Luxurious lighting styles are in the eye of the beholder. It can be an over-the-top glamorous chandelier with ornate details to a simple and clean glass globe lighting pendant with a singular, classic antique bulb. Whatever luxury lighting means to you, it can be attained without breaking the bank if you carefully shop and compare.

Traditional Luxury

The foyer might be a best place to start your luxury lighting quest, as it’s where you greet your guests. Consider large-in-scale pendants, which make a statement in what could otherwise be a plain space.

The Socorro lighting collection by Sea Gull Lighting is influenced by a classic, barbed Quatrefoil shape. Its rustic look is created by both Cerused Oak and Stardust finishes. Pictured here is the six-light foyer pendant.

Modern Luxury

As many homeowners use their kitchen as a central gathering place, here, too, presents an opportunity to showcase your idea of luxury lighting. Imagine family and friends clustered around a kitchen island, where a carefully placed pendant—or two or three—could become a conversation piece. Here, these stunning, modern Lexi three-light pendants from Feiss draw the eye upward to its textured crystals floating within a laser cut frame. A White Shantung silk shade sits within the crystal drum while a glass diffuser softens the light.

Contemporary Luxury

You might think an opulent chandelier or a cluster of colorful pendants are expensive, but there are many affordable versions that will still add a “wow” factor.  If your dining room is used for special occasions, you might consider something bold. The Carondelet four-light chandelier from Sea Gull Lighting features a cascade of faceted, linear glass crystals delivering the ultimate sparkle. Hanging them in a pair is an affordable way to make a luxurious and indelible impact.

Glamorous Luxury

With the eggplant color paint, plush silver rug and other modern furnishings, this living room is the perfect backdrop for the Marquise Collection by Feiss. Designed to follow the cut of a marquise diamond, the lighting collection has a delicate, exposed metal frame adorned with a silver leaf application—then it’s finished with a string of hand-applied beading to capture the light. Shown here are the Marquise three-light pendant and one-light wall sconce.

Hollywood Regency Luxury

The Hollywood Regency style is very popular, as it harkens back to era when heroes such as Greta Garbo and Douglas Fairbanks graced the Silver Screen, and the nation’s total wealth more than doubled. Note how the Burdeen sconces by Feiss flanking the window and soaking tub enhance this spa-like look with their glass etched backplates and three candelabra lights. There’s also a one-light Burdeen sconce that’s even more affordable.

Mountain Luxe

Mountain Luxe design could be easily defined as mountain lodge meets high rise penthouse—creating a perfect place to nestle by the fireplace while sipping a hot toddy. The unusual coupling of dark and light fashioned into a lovely round silhouette in this six-light Colorado Springs semi-flush ceiling fixture by Feiss embodies Mountain Luxe with its clear glass crystals floating in metal rings, which are then threaded onto a chain and strung into its drum shade.

PRO TIP: Be it traditional to transitional or contemporary to modern, to achieve the luxury look you want in your home seek out affordably-priced, high quality looks that emulate more expensive designs. Think “Get the Look” feature stories that run in magazines such as Glamour where high priced clothing is compared to low priced clothing with the same aesthetic. It works!

Now, why is the blue LED so important? Quite simply because there are no white LEDs. The white light that our eyes detect is created by using a blue LED and some yellow phosphor. The yellow phosphor coating may be placed directly on the blue LED or on the glass envelope that houses the blue LED. Either way when the blue light from the blue LED passes through the yellow phosphor the resulting light appears to be white.

In late 2014 at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, the three Japanese scientists who developed the blue LED while working at Nichia Chemicals will share the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on the blue LED. In official terms the Nobel Committee awarded this year’s physics prize to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.”

Furthermore, the Nobel Committee pointed out in its announcement that the results of all the scientists’ hard work will be on display everywhere as the three recipients make their way through Stockholm: “the light from their invention will be glowing in virtually all the windows of the city.” And they can be assured that, as this century progresses, the ascendancy of the LED will only become more dramatic.

The term “arc flash” is used to describe low impedance connections in an electrical system, which allows movement of unwanted electric discharge through the air from one voltage phase to another, or to ground. This leads to a rapid rise in temperature and pressure in the air between electrical conductors, causing an explosion known as an arc blast.

Arc blasts and the resulting heat can lead to fires, pressure waves and flying shrapnel that result in serious damage to life and property. These explosions typically occur without any warning, destroy electrical equipment completely and lead to severe injury or death of personnel present within the boundary of the arc flash.

What Are the Main Causes of Arc Flash?

Arc flash occurs when several electrical conductors are placed close to each other, with significant fault currents flowing through them. In this situation, ionization of the air can take place as a result of various factors – such as differences in potential – which leads to a low resistance path and allows current to flow through the air gap between conductors.

Many people assume that low voltage equipment is safe from arc flash, but arc flash hazard levels may be higher at low voltages, due to the high fault currents. Most incidents that occur in low voltage systems are caused by human error, e.g. a tool slipping while a technician works on electrical equipment.

Arc flash can also be caused due to: