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Vishay Introduces New 24-LED Lighting Panels, Reflectors, and Driver as a Kit for Streetlight Applications |
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Spark Releases Intelligent LED Street light with Cree LEDs
SSLDesign News Staff
June 17, 2010...Spark has released a series of High Power Intelligent LED street lights which utilize Cree LEDs.
Spark claims that the series of street lights will be more reliable and effective to solve the heat release issue and keep the quality of Intelligent LED Street light more stable.
Spark Intelligent LED Street light uses what the company calls an intelligent driver a new independent intellectual property right of the intelligent driver. Leaded by a central control system, it can control the lamp brightness from 0-100% and feedback the working situation of each lamp to the central control system by remote control.
The company says that this kind of function can highly improve the management efficiency of road lighting administrative authority.
Intelligent lighting systems utilize the LED technologies to optimize the light intensity according to the situation by dimming the lamp. All lamps can be communicated with, so their condition can be assessed remotely and controlled remotely. At the same time, intelligent LED street lights are also more benefit for EMC energy investment companies to control the electricity charge and cost.
Spark's Intelligent LED Street Lights feature: time-phased dimming control, temperature control, remote control, an adjustable angle of 0-25°, a rectangular beam pattern Cree LEDs, wide range of wattage available for choice: 60W, 120W, 180W, 240W
The three available street lights in the series include: the Mini Intelligent LED Street light, Solar Powered Intelligent LED Street light, and Intelligent LED Street light.
Ikea to Phase out Incandescent Lighting in All US Ikea Stores Beginning August 1, 2010
SSLDesign News Staff
June 15, 2010...Ikea, the Swedish home furnishing store that is now located around the world announced that it will begin to phase out all incandescent light bulbs in their U.S. stores beginning August 1, 2010.
The company says that this recent environmental initiative has a target date of incandescent bulb elimination by January 1, 2011. This is one year before the beginning phase out of incandescent bulbs that U.S. federal legislation mandates. According to Ikea, the aggressive Ikea U.S. store phase out program exemplifies Ikea’s strong commitment to helping their customers live an everyday sustainable life. Ikea says it will be the first US retailer to completely phase out incandescent light bulbs.
Ikea insists that its customers will have a good choice of other effective energy saving bulbs including: the most popular, compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), a range of LED lamps which are 70% more efficient than using incandescent bulbs, halogen lamps which it says consume 30% less energy, and beginning in fall, 2010, Ikea will offer a retro-fit halogen bulb which can be used in a standard light socket. Ikea also offers solar powered lamps including their SUNNAN desk lamp and their ‘SOLIG’ range of outdoor lights.
“IKEA is committed to integrating sustainability into all Ikea strategies and practices in the entire product life cycle. We also believe our customers are looking for every day environmentally responsible solutions for themselves. Eliminating incandescents is a simple way to lead the charge for Ikea customers to use energy saving light bulbs, thus reducing energy consumption and reducing the amount of greenhouses gases. It’s a little step with a big impact on our planet,” said Mike Ward, US Ikea President.
“It’s important for major retailers to take a step, because what they do will have a major impact,” commented an Ikea Stoughton, MA store customer.
Bridgelux Receives UL Recognition for Entire Portfolio of LED Array Products
SSLDesign News Staff
June 15, 2010...Bridgelux Inc. of Livermore, California USA, announced that the company has earned Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Recognition for its entire portfolio of LED Array light sources. These include the company's LS, ES, and award-winning RS products. Bridgelux points out that the certification will accelerate the introduction of new LED lighting products by making it possible to obtain UL Listed status for new lamps and luminaires built with its Arrays without requiring a full in-system LED component evaluation. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
SSC to launch LED Lighting Products at the lighting fairs held China and Taiwan
SSLDesign News Staff
June 15, 2010...Seoul Semiconductor showcased its new products at light fairs in Taiwan and Guangzhou, China. from June 9 to June 11 last week. The company added to its lines of Acriche and power LED products. The Acriche A4 Series Cool White products has a maximized luminous efficacy of up to 100lm/W. Acriche A6 (1 W) and A7 (4 W) series are LED products that can be applied to general lighting fixtures. The A6 and A7 are significantly smaller than the existing Acriche products. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
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Commentary & Perspectives...
LED Lighting is a Consultative Process...
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
June 10, 2010...One of the things that the LED lighting industry gets knocked for is "not having the standards in place" to make it easy on the lighting decision makers. First, that's simply not true, but a standards roundup can easily set you up for a full day of reading. More importantly, it appears that the perception is that solid state lighting should somehow be easier to implement that other lighting is. After all, electronics make things simpler, don't they?
It's a common misconception, or probably better, "selective memory condition", that technology makes things simpler. That's kind of like saying, "water is never dangerous", or for that matter, "water is often dangerous". Your choice. If you pick one, you're wrong, since it all depends on what kind it is, and what you're doing with it. As an insulator while you're working on power lines, it's kind of dangerous. In a water gun that kids are shooting each other with, not dangerous. Whatever we pick, can be taken to any extreme to prove or disprove the supposition, so please no letters from chemists to remind us that ultra-pure water is actually a pretty good insulator, or from safety freaks who can only envision the SuperSoaker Mk. XXLIV 400 psi model in the hands of 4 year-olds. In the middle 80% of the circumstances, common sense prevails in comparing the application with the risks.
Technology quite often makes things faster, or more efficient. An spreadsheet on my computer is a much faster way to add up columns, then sum then across, and find the percentage growth, but building the spreadsheet wasn't simpler than operating a calculator and pencil. Some level of specialized knowledge was needed. Once we know it, it can be simpler, but it's not automatic. You still have to figure out where to enable "auto set" on the clock for your DVD player (which is why many DVD players don't display the time, I suspect... the legacy of the flashing 12:00 on the VCR needed to be left behind to achieve true customer satisfaction). And technology does often make things simpler, but mostly from the maintenance stand point. Cars last longer and need fewer components for a tune-up. A refrigerator defrosts itself magically at 2am (there's actually a little heating element in ours that melts and evaporates what it's melting). Well-designed and constructed LED lights get installed, run for a decade, and then get replaced. Better technology and simpler maintenance don't necessarily imply easier installation, and definitely does not make for simpler selection. The more complex the technology, in fact, the more difficult the selection process may be, and the more likely you will need to tap your, or someone else's, expertise to make a good decision.
LED lighting is that way. Solid state doesn't mean simpler. I contend it does mean "better and more reliable" (when done correctly). So how does a facility lighting decision maker, for instance, figure out the correct answer? From the pure lighting aspect, they can rely on the same engineering approach that has worked for many decades. The concepts of beam angle and center beam candlepower, and foot-candles a the target, and light loss factors apply just as they always have. In fact, those metrics probably matter even more when you're looking at the increased acquisition costs of those "higher tech" LED-based lights. Precision matters. If you're used to winging it, you might be leaving a lot of money on the table that a lighting designer or other qualified lighting expert may have enabled you to save. "Too much light" takes on a increased significance when the cost per lumen is many times more than it was for the previous approaches.
More significant are the decision factors that are totally new in the lighting equation. Whose LEDs are inside. If you want them to stay the same color as they started, it kind of matters, since it's not a simple swap out. Whose drivers are inside. A bad ballast could be swapped out, but not so with bad drivers, especially when they may not manifest their inferiority until well past the warranty period. A 5-year payback isn't a payback if you only get a 4-year life from the product. How does the product look? Have shadowing effects been handled? Will it work with your dimmers or other controls, beyond just "theoretically"? All of those will be answers that come from experience, and most likely, the facilities expert or architect won't have that expertise yet.
So who does have those answers when it comes to LED lighting? Some lighting designers and some lighting consultants have the right kind of experience, and they're working to catch up (that's why they come to the SSL Summit series... NY agenda just updated!). Some solutions providers/sales organization, as well as some rep organizations, do have the answers, and you can tell which simply by asking how many different solid state lighting products, other than the lines they carry, they have evaluated and tested first hand. If it hasn't been at least double or triple the number the solutions provider is working with, they probably are short on necessary experience in separating the good and the OK, from the bad.
Finally, every quality manufacturer has the expertise, although they may or may not be active with the customers to apply it, if they have a well-trained rep/sales force that they have delegated it to. You also may run into the good manufacturers being less responsive than you might like, especially if you're working in the onesy-twosy mode. Just because a product is in volume production, don't take that to mean "in commodity supply". Some very sharp manufacturers are necessarily filtering whom they work with, as their solution is limited in the number of "cost effective" applications by the current performance and cost curves that the industry is handing them. A call for "can I buy a couple to try" might not be returned if you don't have the volume, or aren't providing the information that helps them to be sure your application meets their standards for success. Others may need to know that they will be able to actually "partner" with the user to assure a cost-effective retrofit and sensible deployment plan, since the last thing they want to see is a stack of luminaires returned because "they didn't work right" when they are working exactly as specified. For most applications out there now, adopting solid state lighting needs to be a consultative process to assure that the expected payback will really be achieved. There will be a number of segments that will move commodity at the point that simple price/performance surpasses the incumbents, but that will be a long while, yet. Even then, the more consultative suppliers will likely turn out to have ultimately more cost effective solutions because they will see that those solutions are correctly applied. The best answer for the business case to be real now is to not be small, and to tap real expertise.
To find industry quality, you might need to look to the one executive-level conference that demands it, SSL Design's 2010/2011 SSL Summit Series, September 14-15 in New York, and January 19-20, 2011 in Los Angeles. Speakers, showcase participants and even sponsors are vetted for their ability to show lighting decision makers quality LED lighting solutions, or to enable those solutions with quality componentry. Attendees will find not just choices, but the relationships that will bring success to their projects.
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