.

Is there a standard style fixture to use in gymnasium lighting?
There is no set fixture that is a “one-size fits all” luminaire. Certain characteristics, however, are universal in the best gym lights. These features have to do with how the luminaire distributes light and keeps glare at a minimum. Look for gymnasium lights that feature parabolic faceted reflectors that disperse illumination downward and prevent spill light from blinding the eyes of players and fans.

HID fixtures of this type are almost always the best choice for lighting college gymnasiums that play host to camera crews. Cameras need a higher luminance than the human eye to accurately render color and motion, and parabolic shielding and faceted reflectors will allow you to create up to 80 foot candles of light without white spots or pockets of glare. The number of sports lighting fixtures used, the height of the ceiling, and the reflectivity of the ceiling and walls all play a factor in both distributing illumination and producing the negative by product of light pollution if luminaires are too intense.

What is the best way to light a multi-court gymnasium?
Multi-court gymnasiums may require special considerations and planning. The best way to determine what fixtures to use and what intervals to install them is to have a photometric analysis performed on your client’s gymnasium. A photometric report will quickly reveal problem areas of glare and shadow can be immediately pinpointed, and strategies implemented to counter act them.

What are the best ballasts to use in gym lighting?
In most lighting case studies, the best ballasts to use are standard auto regulator CWA. These ballasts provide good energy efficient, reliable power distribution for most HID fixtures used in gym lighting. Other ballast types may be needed, however, for certain types of court lighting or areas of the country with heavy moisture or dust content in the air. Remote ballasting is recommended if at all possible to protect equipment from accidental ball impact.

RLLD Commercial Lighting carries a wide variety of industrial & commercial lighting fixtures. If you can not find what you are looking for on our commercial lighting blog call us toll free at 1-866-654-3961 and we will find it for you.

Our home office is located in Houston, Texas with warehouses located throughout the United States that enable us to service all 50 states including like Ft. Lauderdale, FL (FLL), Orlando, Florida (MCO), Santa Monica, CA, (LAX) Columbus, Ohio (CMH) (LGA) New York, NY, (JKF), St. Louis, MO, Detroit, Michigan (DTW), Madison, WI (MSN), San Francisco, California (SFO), and Omaha, Nebraska (OMA)

Stadium Sports Field Lighting

Stadium athletic field lighting must be installed with several objectives simultaneously in mind. Players must be able to see the ball in play and view the field without shadows or glare impeding visibility. Spectators should be able to look down from the bleachers and see colors clearly and watch the movement of the ball smoothly and continuously. If too few stadium lights are installed, footcandles will be too low to evenly light the vertical cube within the stadium, and the ball will appear to jump from point to point in mid-air. As easy as it may sound to try to resolve this issue simply by installing a larger number of lights, stadiums systems must be planned a bit more carefully than this. Dark Sky laws strictly prohibit light spillage into surrounding neighborhoods now exist in almost every part of the country. Stadium lighting systems must target the light in such a way that it only illuminates desired areas within the stadium and does not generate wasted spill light that will annoy nearby residents and business owners.

The type of stadium lights installed depends greatly upon the skill level of the players and the number of spectators. The greater the number of spectators, the greater the distance they tend to be seated away from the field and the players. This means the lights must brighter and also more precisely aimed in order to minimize glare and light pollution. Many times a facility hosts different types of sports in the same facility, so this can further complicate the demands on the contractor installing a system for multiple events and different sized crowds. By working with RLLD Commercial Lighting experts, measurements of the facility, its annual usage reports, and the general sizes of crowds attending different events can all be factored efficiently into determining the necessary levels of lighting for a small or mid-sized stadium of any size.

With the exception of large professional baseball stadiums beyond the scope of this article, there are only two classifications out of the industry standard four with which we need to concern ourselves: Class 2 Stadium Lighting and Class 3 Stadium Lighting. Class 2 lighting involves illuminating a field containing up to 5,000 spectators. Class 3 addresses the dynamics of lighting stadiums for much smaller crowds, such as those seen at intramural college games and local amateur league games. Class 4 sports lighting really doesnʼt fall into the category of stadium lighting, because it involves recreational and practice fields with limited seating, if any.

With all this to factor into the equation, it is important for even trained professionals to avail themselves of the complimentary consulting and design services offered by RLLD Commercial Lighting. Particularly in respect to environmental concerns, the many codes and regulations that govern light pollution in a given city, town, or county may significantly impact a contractorʼs selection of stadium light fixtures and poles. Saving a step on laborious data mining and cross-referencing local legal requirements to technical features saves time and money in equipment selection, proposal preparation, and installation.

By utilizing our online and phone-based resources, you can very quickly and accurately determine the number of poles you need, the optics required for the correct dispersion of light, luminance levels, and the physical number and mounting heights of the fixtures themselves. Metal halide lamps are the industry standard for stadium lighting systems because they produce a very bright white light that renders color at a near equivalence to natural light. RLLD Commercial Lighting poles can be wooden, steel, or concrete and are available in a variety of heights and degrees of decorative aesthetics. Although stainless steel poles are the most common at this point, many facilities are beginning to replace them with centrifugally spun concrete poles.
Again, it is best to confer with an RLLD Commercial lighting expert when selecting stadium lighting poles. Our team has detailed wind load charts on every region of the country and can inform DIY electrical installers and lighting specialists of all EPA regulatory codes pertaining to a particular poles wind resistance capacity.

RLLD Commercial Lighting carries a wide variety of industrial, commercial and athletic sports field lighting fixtures. Here is a partial lighting of some of those lighting fixture packages:

• Tennis Court Lighting
• Skateboard Park Lighting
• Football Field Lighting
• Polo Field Lighting

If you can not find a lighting case study you are looking for call us toll free at 1-866-654-3961 and we will find it for you. Our home office is located in Houston, Texas with warehouses located throughout the United States that enable us to service all 50 states including San Juan, PR (SJU), Isla De Vieques, PR (VQS), Fajardo, PR (X95), Erie, PA (ERI), Killeen, TX (ILE), Sheridan, WY (SHR), Casper, WY (CPR), Parkersburg, WV (PKB), and Escanaba, MI (ESC). We also service clients internationally, with lighting manufacturer representatives working out of Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America. ALBQ, NYC, LA, MPLS.