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Finelite Introduces 10-Year Product Warranty for Recessed LED Luminaires
SSLDesign News Staff
February 16, 2012...Finelite Inc., a commercial building lighting system producer, unveiled a new, 10-year warranty for its High Performance Recessed LED (HPR-LED) luminaire collection. The company asserts that its HPR-LED luminaires offer twice the industry standard for lifetime operating hours, and the warranty doubles the standard coverage terms for optimal performance over the extended lifetime of the luminaire.
"This customer-friendly 10-year warranty demonstrates our absolute confidence in the robust luminaire design of HPR-LED, and our commitment to make lighting design a key driver for energy efficient buildings," said Terry Clark, Finelite chairman and chief technology officer. "This is yet another assurance that our quality indoor LED luminaires are solidly backed by service levels Finelite customers have come to expect."
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Government in China Sets 3 Levels of LED Subsidies
SSLDesign News Staff
February 16, 2012...The China government plans to set three levels of LED subsidies, according to a Digitimes article. The first subsidy is for the the central government to provide funding to LED firms to lower production costs. The second subsidy is for provinces and province-level municipalities will set up policies to subsidize customers. The third level of subsidies is for other regions to provide incentives according to local markets, according to the article.
The Digitimes article says that consumers have been reluctant to purchase LED lighting and firms have not been able to push down costs. Hence by having subsidies, the China government believes market mechanisms will be set and completed during the 12th Five-Year plan period.
The article also noted that China introduced policies to replace street lights with LED lamps in ten cities. The government is reportedly planning to add another ten cities in the second phase.
DOE Recognizes Universal Display Corporation for Advances in White OLED Lighting
SSLDesign News Staff
February 14, 2012...Universal Display Corporation, which is headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey USA, announced that the company was recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for outstanding achievements in solid-state lighting throughout 2011. Universal Display received the award during 'Transformations in Lighting,' the DOE's annual Solid-State Lighting R&D Workshop, held January 31- February 2, 2012 in Atlanta, GA. The company points out that this is the fifth consecutive year that it has received this DOE award.
This year's award is for Universal Display's demonstration of an all-phosphorescent OLED lighting system with greater than 55 lumen per Watt system efficacy in an under-cabinet application. The company asserts that the under-cabinet demonstration is only one of numerous lighting applications that can benefit from its white OLEDs, as a result of their energy-efficient and cool operation, their ultra-thin form factor, and their pleasing color emission.
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MaxLite LED Light Bars Featured on DIY Network’s “Bath Crashers”
SSLDesign News Staff
February 14, 2012...A recent episode of DIY network's "Bath Crasher" show featured MaxLite’s LED Lightbars. MaxLite’s LED Lightbars, which are offered in the MaxLED® family of products, were highlighted in Episode 404 of “Bath Crashers,” the “Basement Bathroom Overhaul.” The episode was first aired on Oct. 31, 2011 and will be re-running through March.
The LED Lightbars, which were highlighted with on-air credit, were installed discreetly in three handmade light boxes that were installed on the bathroom wall. Four lightbars were installed around the perimeter of each light box, creating unobtrusive light sources to add a nice glow to the panes of glass in the center of the boxes. In addition to the lightboxes, the LED Lightbars were installed under the countertop of the bathroom vanity, which made the glass surface glow above.
The host proudly boasted the long-lasting 50,000-hour life of the efficient fixtures. The original bathroom before renovation was dark and dreary with outdated furnishings. After the bathroom’s demolition and reconstruction, the homeowners were brought to tears of joy after witnessing the bathroom’s stunning makeover. The new sink, shower, hardware and lighting yielded a clean, cool and modern look. This Bath Crasher’s “Basement Bathroom Overhaul” episode will be reaired on the following dates and times: March 05, 2012 1:00 a.m. EST; March 05, 2012 10:00 p.m. EST; March 13, 2012 7:00 p.m. EST; March 28, 2012 11:00 a.m. EST.
Osram Sylvania Introduces Very Small 25 Watt Dimmable Power Supply
SSLDesign News Staff
February 14, 2012...Osram Sylvania has introduced what it describes as one of the lighting industry’s smallest LED power supplies, the Optotronic® 25W. The Optotronic 25W LED Power Supply reportedly allows for greater flexibility in LED systems designs especially in confined or tight LED lighting applications such as display cases and down-lighting.
The Optotronic 25W is available with factory configurable output options to power a variety of low wattage light sources. This latest addition to the Optotronic family is also compatible with fluorescent 0-10V dimmers and packaged in a familiar HID ballast housing, allowing manufacturers and installers to integrate LED technology into designs commonly occupied by traditional lighting technology.
“We’re asking LED technology adopters to consider ‘how they are driven’ from a power supply requirement standpoint,” says Chuck Piccirillo, Power Electronics Business Manager, Osram Sylvania. “Our Optotronic line of proven LED drivers grants lighting designers the flexibility to design within space limitations while allowing them to easily optimize system energy savings and improve system performance and longevity.”
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Commentary & Perspectives...
LED Industry Buzzing at Strategies in Light
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
February 9, 2012...The leading annual US exhibition and conference for the broader LED industry supply chain, Strategies in Light, took place this week, and there is no doubt we're seeing a lively industry. Revenue growth at the packaged LED industry has been moderated a bit by the overall economic climate, but with most segments growing simply because LED-based solutions make sense, the overall picture is good and should continue that way. Here are some of the highlights that struck us, both in and around the event:
Is 2012 the year of the light engine?... A 'point of order' we're not shy about sharing is that lighting is already a fully-established industry, with fully-established channels, and upstart "chip-head" companies aren't necessarily going to be able to waltz right into the world of replacement lamps and luminaires without expecting more than a little market fight. Just a small step back from the luminaires are the different light-engine approaches, that provide a good opportunity for LED-based innovation, without the substantial channel challenges that arise at the level of full integration. We had the chance to hear from several companies that are making a good showing as "enablers" to the hundreds and hundreds of specialized luminaire manufacturers that may not have the resources to create an LED lighting design from scratch.
First up was Xicato, which has been making a name for itself with a color-consistency message that it has taken straight to the lighting decision makers, in hopes of setting a high-bar for any competitors to deal with. By combining a 'just barely' remote phosphor approach with thermal management that include cooling that phosphor plate, they are able to deliver modules that hit a 1.2 MacAdam ellipse target, and stay there for the life of the product. Not only does that suggest a luminaire incorporating that engine will be delivering essentially the same light 5+ years from now, but that subsequent versions spec'd at the same color temperature and CRI will match the originals despite their difference in ages.
While doing a good job of defining "color quality", they aren't going to be left alone in the space. Terralux is also after a piece of the market with its own innovations aimed at assuring an ultra-long lifetime. Their magic includes integrated thermal monitoring that compares the LED array operating parameters with the LM-80 data curves, so that operations are maintained within the "known" operating envelope at all times. Lumenetix, a name new to me, was also on hand showing its Araya family of dynamically-tuned white light engines. Able to vary their CCT from 2700K to 6000K, the design allows the users to tailor the light to suit the specific subject being lit, whether it's a painting or retail display, to achieve the desired effect. In a serious piece of fancy, they demonstrated a CCT copy-and-paste procedure that is a simple as aiming the remote control at one source (whatever it may be), capturing the observed CCT, and then "pasting" the same CCT to another luminaire. The luminaire has bi-directional communication with the remote in which the remote verifies the CCT by observation, rather than simply trusting that the luminaire hit the target. If it's not a perfect match, the remote provides the coordinate direction and magnitude "suggestions" for the luminaire to finish the tweaking process. Three very different, and productive approaches chasing what is currently a $1.9B module market opportunity, and which is projected to approach $6B towards the end of the decade.
Planar and power... In a sideline visit, we spent a few minutes with Eran Fine, CEO of Israel-based Oree, for an update on their planar LED technology. For those not familiar with Oree's approach, imagine something about the size and thickness of a playing card, that glows with a bright, uniform white light from one side. Personally, I've called it the "white OLED killer" as it provides a simple answer to the standard 'point source' LED challenge, and delivers the ultra-thin form factor with 85 lm/watt efficiency, all at 1/15th the price of an OLED solution. Color tunability is also part of the demonstrated capabilities, and overall, it's out of the box thinking, and well-supported by strategic industry investor-partners. It looks like what many of us imagined early-on as one "futuristic" approach to lighting that LEDs enable.
At the other end of the technology spectrum, Soraa shared some additional detail on its technology launch into the replacement lamp space. CEO Eric Kim outlined the gist of their innovation, which is simply making use of correctly polarized pure GaN substrates, allowing them to operate with incredible power densities within the LED structure. Not to get too techie, but while "normal" LEDs get brighter as you drive more current through them, they also lose efficiency. We call it "the droop problem", and if it went away, we could get a lot more lumens out of much smaller LEDs. The Soraa design, arrived at in no small part through a few decades of Shuji Nakamura's and Steve Denbaar's research, pushes 250 amps per square centimeter through it while still maintaining 90% of the starting efficiency. Now to get a little too techie, think about that for a second... if we assume 10 watts are doing the job of making the equivalent light of a 50W halogen, we're probably dealing with 3.3A at an LED-standard 3V. 3.3 into 250 is .013, which suggests the LED itself may only be 1/100th of a square centimeter. Even if some of my speculations are off by a factor of 2, 1/50th of a square centimeter is still reallly-really small. Talk about a point source! If the chunk of GaN you use to make the LED is small enough, you can get a bunch more of them from one expensive wafer, which makes each one relatively cheap. It's also a dream come true for the optics designer, since a smaller source suggests you can use a smaller optic to get a desired beam pattern. Soraa tells me that they're a few thousand hours into testing, with good results that are backing up their lifetime predictions. More data is needed to know that they've got the full package here, but things look good for this to be one of those noticeable breakthroughs that make the science of semiconductors interesting.
A vision for the future... Awareness seems to be building that now that LEDs are able to begin economically serving a number of areas in lighting, we can afford to expand our vision beyond just replacing the current lighting out there, to instead beginning to see where this could all go. Much as optical communications gave life to a whole new, and really-really big thing called "e-commerce", the fundamental technology of solid state light opens the door to "apps" none of us had previously imagined. For lack of a better term, lets call it "adaptive, responsive, interactive lighting". In a reception hosted by Light Based Technologies, the execs there did a good job of summarizing a concept of "personalizing" light by accepting inputs at a level of granularity relevant to an individual "user" and then responding at that same user level. Communicating information back up the hierarchy, for instance to that section, of that floor, of that building, on that grid, can allow those progressively larger functional blocks to take those conditions at the user level into account in "the big picture" of energy and environmental management. It can start to get very abstract, very quickly, but if we acknowledge that our health, happiness and productivity can all be influenced by light, and that now we finally have the technology that enables us to control it with unprecedented precision, we're off on a hunt to truly understand it. The discussion has just begun, and I, for one, look forward to "the more" that we'll uncover in the process.
The SSL Summit, April 3-4 in Long Beach California, is all about the future of better, smarter lighting. Make your plans now to join key visionaries who will engage, and help shape, the future of lighting. Visit www.SSLsummit.com for more information.
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