greenZONE Products for the week of July 1, 2002
Lumileds Lighting Says . . .
A Bright Idea - World's Brightest LED - Lumileds'
Luxeon 5-Watt Emitter Debuts in U.S.
Lumileds Lighting is now making available its Luxeon 5-Watt, an LED-based
light source, for distribution in North America. The device achieves a new
benchmark in brightness by providing an output of up to 120 lumens from
a single white emitter package. This addition to the Luxeon family of white
and color light sources delivers four times the luminous flux previously
available from a single Luxeon LED and up to 60 times the output of competitive
devices, greatly expanding the kinds of light fixtures and luminaires that
can benefit from the small size and long life of LED lamps.
A white Luxeon 5-Watt produces a record-breaking intensity of 120 lumens in the same footprint occupied by a 20+-lumen white Luxeon 1-Watt. To date, high flux LEDs from other vendors have been capable of producing only 1 to 5 lumens in white. Green, cyan, blue and royal blue Luxeon 5-Watt packages also deliver record-setting luminous output ranging from 30 lumens for blue to 120 lumens for green and cyan.
The Luxeon 5-Watt also lowers the cost per lumen. The white Luxeon 5-Watt produces roughly four times the brightness for three times the price of the Luxeon 1-Watt.
New Era in Lighting Design
"Our Luxeon 5-Watt offers new design possibilities for lighting manufacturers who wish to take advantage of the small footprint, energy savings and 100,000-hour life of solid state illumination," said Jason Posselt, Luxeon Worldwide Product Manager for Lumileds Lighting. "With the ability to produce as much as 120 lumens from a single emitter, designers can incorporate LEDs into a broader variety of products without the size and engineering complications of deploying multiple emitters to achieve the desired brightness."
The Luxeon 5-Watt utilizes patented Lumileds technology that makes it possible to increase light output while maintaining proper heat and current management. Brightness levels that previously would have required four Luxeon 1-Watts can be attained in the space of one of the older packages. Only one optic is needed per Luxeon module and all necessary wiring is built in, saving space as well as simplifying design and assembly.
Like other Luxeon lamps, the Luxeon 5-Watt also offers lumen maintenance and color uniformity advantages over other LED light sources. While conventional LEDs lose 30% of their brightness after just 3,000 hours and 60% after 9,000 hours because of the yellowing effects of the epoxy used in their lensing systems, Luxeon LEDs retain 90+% of their light output after 9,000 hours and an expected 70% through 50,000 hours due to a special non-epoxy technique used for encapsulation. Luxeon's coating technology also overcomes the undesirable color variations and halo effects of other solid state light sources, significantly improving the color consistency and beam quality of white light.
The small form factor of the Luxeon LED allows for the development of
sleeker and smaller silhouettes with invisible light points and a smaller
optical lens, while the product's longevity permits the light source to
be integrated directly into the fixture without worrying about lamp replacement.
Luxeon lamps also offer full dimmability, instant illumination, precise
beam control, minimum glare, low UV light for minimal fabric fading, mercury-free
operation, and a cool light beam that is safe to the touch.
analogZONE Says . . .
LED-based lighting is gaining popularity because of its long life, power efficiency, and highly flexible form factor. Where it's practical, compact fluorescent lights are still the most energy-efficient at 50-75 lumens/Watt, but at 24 lumens/W, the Luxeon devices are much better than the 12-15 lumens/W offered by standard incandescent bulbs.
While not as power efficient as compact fluorescent units, LED-based lights are great for low-wattage (1-5 W) lamps and come in a variety of really cool colors (white, green, cyan, blue and royal blue). Their 100,000+ hour operating lifetime makes them ideal for installations where replacement is difficult (traffic lights, remote areas of buildings), or impossible (submarine installations and marker lights on spacecraft.) The small size, integrated optics, and flexible form factor also help you deliver light where you want it, and in nice 1-W increments. In many cases, this will allow you to actually use less power to accomplish a specific lighting task than a "shotgun" solution with a larger compact fluorescent.
When looking for power-efficient solutions to lighting,
I'd keep the wide varieties of modules and fixtures available from Lumileds
in my files. You should definitely visit their web site to check out the candy
store, full of clever products you'll be dying to find a use for. Besides
using them in a nice instrument panel lighting system to supplement the
crappy one that came with my 70's-vintage Cessna 182, I'm probably going
to use at least a few of these little gems next year when I retrofit my
in-laws' lakeside cabin in rural Maine with a small solar-electric system.
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