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LED generic.jpgLED Lighting guides

Here in one neat package is our collection of key LED lighting articles, covering white LEDs, coloured LEDs, OLEDs and Lighting LEDs...

* White LEDs

* Coloured LEDs

* LED Lighting (1)

* LED Lighting (2)

* LEDs General

* LED Optics

* OLEDs

* Costing LEDs

* LED heatsinking

* 50 year history of the LED

CRIBridgelux has released an LED family with a colour rendering index of 97, writes Steve Bush.

Branded Decor, the multi-die devices deliver 1,200 to 2,500 lumens and "these arrays have been spectrally engineered to closely replicate the light quality of halogen and incandescent light sources", said the firm. "Decor is optimised for demanding applications such as retail, hospitality, museums and high-end architectural lighting."

As well as achieving CRI=97 with the industry-standard eight colour sample set (R1-R8), they also score high on the extended colour sample set.
chameleon LED.jpgJust so ever slightly creepy, maybe - but a bit of fun to highlight on a Friday. Yes, it's an LED Chameleon. Or Chameleon LED...

Check out "Huey the Colour Copying Chameleon Lamp", it'll set you back $29.99 from ThinkGeek.com.
"How does Huey do it? Well, he lights the surface underneath him with two hidden white LEDs then uses a sophisticated optical sensor to determine the correct colour. He then matches this colour by adjusting the shade of numerous multi-color LED's imbedded in his body. Huey is truly a toy of the future. Five years ago the colour sensing technology he uses was too expensive for consumer products and was featured mainly in scientific measuring devices. Now you can leverage this cool tech for your own frivolous pleasure and ThinkGeek is proud to assist you in your noble quest."
Here's one not to miss. In conjunction with our 50th anniversary issue, Technology Editor Steve Bush has produced a history of the LED.

He begins:
Back in 1960 Electronics Weekly was born into a ferment of III-V semiconductor research that within two years would produce the first practical LED.

In 1960 Dr Nick Holonyak of General Electric was developing an unusual material, GaAsP, as a route to wide bandgap tunnel diodes.
Osram has stacked two die to produce almost 1W of infra red light from an LED, writes our technology editor, Steve Bush.

"With its 1mm2 thin-film chip stack, at a driving current of 1A it generates almost twice the output of the standard chips that have been used up to now," claimed Osram.

"Preferred applications are those which require high radiance so that small optics can be used. This is important, for example, in pedestrian protection systems and night vision systems in vehicles."

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:
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

magnetic ball lamp 2.jpgCheck this out.

Described as the Magnetic 4-Ball Color Changing Lamp, it does pretty much what it says on the tin: it features four magnetically attached balls with LED lights inside that change colors.

Thanks to Craziest Gadgets for flagging this one - it states the balls are removable and adjustable with magnets and are powered by the low voltage power rod in the middle.
LEDs are further challenging incandescents - a lighting product has been announced with a colour rendering index (CRI) of 92, putting it amongst incandescents for colour quality.

"The LRP-38 generates a CRI of 92 at a colour temperature of 2,700K. The tightly-focused beam delivers a centre beam candlepower of 4,000 with a beam angle of 20 degrees," said Cree. "This light is designed to replace 50-90W halogen PAR38 bulbs in various applications."

Input power is 12W - with the firm claiming a total delivered minimum efficacy of 42 lm/Watt.
yourfile.jpgAnother LED development story, from the News index:
LEDs are further challenging incandescents as LED maker Cree has announced a lighting product with a colour rendering index (CRI) of 92, putting it amongst incandescents for colour quality.
Read the full article >>

Also, check out:

LED Lighting guides

See also Electronics Weekly's roundup of content related to LEDs, with a special focus on both white LEDs and coloured LEDs, and Lighting LEDs.

* White LEDs

* Coloured LEDs

* LED Lighting (1)

* LED Lighting (2)

* LEDs General

* LED optics

* OLEDs

* Costing LEDs

* 50 year history of the LED








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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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