Time to shed some light on the world of LED’s

LED lighting has seen a massive expansion in recent years. Gone are the days when vehicles had to carry a bank of enormous spotlights just to be able to see the way ahead – today’s top-quality LED systems from leading manufacturers like Wilderness Lighting provide massive levels of illumination from light bars that are discreet, long live and unbelievably tough. But how do you tell the difference between the top-quality lights Wilderness makes and the cheaper stuff on the market? After all, we’ve all seen bargain-basement LEDs for sale online at what look like giveaway prices.

Are LEDs Right For Your Project?

The future of LED technology is bright as buildings young and old continue to migrate to the environmentally friendly light source. LEDs are rapidly transforming the commercial market as manufacturers continue to unveil products that offer increased brightness, increased reliability, affordability and lifespan. The industry is looking to LEDs for their greatest value – energy and CO2 reduction. Government and green policies which move away from incandescent bulbs and compact fluorescent lamps are helping drive this trend.

Sylvania Launches Zevo LED Retrofit Headlights

LED headlights are becoming increasingly common on high-end new cars, but lighting company Sylvania now offers a way to fit the technology to older rides. Sylvania's Zevo LED lighting line now includes retrofit seven-inch sealed-beam headlights, which fit a variety of cars -- everything from the Jeep Wrangler and the first-generation Mazda Miata, to countless of classic models like the 1965 Ford Mustang shown here.

Iota Engineering's emergency battery pack for LEDs adjusts forward voltage for varying requirements

IOTA has released the ILB-SL-CP Series, a new slim profile integral emergency battery pack for LED applications. The ILB-SL-CP Series introduces four new LED emergency battery models to their existing line of integral LED emergency solutions, and was recognized at the LFI Innovation Awards at this year's LightFair International event.

The ILB-SL-CP design combines several advanced performance features, such as a narrow profile housing ideally suited for LED luminaire designs with limited compartment space, constant power operation for delivering constant wattage to the LED array with no light degradation over the required runtime, and a self-sensing output that adjusts the forward voltage to accommodate varying requirements of the LED system.

Microwaving Light Bulbs Is Genuinely Useful

I love finding new things to put in the microwave. Say, for instance, an incandescent light bulb, which can test your microwave for a number of issues, besides just looking awesome. Even a non-functioning bulb can work, so dig out the dusty old bulbs you have at the back of the closet.

First, find a short juice glass and add some water to it. Put the bulb in the glass like it's a flower in a vase. If the water doesn't cover the metal casing of the bulb, add more water until it does. The water serves two purposes. First, it's very bad for a microwave to be working with nothing, or only very little, inside it. The water soaks up a little of the energy that's going to be bouncing around inside the microwave. The water also covers the metal casing of the light bulb, preventing sparks.

Emberlight lets regular light bulbs join the Internet of Things

Smart lighting requires that either the wiring and infrastructure or the bulbs themselves are able to be connected to the web. Philips hue, LIFX and INSTEON bulbs all take this latter approach, but buying new smart bulbs can be expensive. Emberlight is an adapter designed to make any bulb smart without the expense. Like Spark, the Emberlight sits between a light fitting and a bulb and connects to the user's Wi-Fi network to allow the remote control of the light from a smartphone, tablet, or computer.

GVMC mulls switching over to LED streetlights

The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) has mooted a proposal of illuminating all streets in the city with light emitting diode (LED) lights with an eye on saving energy and cutting costs. And if all goes as pwer plan, all 96,000 sodium vapour streetlights will be replaced with LEDs in a phased manner. The Union ministry of urban development will be financially assisting GVMC in taking up the project in the public private partnership (PPP) mode. However, the proposal is still at the discussion stage and GVMC plans to only cover the existing 72 wards falling under six zones, excluding the newly-merged Bheemili and Anakapalle.

Razer Intros Chroma Peripherals With Adjustable Color LEDs

Razer announced its new Chroma feature, which is a combination of both software and hardware to customize your peripherals. The company is touting three new devices: the BlackWidow Ultimate Chroma, the DeathAdder Chroma, and the Kraken 7.1 Chroma. We don't know much about the products themselves yet, but it is safe to assume that the biggest difference from their non-Chroma counterparts will be the LED color customizability.

New Albany collector sees value in old lamps

Bill Lohmeyer drove and drove and drove some more to a 14-hour auction of old lamps in Illinois. Then he drove and drove and drove some more back to New Albany, without the lamp he most wanted. Lohmeyer bowed finally from the bidding at $1,300, twice the limit he had promised himself. Determined to take the rare prize, the winner went $25 higher. Such is love, war and big-time collecting. "And that's not the first time that's happened," Lohmeyer said. "(But) I haven't let many things get by me."

SemiLEDs Releases Complete 80mil EV LED Chip Family

SemiLEDs Corporation announced sampling and volume availability of a complete line of 80x80mil rugged metal LED chips, including white, blue, and UV variations. The EV-80mil family allows packagers and integrators a wider variety of high-efficiency/high-output choices to address the growing number of applications in both the commercial lighting and industrial spaces. With the new family, a single 80x80mil device will typically replace four 40x40mil LED chips, which simplifies packaging and optical designs, while minimizing color fringing and shadow effects common to multi-chip implementations. SemiLEDs EV family, which combines vertical LED architectures with rugged copper-alloy substrates, has proven to be especially well-suited for handling the increased thermal and electrical demands of large-chip implementations.

Mark Tuttle, General Manager for SemiLEDs Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., commented, "Applications in commercial and residential lighting, along with UV industrial applications, share the common challenge of achieving high output in compact form-factors, in the most cost-effective manner. SemiLEDs' unique vertical-metal architectures allow these devices to be driven hard, without compromising either their stability or reliability, allowing packagers and integrators to deliver maximum optical power from extremely small package or chip-on-board footprints." Mr. Tuttle continued, "The EV-80mil line is also able to deliver substantial versatility, including die-level white options that incorporate SemiLEDs' proprietary ReadyWhite™ phosphor coating technology, which minimizes blue-leakage and delivers impressive levels of color uniformity with tight binning options for low-profile and multi-color white packaged LEDs."

The new EV-80mil ReadyWhite chips incorporate SemiLEDs' proprietary phosphor technology, and when packaged in a typical 5x5mm ceramic package, can be expected to deliver up to 1200 lumens at 3A. They are available in correlated color temperatures (CCTs) ranging from 2600 to 10,000K with color rendering indices from a minimum 65 to a minimum of 90, after packaging. Combined with their vertical LED chip architecture, SemiLEDs' ReadyWhite solutions deliver a package-ready white chip to COB, single-die or multi-die packaging applications, eliminating requirements for sophisticated and costly phosphor manufacturing technology. When driven with currents below 1.0A, with the 80mil ReadyWhite chips deliver up to 145 cool white lumens per watt in typical package configurations, and are suited for such applications as outdoor street or area lighting, or heavy duty flashlights/torches.

The 80mil blue chips are available in standard wavelengths from 445 to 460nm, with options up to 470nm additionally available upon request, and deliver up to 4000mW of optical power at 450nm in typical ceramic packaging. As single-chip implementations, the ReadyWhite and blue chips are ideally suited to narrow beam pattern kilolumen applications that benefit from simplified optics and compact emitter sizes, including projectors, MR/GU/PAR spotlights, and automotive front lighting. The reduced chip count from the larger devices also simplifies system architectures for high-bay and other multi-die kilolumen applications.

EasyBulb Plus Brings Color and Multi-Functionality to Bulbs

The future of lighting is no longer the future, it is here now. Due to the new Easybulb Plus bulb that allows lighting control on mobile devices by way of WiFi; lighting will exceed what Thomas Edison and many consumers ever expected. With this brainchild of Gigateq Limited, people can elect white or various colors in the palette spectrum, set the timer function, set time-elapsed dimming, give voice commands, get phone call alerts, sync music with lighting, and more. With an iOS or Android mobile phone with 3G or 4G capabilities and the app, these bulbs put power in the owner's hands - both remotely and locally. Earth-friendly, the bulbs are enduring low heat generators.

The pigment rich color capabilities allow a user to match the room color to their mood and temperament. While on vacation, owners of these bulbs can potentially thwart burglars and intruders by turning the lights on from thousands of miles away. Voice control capabilities enable color control, brightness control and activating the on and off switch with the built-in app.

Bulb owners choose individual light control or group light control in a seamless fashion. Hospitals, DJs, offices, pubs, restaurants and other businesses join private citizens in using these multi-function bulbs.

Surya eyes Rs 1,800 cr turnover from lighting biz

Surya Roshni aims a turnover of Rs 1,800 crore from its lighting division in the next four years. The company, which has recently forayed into the light emitting diode (LED) segment, is expecting a good traction from the new business. "We are eyeing a turnover of Rs 1,800 crore from the lighting division in coming 3-4 years," Surya Roshni Managing Director B Raju told PTI.

Better options are available to replace incandescent light bulb

Which LED bulb is best? I experimented with a few brands to see if I could suss out differences. To compare apples to apples, I tested only LED bulbs that aim to replicate the classic 60-watt/800 lumen incandescent bulb. A little spec-splaining: Watts measure energy use, lumens measure brightness. A typical incandescent needs 60 watts to produce 800 lumens, for a lumens-to-watt ratio of 13.3. By contrast, most CFLs use only 14-15 watts to get to 800 lumens — for a much better lumens-to-watt ratio that’s up in the 50s. Even better are the LED bulbs I sampled: They emit 800 lumens but require just 9 or 10 watts to do it, for a lumens-to-watt ratio that’s way up around 80. Less juice, same brightness.

Bike Light that is Exceptionally Bright is Now Available from Divine LEDs

Divine LEDs, a lighting company that offers a wide selection of top-quality bike lights, flashlights and other products, has just announced the release of a new and innovative bike light. To celebrate the launch of the new bicycle light—which is available on the company’s Amazon page—Divine LEDs is offering their customers a coupon code, PRS30OFF, which will save them 30 percent off.  To redeem the coupon code, customers simply need to follow the instructions at this link: http://divineleds.com/proff.html

As the founders of Divine LEDs know quite well, having a bike light is crucial for nighttime bicycle riding or in inclement weather when visibility is low. Sadly, many people have been injured because their bike was not properly lit and drivers could not see them before it was too late.

Described as the “best, brightest and the most effective bike light on Amazon,” the LED light will help make bicycles more visible to others. As a bonus, the light comes with a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee, and for a limited time, customers will also receive a free taillight with their order.

Infectious assigned Elkoha LED's creative duties

Infectious has been signed on as the communications partner for Elkoha, the LED lighting brand of Tamura Elcomponics Technologies. Tamura is an Indo-Japanese joint venture between Elcomponics India and Tamura Group, Japan. Elcomponics Group believes in using technology innovatively and responsibly to create a humane luminescent ecosystem for a better and brighter tomorrow. On awarding the business to Infectious, Shivendra Dwivedi, Director, Tamura Elcomponics Tech said, “We want Elkoha to become a preferred name in the LED lighting space and needed people with who could look at this category as a clean slate. We feel Infectious, led by Ramanuj and Nisha, will be able to give articulation to our business vision.”

East Hartford council approves changeover of 5,000 streetlights to LEDs

The Town Council has authorized the town to enter into an agreement to retrofit 5,000 streetlights to cut energy costs, but declined to use the savings to buy new generators at two of the town’s schools. The council agreed to a seven-year lease-purchase agreement with Ameresco Inc., North America’s largest independent energy service company, which will cost an estimated $3.1 million.

Japanese Broadcaster Uses LEDs for Underwater TV Transmission

Japan’s public broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) wants to broadcast live TV from under the water, but it’s been tripped up by that pesky cable that transfers the camera’s data to the surface. So engineers there are developing an underwater wireless transmission system that uses visible light from LEDs as the method of transmission. Their goal is to enable wireless live underwater TV broadcasting.