Frequently Asked Questions
Q.What are the advantages to using LED lights?
A.LEDs bring several advantages to the lighting industry, including high efficiency and durability. And, with superior life over other lamp sources, their required maintenance is greatly reduced. This translates into energy savings, maintenance savings and an overall reduction in cost of ownership.
Q.Do I have to replace LED diodes?
A.An LED does not burn out like a standard lamp, so individual diodes do not need to be replaced. Instead, the diodes gradually produce lower output levels over a very long period of time. If one LED fails, it does not produce a complete fixture outage.
Q.White LEDs, what can they illuminate?
A.White LEDs are made by placing a yellow phosphorus coating over a 470nm blue LED chip giving the white LED a cool white or florescent appearance. White LEDs made from a blue chip should not be used as a general backlighting light source for different coloured lenses and panels.
Q.How long is 50,000 hours
A.A.Based on how long a fixture is illuminated per day, Hours of Operation: 50,000 hours is:- 24 hours a day 5.7 years 18 hours per day 7.4 years 12 hours per day 11.4 years 8 hours per day 17.1 years
Q.Can LEDs be used to replace conventional incandescent and florescent light bulbs?
A.LEDs have increasingly been used in many different applications to replace old incandescent light bulbs. Examples include LED indicator lights for all kinds of electronic devices such as cell phone, calculators, automotive dash panel, LCD back-lighting, etc., LED seasonal decoration lights for Christmas and holidays, LED traffic signs and other LED direction signs, LED flashing lights, and so on. As currently available LEDs have limited brightness, in most cases, they can not be used to replace incandescent or florescent light bulbs for general lighting purposes.
Q.What LED products are currently available for general customers
A.The most popular LED products available in volume at the market place are various kinds of LED decoration light products. And in fact, they are ideal for replacing conventional incandescent decoration light products, because when compared with incandescent light products, these LED products save up to 95% energy, have much longer working hours, are more rugged, and safer in terms of danger of fire and electric shock.
Q.Why are LEDs of some colors are more expensive than LEDs of other colors
A.The reason is that different semiconductor materials are used for different color LEDs, and some semiconductor materials are more expensive than others; another reason is that manufacturing costs are different. White LEDs are the most expensive because red, green and blue LEDs are combined together to make a white LED
Q.How does ambient temperature affect LED efficiency?
A.LED fixtures must be designed with junction temperature thermal management as a key component and use the correct LEDs. These products will then be robust enough to operate in most ambient temperature applications. Unlike fluorescent sources, cold temperatures do not impact the performance of LEDs.
Q.What should I know about optical performance?
A.Many manufacturers imply that their luminaire will optically perform equal or better than the existing HID fixture it is replacing. Ask for an independently tested IES file showing the optical performance in the designed luminaire you requested. A lot of companies are just showing the “bench test performance” and not providing the actual optical performance of the LED system inside the actual fixture! Most units, especially the Retrofit Kits, lose more than 50% of their performance when the photometry is measured with the Retrofit Kit inside the luminaire! A far cry from the output that is claimed outside of the luminaire!
Q.What is efficacy?
A.Efficiency is used in situations where the output and input units differ. This term is used in the lighting market because we are interested in amount of light measured in lumens produced by a certain amount of watts of electricity.Efficiency is a term usually dimensionless.
Q.Where have LEDs been used in the lighting industry?
A.LEDs are commonly used in aesthetic, effect, or specialty lighting applications, including architectural highlighting. Most traffic lights and exit signs, for example, now use red, green or blue LEDs.
Q.How are LEDs able to outperform HID?
A.Super-bright white LEDs have the advantage of minimal lumen depreciation, better optical efficiency and high lumens per watt. This means these LEDs can be used to replace traditional HID luminaires. LEDs also have a vastly longer life span than traditional lamp sources. The fixture design also must be designed to leverage these inherent advantages of LEDs. A Total Systems Approach is needed for an LED product to bring all these features together. LED fixtures also have an environmental advantage in that they contain no mercury, last longer and produce less waste, and they are made from fully recyclable materials. Furthermore, the extruded aluminum heat sink is manufactured using 77% post-industrial recycled material.