Cross reference
Lithonia D-Series Size 0 and Size 1 (DSX0 LED / DSX1 LED)
The D-Series is the default parking-lot area luminaire on South Florida drawings, and the schedule usually names it without an alternate. This page answers what follows: what would I offer instead? Four lines I represent, one I do not, with the published numbers behind each.
- Size 0: 2,700 to 22,000 lm
- Size 1: 2,000 to 37,000 lm
- 15 optics in the family
- EPA 0.95 sq ft, 16 lb (Size 0)
- nLight AIR G2
- DLC Standard
- 5-year warranty
The target
What the schedule is asking for
Size 0 and Size 1 are not interchangeable, and Acuity publishes two catalog entries for each. The live ones are below; the legacy entries are marked discontinued on Acuity's own site and publish narrower ranges and fewer CCTs, so on an older specification the drawing may not match what is orderable.
| Published figure | D-Series Size 0 (DSX0 LED) | D-Series Size 1 (DSX1 LED) |
|---|---|---|
| Lumen range | 2,700 to 22,000 lm, 99 output levels | 2,000 to 37,000 lm, 34 options |
| Family page range | 5,000 to 21,000 lm; 175 W to 400 W metal halide | 7,000 to 35,000 lm; 250 W to 750 W metal halide |
| Input power | 34 to 175 W | Listed values from 21 to 286 W |
| CCT and CRI | 2700K to 5000K at 70 or 80 CRI | Same |
| Voltage and controls | 120-277V, 277-480V, 347-480V; nLight AIR G2, 0-10V | Same |
| Listings | C-UL-US, DLC Standard, BAA and BABA options | Same, BAA option |
The Size 0 spec sheet on Acuity's server, revision 03/26/24, carries the detail that decides a swap: fifteen distributions from T1S through T5W plus BLC, LCCO and RCCO; SPA square pole, RPA round pole, WBA wall and KMA8 mast arm mountings; EPA 0.95 square feet at 16 pounds; 10 kV surge; IP65 with IP66 light engines; 3.0 G per ANSI C136.31; L85 at 100,000 hours. No marine finish appears on it.
The equivalents
What I would offer against a D-Series area light
Four are lines I represent for SESCO in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe. The fifth is not, and leaving it out would make the page less useful. Every range is the manufacturer's own figure.
| Line | Family | Why it lands in the same place | What to check before you swap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gardco | OptiForm Area (OPF-S, OPF-M) | OPF-S covers 7,000 to 20,000 lumens on 42 to 139 W and OPF-M 20,000 to 34,000 lumens on 128 to 196 W per the Gen2 sheets, bracketing Size 0 and most of Size 1. Seven site and area distributions plus AutoFront Row, LEED corner and backlight control answer a T3M, T4M, T5M or BLC callout, and the AR1 arm fits 4 to 5 inch round and square poles. | No amber option at all. Precision Plus optics are OPF-S only. EPA is far lower at 0.15 to 0.2 square feet, which helps the pole calc, but it still gets rerun. |
| Lumec | RoadStar LED (GPLS-G3, GPLM-G3) | GPLS-G3 runs 3,872 to 19,545 lumens at 3000K on 27 to 161 W and GPLM-G3 15,565 to 37,435 lumens on 105 to 320 W, per Signify. Type II, III, IV and V optics, a 3,000 hour salt spray finish, and a 10-year warranty against Acuity's five. | A roadway housing, not a box on an arm: 1.66, 1.9 or 2-3/8 inch tenon only, so a drilled square pole needs a bracket or a new pole. Standard driver surge is 2.5 kV minimum where the D-Series says 10 kV. No amber option. |
| Visionaire | VSX-II and VMX-II | The closest match on paper: VSX-II is published at 2,435 lumens on 16.4 W up to 23,000 lumens on 181.1 W with seventeen IES distributions, against a Size 0 at 2,700 to 22,000 lumens on 34 to 175 W. VMX-II covers 7,000 to 50,000 lumens for Size 1. Arm, mast arm, knuckle and wall mountings, 10 kV surge standard, IP65, five-year warranty on the finish too. | Round pole adaptors are ordered separately. Published EPA runs 0.14 to 2.20 by tilt and distribution, so the pole engineer needs the exact configuration. DLC status is not on the VSX-II sheet, so confirm the catalog number on the qualified products list before counting a rebate. |
| WE-EF | VFL530-SE and VFL540-SE LED | The coastal answer. VFL540 is published at 3,042 to 19,467 lumens on 26.5 to 136 W and VFL530 at 1,487 to 10,261 lumens up to 72 W, both at 80 CRI, with IP66, IK08, marine-grade aluminum and 5CE corrosion protection: a harder envelope than the D-Series sheet publishes. | Two real limits. Published optics are Type II, III and IV only, no Type V, so an interior pole needing a symmetric distribution has no answer here; and VFL540 tops out at 19,467 lumens, short of the upper half of Size 1. EPA and warranty are not published. |
| Eaton, McGraw-Edison brand (not on my line card) | Galleon II (GALN) | What the D-Series is most often quoted against, and I would rather name it than pretend otherwise. Cooper publishes 3,300 to 73,500 lumens on 33 to 552 W, sixteen distributions including SL2, SL3, SL4 and the quad Type V optics, eight mountings, 10 kV surge, DLC qualified and a Coastal Construction finish. | I cannot quote it, so it comes through another channel with its own lead time and submittal support. EPA is 0.95 to 1.1 square feet at 29 to 52.5 pounds, heavier than the D-Series and much heavier than OptiForm. The sheet I read is dated 17 June 2021 and gives no IP rating. |
Every figure above is quoted from the manufacturer in that row. Nine times in ten the first thing I quote against a Size 0 or Size 1 is Gardco OptiForm, because the arm fits the poles already specified and the low EPA makes the pole schedule easier rather than harder.
How to read this
What this page is, and what it is not
This is a professional recommendation from a manufacturer's representative, not a factory cross reference. No manufacturer here publishes an equivalence between these products, and nothing here should be read as one.
Nothing here is approved, equal in a contractual sense, or guaranteed to clear a submittal. A Type 4 medium from one maker is not the same curve as another's, so the photometrics get re-run against the actual site, the pole locations and the targets in the specification. The engineer of record decides.
What I do to support a substitution request: run the layout in the alternate with the manufacturer's IES file, put the point-by-point next to the basis-of-design numbers, write the line-by-line comparison a reviewer checks (lumens, distribution, BUG, CCT, CRI, mounting, EPA, weight, controls, warranty, DLC), and give the pole engineer EPA and weight in writing. If it does not match, I say so rather than bury it.
Florida
The three things that decide this here
A site luminaire here is reviewed against conditions that do not exist in most of the country. This is where a substitution is won or lost.
The exterior control rules
The Florida Building Code, Energy Conservation, 8th Edition is specific: off automatically in daylight; everything other than facade and landscape lighting reduced at least 50 percent from midnight to 6 a.m. or on a schedule; parking-lot luminaires over 78 watts at 24 feet or less reduced by half after 15 minutes without activity, in zones of no more than 1,500 watts. That last one catches almost every Size 1 on a 20 or 24 foot pole. If the drawings show nLight AIR on every pole, the alternate needs an equivalent integral control: Gardco BL50 or Interact, Lumec D4i and OMS, Visionaire motion sensing with Wattstopper. See the energy code page.
Sea turtles and coastal amber
Nesting season runs 1 March to 31 October in Broward and Palm Beach and 1 May in Miami-Dade, and the requirement is FWC-certified amber, long wavelength, shielded, mounted low. Of the four lines here, only Gardco publishes an area luminaire with an FWC amber statement, and Visionaire a Turtle Safe line at 590 nm. Lumec and WE-EF publish neither. See the turtle-safe fixture finder and sea turtle lighting.
HVHZ and salt air
Product approval in the High Velocity Hurricane Zone applies to the pole, base plate, anchorage and attachments, not the luminaire; what the luminaire contributes is EPA and weight, and those differ: Size 0 is 0.95 square feet at 16 pounds, OPF-M 0.15 at 13 pounds, GPLM-G3 0.94 at 27 pounds, Galleon II 0.95 to 1.1 at 29 to 52.5 pounds. See HVHZ exterior lighting. For salt: OptiForm has a marine-grade finish, RoadStar 3,000 hours salt spray per ASTM B117, Visionaire a zinc-free primer it recommends within three miles of the ocean, WE-EF its 5CE protection. Acuity publishes no marine finish on the Size 0 sheet I read.
Amber
What each line publishes about turtle-safe amber
This is where guessing does real damage, so the table is only what each manufacturer prints. A missing certificate number is missing because nobody prints one.
| Line | Amber offered | What is published | FWC certification claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lithonia D-Series (specified) | Yes, two kinds | AMBLW limited wavelength amber 1,011 to 3,122 lm on 20 to 54 W; AMBPC phosphor converted amber 1,960 to 10,618 lm on 20 to 127 W | None on the sheet. Acuity's turtle-friendly page names the D-Series and points to the FWC site |
| Gardco OptiForm | No | Nothing amber in the family | Not applicable |
| Gardco EcoForm ECF-S-FWC | Yes, direct amber | Dominant wavelength 596 nm, peak 601 nm; aiming limited to 45 degrees above horizontal; the 32L at 400 mA package is 32 W and 680 lm on Type 2-FWC | Sheet states Florida Wildlife Certified. No certificate number or date printed |
| Lumec RoadStar | No | No amber option on the small or medium sheet | None |
| Visionaire Turtle Safe | Yes | 590 nm diode across the VLX, VMX, VSX and VSC-II families | The brochure says the fixtures were designed and tested to meet the general requirements of the Florida Wildlife Commission for turtle-safe lighting. No certificate number printed |
| WE-EF Wild-Light | No | Wild-Light is 2200K and 3000K, white color temperatures, not a narrow-band amber | None published |
| Eaton Galleon II (not on my line card) | Yes | Narrow-band monochromatic amber at 590 nm plus or minus 5 nm | None published |
Amber output is a fraction of white output in the same housing: Gardco publishes 680 lumens on a 32 watt FWC package where the white ECF-S starts at 5,508. A coastal lot is not a relamp of the inland layout; it is more poles at lower mounting heights. Bring me the survey line and the county before pole locations are fixed.
Judgment
Where I would swap it, and where I would not
Easy swaps. Retail, office and multifamily surface lots on 25 to 30 foot poles, Type 3 and Type 4 at the perimeter and Type 5 inside; garage roof decks; industrial yards where OPF-L or VMX-II covers more ground per pole; and any relight on 4 to 5 inch round or square poles with a standard drill pattern, which is what the Gardco and Visionaire arms fit.
Where I hold the spec. If the site is already on nLight AIR and the owner wants one dashboard, adding a second protocol to save a few dollars a fixture is a bad trade. If a photometric has been stamped and the schedule is out for permit, changing the optic means re-running and re-submitting. If a corner cutoff or backlight control optic is there to satisfy a light-trespass condition, I will not offer an alternate until I have run it against that boundary. And on a beachfront parcel I will not put a white area light of any brand in front of a coastal construction control line.
The limits on my own lines: OptiForm has no amber, so on a nesting-season parcel I move to Gardco EcoForm. RoadStar is tenon mount only. WE-EF publishes no Type V optic and stops short of the top of Size 1. Visionaire does not print DLC status on the sheet I read.
Documents
The spec sheets behind every number here
The sheets for the lines I represent are hosted here so the links do not die when a manufacturer reorganizes its site. The rest are linked to the manufacturer, because a competitor spec sheet belongs on the competitor server. For IES files on anything I represent, send me the size, package and distribution.
Questions
What contractors and engineers ask me
Can you match a DSX1 one for one?
Not one for one, and nobody can. What I can do is land in the same published lumen band with an optic covering the same distribution, and show you the layout. For a Size 1 that means Gardco OPF-M, Visionaire VMX-II or Lumec GPLM-G3; for a Size 0, OPF-S or VSX-II.
Will the alternate fit the poles already on the plan?
Depends which one. The Gardco AR1 arm and the Visionaire arm mounts fit 4 to 5 inch round and square poles the way the D-Series SPA and RPA mounts do. Lumec RoadStar takes a 1.66, 1.9 or 2-3/8 inch tenon only, so a drilled square pole needs a bracket or a pole change. WE-EF is side entry.
Do any of these have an FWC-certified amber version?
Gardco does, on EcoForm rather than OptiForm: the ECF-S-FWC sheet states Florida Wildlife Certified and publishes a dominant wavelength of 596 nm with a peak of 601 nm, though no certificate number is printed. Visionaire publishes a 590 nm Turtle Safe line and says it meets the general requirements of the Florida Wildlife Commission, again with no number. Lumec and WE-EF publish no amber option.
How do I meet the parking-lot vacancy requirement?
Order the integral option, not a separate box on the pole: Gardco BL50 bi-level motion or Interact, Lumec D4i and OMS, Visionaire motion sensing with Wattstopper. The photocell covers the daylight-off requirement separately.
Why is there a brand here you cannot sell me?
Because a cross reference that only lists what I carry is a sales sheet. Galleon II is what a D-Series most often loses to, and you should know what it publishes. I would still rather quote a line I represent, because that is where I can help in year two.
Next step
Send me the project
The fixture schedule, the site plan with pole locations, the footcandle and uniformity targets, and whether the parcel sits in a coastal lighting zone. I will come back with the equivalent, the point-by-point, EPA and weight for the pole engineer, and a price.
Send me the project Call 786-395-1222 See the whole line card