Piazza Prophet’s Mosque, Madinah

In 2008, MCI Group has achieved an unprecedented lighting project, which is to design a luminary with LED Technology to illuminate the Piazza Prophet's Mosque in Madinah, Saudi Arabia.

The Piazza Phophet's Mosque is a world renowned place for pilgrims, where millions of Muslims go every year during Hej and Ramadan.

Briefing

The architect of this project requested us to retrofit luminaire of the existing 1.065 W metal halide lamp with LED technology with 540 High Power LEDs running at constant current of 500mA, without changing or modifying the outer look of the luminaire.

Two main reasons motivate the client to change to LED technology:

1. Chromatic Reproduction: The conventional metal halide lamps will change its Colour Rendering Index (CRI) gradually with time, and it will affect the aesthetics of the luminaire while LED technology maintains a steady CRI over time.

2. Maintenance: The metal-halide lamps have a product life of only 12000 hours compared to 50000 Hours of the LEDs. Using our program Saving Calculator we were able to demonstrate that the initial investment will won back with the maintenance saving in approximately only two years.

Development

Before starting the development of the lighting project, MCI Group need to study the project thoroughly in various disciplines in order to achieve complete success for the project.

Lighting studies

The light distribution of the existing luminaire with the reflector had to be duplicated. After studying the lighting property of the original luminaire, Lichtlabor BARTENBACH in collaboration with Grupo MCI R&D Department designed a die cast aluminium base with 108 LEDs, this special base would position the LEDs in a specific arrangement that take advantage of the original luminaire designs. The final product has 5 die cast aluminium based with in total 540 LED running at the constant current of 500 mA.

Thermal design

MCI Group R&D department had to do extensive thermal simulations since the product will be used in the Middle East, where temperature can rise up to 45 ºC in the day time. After our thermal studies, our product designs enable us to limit the maximum temperature that the LEDs will ever experience to only 60ºC.

Electrical design

MCI Group R&D department also control the electrical and electronic design of the product in order to optimize:

1. Light output during the product life.

2. Temperature monitoring of different zones inside the luminaire.

3. Security measures during lamp warm up.

Production

MCI Group made a prototype for the client to confirm in live mock-up, once this prototype is confirmed, then the production started.

MCI Quality Control and Assurance department implemented our strict and meticulous quality procedures during the production phase, from the incoming material checking, in progress quality control, and outgoing product quality control.