Frequently Asked Questions

Dimming

Check Recommended Dimmer List for compatibility.

Turn off adjacent loads to see if flickering stops. If it continues, noise is likely coming from outside the home or building. Replace dimmer with one that provides better noise attenuation. Cree LED Lighting recommends the Lutron Skylark SF-10P (single-pole) or SF-103P (3-way).

Replace dimmer.

Disconnect light fixtures one at a time to determine which one is causing the rest to flicker. Replace the faulty one.

Incompatible dimmer: Check Recommended Dimmer List for compatibility

Improper wiring/connection of dimmer: Check wiring instructions with dimmer to insure dimmer is connected properly

Open circuit between dimmer and fixture: With dimmer fully turned up, check the voltage level at the fixture socket. It should be ~110vac.

Faulty dimmer: Replace dimmer

Faulty light fixture: Replace light fixture

Incompatible dimmer: Check Recommended Dimmer List for compatibility

Improper wiring/connection of dimmer: Check wiring instructions with dimmer to insure dimmer is connected properly

Too many or too few fixtures on dimming circuit: Refer to Recommended Dimmer List for minimum and maximum number of fixtures recommended per dimmer.

Faulty dimmer: Replace dimmer

Faulty light fixture: Replace light fixture

Incompatible dimmer: Check Recommended Dimmer List for compatibility

Improper wiring/connection of dimmer: Check wiring instructions with dimmer to ensure dimmer is connected properly

Too many or too few fixtures on dimming circuit: Refer to Recommended Dimmer List for minimum and maximum number of fixtures recommended per dimmer.

Dimmer “Low End Trim” is set too high: Determine if dimmer has a “Low End Trim” adjustment, and adjust it all the way down

Faulty dimmer: Replace dimmer

Faulty light fixture: Replace light fixture

Incandescent dimmers are designed for “resistive” loads, and typically rated for at least 600 watts. They have a requirement called “minimum holding current”, which is the minimum amount of electrical current flowing through them to keep the dimmer firing properly.

Cree LED Lighting downlight and lamp products have electronic drivers that are “reactive” (capacitive and/or inductive) and draw very little power (10-11 watts). These two factors result in electrical current that is just barely above the minimum holding current for most dimmers, and below it for others. There are other factors specific to the installation site, such as neutral-to-ground integrity, power line noise coming from the utility or other loads, and source impedance. With the minimum holding current requirement barely being met, these other factors can cause the current to dip below that threshold, resulting in occasional dimmer mis-firing which can result in a faint flickering coming from the lights.

Cree LED Lighting tests its products with a variety of dimmers, and makes recommendations regarding compatibility based on those results, but cannot guarantee performance.

The LR4™ and LR6™ product families are designed to dim down to ~25% of full brightness, then turn off when dimmed below that. Due to the nature of LED light, this can appear more like 40%-45% when looking directly at the fixture. Examining the room being illuminated will give a more accurate perception of actual brightness.

The CR6™ and LR24™ products are designed to dim down to 5% of full brightness. Due to the repetitive peak currents generated by the inrush current of LED lighing fixtures, Cree products should be treated as a 75 watt load when sizing dimmers.

Electrical

General

Low-maintenance with a long life, high-bay LED lighting saves you money and energy. Our high-powered high-bay lights come in a variety of sizes, coverages and strength. Choose custom lighting solutions for all types of applications such as retail businesses, conference halls, convention centers and more.

These lights produce the highest quality light on the market for performance and efficiency. Check out our article about upgrading to LED high-bay lighting to learn more.

Aside from lighting a space, ambient lighting also adds warmth and depth to spaces. This makes an area more inviting and comfortable, preventing a distracting glare or too-bright lights that can cause eye irritation or headaches. Enough lighting also ensures it’s easy to navigate through a room and find everything you need.

An LED surface mount light can be a great overhead light for classrooms, product shelves or warehouse. They provide plenty of light without feeling as though they clutter a space. LED surface light products and suspended products are versatile and thin, allowing them to fit almost any scenario.

Sometimes ambient lighting is called mood lighting, because it involves color, temperature and brightness to create the light levels in the room and set a comfortable tone. Ambient lighting is mainly provided by ceiling light fixtures, wall-mounted lights or recessed spotlights.

Indirect lighting is a fantastic way to add focus, texture, layering and accent color to a space. Place a surface mount LED fixture in a place in need of light like the ceiling, above or below cabinets, behind a mirror or in hallways to provide evenly-distributed lighting in a room. Suspended LED fixtures can also provide ample lighting when added to the center of a room.

LEDs began to be used in the lighting industry in the late 1990’s typically in aesthetic, effect, or specialty lighting applications, including architectural highlighting. The use of LED luminaires in applications such as street lighting, area lighting, parking structures, security lighting, and even general lighting for interior spaces is viable today both economically and from an illumination performance standpoint.

The Illumination Engineering Society (IES) classifies varying light distribution patterns into different categories or “types” (i.e., Type II, Type III, etc.), but within these classifications are a fair amount of variation. For example, two manufacturers may both have products that are classified as a “Type III” distribution, but from a light distribution standpoint both products could vary greatly. Therefore, assuming any two products with the same IES classification will provide identical or even a similar light distribution pattern is a mistake. Only by looking at each product separately at the application level can such comparisons be made.

As an ENERGY STAR^® partner, Cree LED Lighting supports the ENERGY STAR program and its efforts to inform consumers and to protect our environment for future generations. Products that earn the ENERGY STAR for Solid-State Lighting meet energy efficiency and performance guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Energy. These guidelines help to protect consumers’ interests by ensuring that qualifying products meet certain efficacy, lifetime, color rendering and color quality specifications. Cree LED Lighting is proud to offer a variety of ENERGY STAR qualified products, which meet and exceed these guidelines.

Performance Values for LED Downlights	ENERGY STAR^® partner Minimums	Cree LED Lighting
Efficacy	35 LPW	46 to 80 LPW
Color Rendering Index	75	90
Rated Lifetime	25,000 hours	50,000 hours
Minimum Lumen Output ≤4.5″ diameter	375 lumens	515 or 540 lumens
Minimum Lumen Output >4.5″ diameter	575 lumens	650 or 1000 lumens

When you average delivered lumens over the course of 60,000 hours, you’ll see that LED outperforms a 400-watt MH lamp operated in a horizontal position. (60,000 hours is used for this comparison to show three full life cycles of the HID.)

The MH’s lumen depreciation, as well as optical and ballast losses, quickly reduce output of the HID system. Note that there are three relamps over 60,000 hours.

Conversely, LED has significantly better lumen maintenance and a more efficient driver. Also note that the LED fixture typically doesn’t need relamping from zero to 60,000 hours.

Combine this with Beta’s exclusive NanoOptic^® and LED outperforms MH over the course of the life of the fixture.

Result: the LED’s average delivered lumens is 74% higher than HID over 60,000 hours.

Compared to conventional technologies, Cree LED Lighting products can deliver the same amount of light using as little as 10 to 15% of the power. This huge reduction in energy consumption can enable consumers to save hundreds of dollars over the life of each light.

The Value of Cree LED Lighting

A Cree LED Lighting product, like the LR6^TM downlight, can replace a 65 watt light while using only 10.5 watts. In its 50,000 hour lifetime it will consume about 525 kilowatt-hours, costing about $63. During that time, it will never need to be replaced.

The Cost of Incandescent Lamps

A typical 65 watt light lasts for 2,000 hours. To match the light output and longevity of a Cree LED Lighting downlight, traditional lighting would consume 3,250 kilowatt-hours, and need to be replaced about 25 times, costing over $465.

It’s a simple story…saving over $400 in electric and relamping costs, for every downlight you replace.

LEDs bring several advantages to the lighting industry, including high efficacy and durability, and, with superior life over other lamp sources, their required maintenance is greatly reduced. This translates into energy savings, maintenance savings, and environmental sustainability. There is also the potential for greater optical control (more controllable source), dimming, instant on/off, and reduced rate of lumen depreciation (potential for long application life).

Choosing the ideal LED lamp can be a process but we’re here to help. There are many factors to consider, such as the lumen output and the size of the space you’re intending to light. There are three key layers of light to consider while building a space’s lighting: task, accent and ambient.

The color temperature of a light matters as well; warmer or more amber-tinted light bulbs provide an inviting, cozy atmosphere while cooler or white-tinted light bulbs add a clean, crisp look to any space.

For those hoping to light homes, consider reading our blog post ‘Which LED Light Bulb is Right for Your Home?’ for our best recommendations and insights.

Housing

Indoor

Setting up your ideal smart house lighting only takes a few simple steps. First, start with light bulbs. Our Connected Max Smart Home bulbs pair with our Cree Lighting app to control with a touch of your fingers. Simply replace your traditional bulbs with our equivalent bulbs. Switching out a light bulb is one of the simplest ways to begin your smart home lighting transformation. You can also choose a smart assistant to pair with your home lighting. Our smart connected lighting works with Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri Shortcuts, etc.

Smart lights are simply Wi-Fi enabled devices that connect to the internet wirelessly. They allow you to connect to a smart home hub or smartphone cordlessly. All you need to use Cree Lighting’s signature smart home lighting is to download the Cree Lighting app on your smartphone.

To choose which smart light bulbs to use, consider reading our blog post ‘Which LED Light Bulb is Right for Your Home?’ for our best recommendations and insights.

Understanding your indoor space and how occupants are interacting with it can help address concerns regarding color temperature. Enhancing light quality with high-performance, high-CRI LED technology can result in better patient care, productive working environments, and improvement in a retailer’s ability to sell product. To learn more, check out our blog post on How Color is Revolutionizing the Lighting Experience.

LED downlights are energy-efficient alternatives to traditional downlights. Our retrofit downlight LED options are perfect for any space and provide cost-effective, bright light.

Retrofit downlights provide low heat output and high energy savings, providing quality light with a long lifespan. Explore our Application Gallery to see how our LED lighting solutions can brighten your spaces.

TAA Compliant Products

TAA refers to the Trade Agreements Act (19 U.S.C. & 2501-2581), which is intended to foster fair and open international trade. TAA requires that the U.S. Government may acquire only “US-made or designated country end products.”

This act requires that contractors must certify that each end product meets the applicable requirements. End products are “those articles, materials and supplies to be acquired for public use.” This includes items which have been “substantially transformed” in the U.S.

Cree’s TAA compliant products are manufactured and/or assembled in the U.S. and are approved to be acquired by the U.S. Government for use. These products are also compliant with GSA Schedules.

The following products are only TAA compliant when the designation -US is included in the ordering number, which specifies that the product is “U.S. Manufactured.”

LR6^TM Family: LR6 LR6-DR650 LR6-DR1000 LR6-277V LR6-DR1000-277V

LE6

Architectural Troffers – CR Series: CR24 CR22 CR14

2′ x 2′ Architectural Lay-ins – LR24^TM Family: LR24-32SKA35 LR24-38SKA35

Mechanical

Most Frequently Asked Questions

TAA Compliant Products

Cree’s TAA compliant products are manufactured and/or assembled in the U.S. and are approved to be acquired by the U.S. Government for use. These products are also compliant with GSA Schedules.

The following products are only TAA compliant when the designation -US is included in the ordering number, which specifies that the product is “U.S. Manufactured.”

LR6^TM Family: LR6 LR6-DR650 LR6-DR1000 LR6-277V LR6-DR1000-277V

LE6

Architectural Troffers – CR Series: CR24 CR22 CR14

2′ x 2′ Architectural Lay-ins – LR24^TM Family: LR24-32SKA35 LR24-38SKA35

LEDs are environmentally friendly on many fronts. First, unlike HID (High Intensity Discharge) lamps LEDs contain NO mercury. In addition, some LED luminaires are RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliant and have been designed to provide more than a decade of near maintenance-free service. That means no re-lamping which means no waste.

Assuming an HID fixture is re-lamped every two years, that’s five re-lamping cycles over a 10 year period.

Just imagine the benefits of choosing LED:

No concern over proper disposal (hopefully not simply thrown in a landfill) of old HID lamps containing harmful mercury.
No fuel used and the accompanying pollution to service those fixtures.
Greatly reduced potential for lane closures and other productivity and inconvenience-related costs associated with maintaining an HID system.
No natural resources lost to produce the replacement lamps that contain mercury.
No fuel used to move old-technology lamps from the factory (most likely overseas), to the distributor, to the contractor, to the job site.

It’s important to keep in mind all the positive and powerful ripple effects that using LED technology can have on the environment.

Useful life has been defined as the number of hours an LED device can operate until it emits only a certain percentage of its original lumen output. For general illumination applications, vision research suggests that 70 percent of original lumen output is the level where end users begin to notice a drop in light levels. This metric is indicated as L70. The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) published LM-80-08, IES Approved Method for Measuring Lumen Maintenance of LED Light Sources. Cree tested our LED lamps for long-term lumen maintenance consistent with LM-80 methods to demonstrate L70 life after more than 6,000 hours of testing and got the number 50,000 hours under normal operating conditions. Also the performance of all of our products is verified by accredited independent 3rd party laboratories. Please note, any initial condition or parameter change will affect the useful life of LEDs in different ways.

The Value of Cree LED Lighting

The Cost of Incandescent Lamps

It’s a simple story…saving over $400 in electric and relamping costs, for every downlight you replace.

Outdoor

This type of lighting fixture is used to illuminate pathways and landscapes for pedestrian use and safety. Bollards make great pathway and walkway lighting options.

You can place bollard lights outdoors thanks to their weatherproof build designed to hold up against moisture. Our LED bollard lights are designed to provide better light for less energy in order to maximize your cost savings.

With intelligent controls onboard, Cree Lighting outdoor luminaires can provide a solution for virtually any outdoor sales venue, campus environment or parking structure. Employed with mesh networks, each luminaire is wirelessly linked to as many of its neighbors as possible to create multiple paths for relaying communications to and from the controller. Learn more about How to Get Outdoor Lighting Under Control.

Yes, wildlife may experience disruption from “artificial light at night” (ALAN). ALAN introduces light with a different spectral distribution than that of sunlight, moonlight or starlight, with varying impacts on behavior or physiology. When looking for a lighting solution, the most important thing you can do is educate yourself about your options for wildlife and Turtle-Friendly Amber Lighting.

There are two parts to creating the optimal lighting for a roadway project: planning the locations of the lights, and choosing the type of street light fixture to install.

For planning, Cree Lighting is happy to provide insights to create your lighting solution. Check out our guide to street light design variables to help guide you through the process of planning your fixture placements.

In order to choose the type of street light fixtures you need, see our blog “An Easy Guide to Choosing Street Lights” to get an overview of the types of lighting available.

Commercial LED street lights provide an energy-efficient alternative to traditional roadway fixtures due to their low heat output and high energy savings. Durable and intended for the elements, these street light fixtures will save maintenance costs and work in all weather. Cree Lighting roadway lighting provides comfortable, reliable and long-lasting illumination for your streets.

See a case study of how we can save your project money with LED efficiency.

Super-bright white LEDs have the advantage of minimal lumen depreciation, better optical efficiency and high lumens per watt. LEDs also have a vastly longer life span than traditional lamp sources. The luminaire must be designed to leverage these inherent advantages of LEDs. A total systems approach is needed for an LED product to bring all these features together.

Cree luminaires also have an environmental advantage in that they contain no mercury, are RoHS compliant, last longer and produce less waste. In fact, 20 to 25% (by weight) of the product is made using post-consumer recycled materials (aluminum castings and extrusions). Furthermore, 70% (by weight) of Cree fixtures are readily recyclable. The remaining LED circuit boards, drivers, wires and connectors are all non-hazardous, mercury-free, and RoHS compliant.