LED Luminaries

LED Engin has announced LED light engines with integral connectors that eliminate soldering during the assembly, writes Steve Bush.

The poke-home connectors accept 18-24AWG wires to terminate the metal-core PCBs inside LED fixtures.

With a common 50mm footprint, the LuxiGen LZC 12 die and LZP 24 die emitters can be driven up to 1A and the boards feature mounting holes for LuxiGen TIR lens-holder legs for integration with secondary optics.

"There are mounting-screw cut-outs to facilitate attachment of a heatsink. The boards include one connector for the LED and one for an on-board thermistor to be used with common constant current sources with thermal feedback option," said the firm.

Lumileds has announced Luxeon M, aimed at outdoor lighting, writes Steve Bush.

With an 8mm² emission area producing 900 lm at 700mA (Tj=85°C Vf=12V) from its 8W package, application in high-bay lighting is also expected.

It will be released in three different colour temperatures: 3,000K,
4,000K, and 5,700K each with specified minimum colour rendering index (CRI) of 70.

An economically scalable route to high-volume manufacture of flexible OLED displays is the objective of programme kicked off by two European labs, writes Steve Bush.

"The shared program will bring together partners from across the value chain to tackle challenges such as high resolution, low power consumption, large area, outdoor readability, flexibility and light weight," said Belgium research lab IMEC, which has partnered with Dutch lab Holst Centre.

Even though OLED technology is in its infancy, small rigid displays are already wowing consumers in high-end phones like Samsung's Galaxy.

Nanoco, a UK-based manufacturer of cadmium-free quantum dots, has signed a joint development agreement with a global lighting company which is major producer of LED lighting products, writes Richard Wilson.

The collaboration will see the university spin-out's cadmium-free quantum dots (CFQD) technology used in high volume LED lighting systems.

The Fortronic LED and Lighting Design Forum is a one day event free to engineers. It will be held, next year, at the Williams F1 Conference Centre, Oxford, on 27 March 2012.

Topics covered will include:
* LED colour/heat selection
* Thermal Management
* Driver Electronics
* Optics
* Light measurement & planning
* Applications aimed at Street, Building, Signage and Theatre,
* Light shaping (diffuser, Software Control/automation).

Cree has annouced commercial availability of an LED lighting module which is capable of delivering 80-lumens-per-watt system efficacy combined with CRI greater than 90, writes Richard Wilson.

The modules features the supplier's TrueWhite technology for generating white light with LEDs.

"The new modules make the benefits of Cree TrueWhite Technology affordable and widely available," said Mike Watson, senior director of marketing, Cree LED components.

Mouser Electronics has signed a global distribution agreement with LedLink Optics, the Taiwan-based manufacturer of secondary optics for high-power LEDs, writes Richard Wilson.

In the early days of power LEDs, many lighting firms rushed out solid-state luminaries only to find them failing in service.

The problem was heatsinking. Manufacturers were used to filament bulbs that run hot and are cooled by radiation, and fluorescent tubes that have a huge surface area from which heat convects.

Conductive cooling, the mainstay of electronics, was a black art.