Making LED Lighting Solutions Simple™

Every engineer is familiar with the call to reduce the 'carbon footprint' by ensuring they consume as little energy as possible. As lighting accounts for over 15% of the total energy consumed in the world it is an area where 'green solutions' have really caught the imagination of politicians, architects, planners and the public. This process of “greening” our lighting is gathering speed.

Not long ago the consumer had the choice of either the incandescent bulb, not too dissimilar to that invented by Edison, or a fluorescent strip light which gave a bright, but not particularly attractive, light. Technology has of course moved on and today it is possible to get long life fluorescent bulbs that are excellent retrofits for standard light bulbs, which are available in multiple colors.

The use of electronic ballasts with either dedicated chips or microcontrollers means that it is possible to dim lighting and generally control it in a more precise and definite way. This ability to manage the lifetime and start up of traditional, fluorescent lights is another way designers can help business and consumers to optimize their power consumption and reduce their energy bills.

 

 

But the greatest movement in lighting in recent years has undoubtedly been the rise of the Light Emitting Diode (LED). Power dissipation techniques and customized driver-chips have been developed and produced to allow exact control and management of the devices so that they are now starting to be a strong competitor at the lower wattage end of the market. Whilst, in the last couple of years the efficiency of LEDs has even increased, so it is now reaching HID specifications.

Some of the advantages of LEDs as a light source include; the ability to direct light exactly where it is needed, therefore avoiding light pollution by eliminating unwanted light in the surrounding areas; the reduction in maintenance costs from a solid-state device which is difficult to break and has a long lifetime; and the small form factor, enabling products to be smaller and sleaker in design.

Already LEDs are becoming the industry-standard in automotive applications and in those areas of architectural lighting where their longer lifetime means that they can be permanently embedded into a building. With the development of low cost sensors bringing with them the ability to change colors easily and exactly, the future for LEDs in lighting seems to be assured. This Application Spotlight looks at the latest advances in LED lighting (pages 17 to 24) along with their associated control circuitry. Also, technical advice on incorporating high power LEDs into lighting designs with efficient driver circuits, is contained in the technical article on pages 37 and 38.

 

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A division of Future Electronics, Future Lighting Solutions is dedicated to the high power LED lighting industry. With more than 6 years of high power LED experience, Future Lighting Solutions delivers the most comprehensive worldwide LED lighting solutions program in the industry.

Future Lighting Solutions facilitates LUXEON®-based applications through the expertise of Certified Solutions Partners (read more about Certified Solutions partners) who specialize in the fields of Optics, Power, Thermal Management and Integration Services, and through our team of LED lighting experts who provide collateral, technical solutions and demos.

The division's objective is to provide the greatest customer support by leveraging the worldwide Future Electronics organization for logistics, supply chain management, technical support inventory, credit programs and order management – while offering customers specific LED lighting knowledge, resources, programs, partners and solutions focused on enabling the adoption of LUXEON®-based solid state lighting technology (see Fig.1).

 

 

Future Lighting Solutions' innovative approach is built around its exclusive worldwide relationship with Philips Lumileds Lighting Company.

Future Lighting Solutions: Making LED Lighting Solutions Simple™.

www.lumiledsfuture.com
In North America:
1-888-LUXEON2 (589-3662)
Email: askluxeon@FutureElectronics.com