July 2009 Archives

LED illuminated message boards

By Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 29, 2009 10:38 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
LED message boards.jpgThis one caught my eye over the weekend - LED illuminated message boards, which automatically switch hand-drawn sketches into a light show. Think Etch-a-Sketch with a phychelic twist.

As Engadget writes:
While our tot-hood was filled with low-end luxuries like Etch A Sketch and Lite-Brite, our offspring are expanding their minds with things like the LED Illuminated Message Board. Much like a traditional dry erase board, those with the appropriate pens can simply draw up whatever they please on the white display, but flip a switch and the whole thing goes psychoactive.
See LED Illuminated Message Board makes ordinary messages psychedelic

OLEDs with color temp spectrum of sunlight - Update

By Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 22, 2009 1:17 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
29jul09sunlight 168.jpgWe briefly flagged, very recently, research carried out at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, into organic LEDs with a full range of colour temperatures. They were capable of copying the full spectrum of sunlight throughout the day (2500 K - 8000 K) - Taiwan researchers create OLEDs with color temp spectrum of sunlight

Our Technology Editor, Steve Bush, got on the case to dig further into this work, and explain more about it. Make sure you read the resulting article - Voltage tunes OLED across all sunlight hues

The article begins:
Continue reading OLEDs with color temp spectrum of sunlight - Update.

World's first liquid-cooled LED light bulb?

By Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 20, 2009 11:47 AM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks
eternaleds - hydralux 4 LED.jpgThis one caught my eye over the weekend - Eternaleds is claiming the world's first liquid-cooled LED light bulb, the HydraLux-4.

Apparently the comapny claims "that these bulbs produce "360 degree lighting" and can emit the same amount of illumination as a 25W incandescent with just 4W of energy."

Thanks to Engadget for this one.

Taiwan researchers create OLEDs with color temp spectrum of sunlight

By Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 17, 2009 10:02 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
An interesting OLED development to note - from EDN's PowerSource blog by Margery Conner:
Researchers at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan have developed organic LEDs (OLEDs) with a full range of color temperatures capable of mimicking the full spectrum of sunlight throughout the day (2500 K - 8000 K), making the technology especially useful for lighting in northern countries.
As the researchers explain, changing the voltage varies the color temperature by increasing the number of electrons and holes transported between certain layers. For example, at 3 volts, the illumination is predominantly red, at 5.5 volts it turns to pure white, and at 9 volts becomes bluish white."
See Researchers develop OLEDs with color temp spectrum of sunlight

Site update: Power LED driver works from 8 to 450V

By Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 13, 2009 4:08 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Supertex has introduced a power LED driver that works from 8-450V, requiring only one external mosfet and a handful of passives, writes our Technology Editor, Steve Bush. Dubbed HV9961, it provides current accuracy of +/-3% and requires no loop compensation or high-side current sensing because of Supertex' proprietary average-mode control scheme.

The IC features hiccup-mode LED short-circuit protection and both linear and PWM dimming.

Read the full article - Supertex power LED driver works from 8 to 450V

Robotic Orb Swarm

By Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 13, 2009 3:16 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
orb swarm.jpg
Thanks to Maikerfaire.com for this one.
SWARM is a kinetic art work of semi-autonomous spherical robots ("Orbs"). Each robot has a shell 30 inches in diameter, with batteries, motors, audio system and color LED illumination inside. The SWARM is under the command of an on-board computer with wireless connectivity to other orbs and a central computer.
SWARM is built to explore the aesthetic possibilities in the emergent behavior of artificial systems. As a first step, Orbs are remote-controlled by human operators, but each Orb's sounds and color illumination is algorithmically generated in response to location and motion.
See the video after the break.

Continue reading Robotic Orb Swarm.
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Author Profiles

Paul Ward
As Opto Product Manager at Farnell, Paul is overseeing the company's involvement in the rapidly evolving and high profile LED lighting market sector.

As well as ensuring that Farnell offers the latest technologies and products related to solid state lighting, Paul is also responsible for ensuring that the resources are in place to make it easier for design engineers to specify and design-in LED solutions for their applications.

Educated in Production Engineering and Design at Sheffield Hallam University, Paul has worked in various engineering, training and marketing roles for companies including C&K switches, ITT Cannon, Cherry and LED specialist Chicago Miniature Lighting.

Away from the world of LEDs, Paul is a Founder of the charity RTTW, Photographer and Harley Davidson rider; he has ridden and snapped across Europe, New Zealand and the USA on his chrome hog!

Gordon Routledge
Gordon Routledge is one of the original pioneers in LED illumination having worked with LEDs in illumination applications since 1996. Currently VP of Illumination at Dialight, Gordon founded Lumidrives in 2001, having previously been managing director at ACDC Lighting Systems. Gordon has a degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from university of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

Ian Bryant
ian bryant.jpgIan Bryant is Business Development Manager LED Division at Carclo Technical Plastics. He has worked on and off at Carclo (Formerly Combined Optical Industrial) since leaving school. He has worked through the company from Toolmaking to starting the company on the road of LED optics business some 6-7 years ago, starting with a standard range and more in line with the business of custom optics. In between all this he has worked in engineering and as a works Director for a hydraulics company but kept getting pulled back to the optics industrial. We are able to offer the full solution from idea to parts so have a very good understanding on what is needed. You will see some posts from our design team also under my name.

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This page is an archive of entries from July 2009 listed from newest to oldest.

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