green-techZONE Products for the week of August 11, 2003

Half The Power, All The Light -- OptoLum's 800-Lumen Solid State Lightbulb Is Industry's Brightest

OptoLum, Inc. made the debut of its initial, and unprecedented "BrightLife" line of advanced LED-based lightbulbs at Lightfair International May 6-8, 2003 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. OptoLum's initial BrightLife bulb produces an astonishing 800 lumens of long-life, highly reliable light, in an innovative cylindrical configuration suitable for wall sconces and pendant lighting applications. This initial breakthrough product integrates OptoLum's proprietary, patent-pending packaging technology with the semiconductor industry's most advanced white LEDs, which are rapidly and dramatically changing today's lighting industry.

OptoLum has achieved this outstanding degree of luminosity and design by employing 24 white Luxeon LEDs from Lumileds Lighting which each produce 1.2 watts, resulting in a total of 800 lumens.

BrightLife-800 not only emits over 800 lumens, it illuminates over a full 360 degree span which directly equates to emitting the same amount of light over precisely the same area as conventional incandescent and compact fluorescent lamps that are in use today. OptoLum's BrightLife-800 pays for itself by requiring significantly less energy than incandescent sources. The BrightLife-800 has a 50,000 hour source life, which is more than 50 times greater than incandescent and 5 to 7 times greater than compact fluorescent alternatives.

analogZONE Says...

A $125 light bulb! Are they out of their minds???

No they're not, even though that's precisely what I said when I saw their product for the first time at the Blue 2003 Solid-StateLighting Conference back in June. Once I calmed down, Karen Baker, OptoLum's COO, explained what's behind their single-minded drive to produce the world's first LED-based commercial alternative to incandescent bulbs and made a believer out of me.

Even if this solid state lamp did not consume about half the power of an equivalent 60 W bulb, it would be very cost-effective in many places where changing a bulb is difficult, expensive, or impossible. While these high-priced bulbs are not appropriate for every application, their long life, durability, and power frugality make them ideal candidates for use in remote buildings, marine/military applications, exterior architectural accents, tall towers, and other areas where the labor costs for replacing conventional incandescent bulbs every 1-2000 hours are significant.

Solid-state lighting is in its infancy, but it's on its way to becoming a mainstream technology. Until now the challenges of getting enough lumens in to a properly sized and priced package has kept LED-based lamps in the 1-5 W range (like the 120-Lumen, 5 W light from Luxeon I reviewed last year.)

While price has certainly been an issue, the real hang-up in producing larger lights has been the large amounts of heat that LEDs produce when they are driven at the high current levels where they are most efficient. This is because unlike incandescent bulbs which lose much of the heat they produce by throwing off infrared radiation, LEDs radiate their light in a very narrow spectrum of light - leaving the waste heat they generate behind to fry the device!

What makes the OptoLum unique is its ability to collect and dissipate the heat generated by the 24, 1.2-W Luxeon white LEDs. These folks have worked hard to produce a low-resistance heatsink that serves as both an efficient thermal dissipator and a mounting frame that evenly distributes the light from the point sources (See Fig.1). By wicking away the heat from the emitter bases so efficiently, OptoLum is able to run its devices at high current levels where their efficiency and output are greatest without sacrificing lifespan.

And speaking of lifespan, I'll guess that the actual useful life of an OptoLum bulb is way beyond the 50-k-hour lifespan they rate it at because it consists of 24 separate elements. Given the perversities of statistical distribution, I'll wager that in most cases the fixtures will have 60% - 75% of their LEDs operating at the 70-k-hour mark. But even if you don't want to stretch its operating life, the fact that these lights fail gracefully instead of all at once gives them a big advantage in many applications.

While a geek like myself might find the bare emitter assembly attractive, they are offering an optional translucent diffuser cover to hide the structure and even out the light point sources (See Fig 2) in applications where they will be running out in the open.

About my only real concern is the tiny fan currently in use to augment the heatsink's convection cooling. While it make sense, the idea of a light bulb with a fan on it is somehow disquieting to me. For the moment, I'll take OptoLum's word that they are buying the highest quality micro-muffin fans on the market, rated at 100+k-hours MTBF. They are also doing some final tweaks to the design that may eliminate the cost (and risk) of the fan once high-volume production starts early next year.

The OptoLum BrightLife-800 will find many applications even at its current price, but I'd expect that they'll ride a relatively steep downward price curve as the market matures. Efficiency should also creep (more slowly) towards the 75% level enjoyed by compact fluorescent bulbs as newer LED materials and processes that are now in the development stage go into production. The convergence of both factors should make these products cost-effective for many more applications within the next 18 - 24 months.

And while most of us wait for the 800-lumen model's $125 price to fall, OptoLum is introducing another lower-powered, lower-priced product for architectural accents and mood lighting. While not formally announced yet, OptoLum informed me that they are in the final stages of developing a "festoon" lamp (lighting industry code for a cove light) which will produce around 25 Lumens while drawing 1.2 W. With an estimated life of way over 50-k-hours, it replaces conventional cove lamps (used by the hundreds in modern architectural accents) that draw 5 W each during their brief 1000 hr life. At $12 apiece, they will make both economic and environmental sense.

The BrightLife-800 will be sampling during 4Q 2003, with full production in early 2004. Pricing will be around $125, with discounts for substantial volumes.. The festoon lamp unit will also be availible in early 2004, and cost around $12 in moderate volumes, with high-volume discounts.

Lee's Saltshaker Rating

• Product Archives by ZONE
• Return to the green-techZONE