This is a friendly reminder to read the full description, please. You might learn something!
First of all, a huge thanks goes out to traffic light1 on Flickr for donating these units! If you have an interest in 3M M-131 traffic lights or emergency lighting, his page is one you should check out. You can find him at https://www.flickr.com/photos/68261819@N08/.
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In the past, I have been a vocal critic of this particular revision of the Quantum series of products from Lithonia Lighting. For one, I’m not too hot on the whole “overly-rounded corners” fad found on their Quantum series thermoplastic exits. I’m also not a fan of companies buying up generic products in mass quantities and changing nothing while marking up the price 400% just because a name brand is on the box. Lithonia is also guilty of that.
These ELM2 units were also part of that criticism. Lithonia introduced these units in late 2004 as a redesign to the Quantum series first appearing in 1997. (The Quantum series before that lasted from 1989-1997. Prior to 1989, it was branded as the “Spectrum” series.) I have often said that Lithonia’s best revision of the Quantum series was the one prior to this one, but I must admit that I’m pleasantly-surprised at what I discovered. You’ll get to see that in the video.
While most of Lithonia’s products are made in China today, the units you’ll see in the video were made in Mexico. They are very well-built, and the plastic doesn’t seem cheap at all. The head adjustment method is a little confusing until you get the hang of it, but they rotate almost 360 degrees should you want to mount the unit on a ceiling. You might also have difficulty snapping the backplate into the board via the power plug if you’re not on level ground. This part of the installation process proved difficult to me. Other than those issues, I had minimal problems throughout the course of the installation process.
Perhaps the most surprising thing of all about this unit is it doesn’t have a dedicated input transformer. All of the voltage regulation is built right into the charger board. It beats me what they could be using to accomplish that, but it’s one of those things that “just happens”.
This particular light is described by Lithonia as an “emergency light with adjustable optics” and, as far as I know, can be purchased at Home Depot stores nationwide for somewhere in the neighborhood of $40.
Would I recommend this unit? If you need an economical emergency lighting unit and you’re debating with yourself on a $20 cheap Chinese unit, a Sure-Lites CC2, and one of these, I highly recommend this unit. It blows the pants off the Chinese unit and eats the Sure-Lites CC2 for lunch.
However, if you’re willing to spend the extra money, the Dual-Lite LZ2 or EV2 will work better for you. I’ve yet to have my hands on an EV2, but the MR16 LED’s in the EVC exit/emergency combo–the same LED’s used on the EV2–vastly outperform even the 24-watt Lithonia 6ELM2P.
Post time: Mar-12-2017