In February we had the opportunity to visit ERCO in New Jersey. Their showroom has many of their fixtures set up so you can see how they perform in person, with the capability to set up custom mock-ups on request. One of the helpful things we learned from our visit is to use the code .099 at the end of any specification to call attention when we want to modify the fixture from the standard offering. The first fixture we looked at was a tall skinny task light. It throws light horizontally and has an integral dimmer. We liked the fixture and think it would be even better as an exterior bollard because of the slim profile. As of now, Erco does not have any plans to make it rated for exteriors.
We looked at all of the track lights that ERCO has to offer. It was great to see them in action since we typically think of Erco for only exterior applications. Their track heads and flood lights use a collimator to create their varied optics. The fixtures are standard with 3k and 4k but can be provided with a lens that has a gel coating from Rosco to warm it up.
The Pollux is a small profile track head that is available in either 2 watts or 6 watts. The 2-watt version is a single diode and can have a 6° beam spread. The smallest beamspread the 6-watt version can accommodate is 14°.The Pollux is also available with a framing projector configuration. The 2W was impressive in the 6°, throwing a lot of bunch. The two wattages could work in a residence that does not have particularly high ceilings.
Similar 2W Parscan fixture shown below.
There is a potentiometer on most fixtures that allow you to dim them locally, and the driver itself is ELV to 1%. ERCO has worked to develop their own drivers so they can control how their fixtures perform.
The Pan Track is a wall wash track head that is available with either a dedicated wall wash design or a flood light with wall wash optics. The advantage of using the dedicated wall wash is that you are able to get a 2:1 spacing with an even illumination. The wall wash optic version, however, gets more light at the top of the wall since it is adjustable.
There is also a monopoint track adapter that ERCO offers and is compatible with most of their track heads.
The Lightgap is a new linear fixture designed for grazing in cove applications. The design of the fixture has a lens on the bottom and the side to allow for more light to be distributed out and making sure that the light can hit higher on the wall. The fixture comes in three sizes and can be mounted end-to-end for a continuous appearance. The downside to the Lightgap is that it requires one driver per module and they need to be remotely located.
We also got to see their exterior fixtures in action. It was nice to see them in the showroom because the space is large enough to have more than one fixture. That way we were able to visualize what the effect would be with different spacing. We also got to see the different bollards next to each other to get an idea of what the different light distributions look like. The Castor was able to project light with a wide distribution. The Kubis Midi has two distributions; a wide and a deep. The wide distribution did not project out very far compared to the Castor. The Castor can also go as low as 12".
The Kona XS is a new version of the regular Kona but in a smaller package. It uses the same LEDs as the small Pollux track head with the 2-watt and 6-watt versions. It produced a nice clean beam especially with the 6° from the 2-watt version.
Because ERCO is trying to get more projects in the US to use their track heads, they are working with SDA to come up with a special price for the Pollux for small quantities in small residential applications. They want to keep themselves in the game so they are focused more on exposure than for a profit at that point.