- Standardisation a way forward for LED devices.
A key concern amongst many Lighting manufacturers is the lack of standards in LED lighting technology. This starts at device level, when if you pick a particular LED device and design the associated hardware - PCB's, optics, drivers - it becomes an expensive exercise to then swap to an alternative LED - which may offer an improved performance, and reduced costs.
Those cheeky chinese manufacturers Edison Opto have answered those concerns and launched the Edixeon - FEDRAL which to my eyes looks very similar to the Luxeon - REBEL.
The marketing team has even followed a similar theme in the product naming
Some say that the price of the Fedral may be significantly less than the Rebel, and that it's now widely available - well that's one difference at least !
Now who's the real rebel in all this..
Do users of this "cheeky" manufacturer's products have to worry about Philip's sending a cadre of lawyers to cry foul over patent violations? What does "cheeky" mean anyway...
There's one thing having similar packaging/pin outs but surely it's how the device performs that actually matters ? Many 'early adoptors' of power LEDs have discovered that LEDs did not deliver quite what the manufacturers promised !
Some very careful reading of the manufacturers datasheets is required and it is here that you will often discover 'big' differences in devices that may look similar to each other. As a 'rule of thumb', the best devices usually have the best datasheets !
I've had to design a few light engines to all operate from the same standard LED control/drive board, it's just a minor inconvenience really. Some more user friendly pinouts would be helpful on the multi die devices to assist with heat dissipation.