Mr Beams

Why Use LEDs

• LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes) are approximately 10 times more efficient than incandescents bulbs at turning energy into light.
• LEDs produce more light per watt than do incandescent bulbs; this is useful in battery powered or energy-saving devices.
• LEDs can emit light of an intended color without the use of color filters that traditional lighting methods require. This is more efficient and can lower initial costs.
• The solid package of an LED can be designed to focus its light. Incandescent and fluorescent sources often require an external reflector to collect light and direct it in a usable manner.
• When used in applications where dimming is required, LEDs do not change their color tint as the current passing through them is lowered, unlike incandescent lamps, which turn yellow.
• LEDs are ideal for use in applications that are subject to frequent on-off cycling, unlike fluorescent lamps that burn out more quickly when cycled frequently.
• LEDs, being solid state components, are difficult to damage with external shock. Fluorescent and incandescent bulbs are easily broken if dropped on the ground.
• LEDs have an extremely long life span. One manufacturer has calculated the ETTF (Estimated Time To Failure) for their LEDs to be between 100,000 and 1,000,000 hours. Fluorescent tubes typically are rated at about 10,000 hours, and incandescent light bulbs at 1,000-2,000 hours.
• LEDs mostly fail by dimming over time, rather than the abrupt burn-out of incandescent bulbs.
• LEDs light up very quickly. A typical red indicator LED will achieve full brightness in microseconds; LEDs used in communications devices can have even faster response times.
• LEDs can be very small and are easily populated onto printed circuit boards.
• LEDs do not contain mercury, as compact fluorescent lamps do.

Watts VS. Lumens

Light Output — Making sure it is bright enough

LED AND LIGHTING TERMINOLOGY

Bulb

It is not a LED. A bulb is a light bulb, a flashlight bulb, a MR16 or E27 light bulb. A LED light bulb is a finished product that has the LEDs installed, electrical components installed and is ready to be used by the consumer. A LED light bulb is screwed in place, twisted and locked in place, pressed into sockets or contact terminals. This is a LED bulb.

Color Rendering Index (CRI)

Also CCT or Correlated Color Temperature. It is a measure of the quality of light. It is a measurement of the amount of color shift that objects undergo when lighted by a light source as compared with the color of those same objects when seen under a reference light source of comparable color temperature. LED light CRI values generally range from 60 (average) to 90 (best). High CRI equates to sharper, crisper, more natural colored pictures while at the same time reducing glare.

Color Temperature

A measure of the color of a light source relative to a black body at a particular temperature expressed in degrees Kelvin (K). Incandescent lights have a low color temperature (approximately 2800K) and have a red-yellowish tone; daylight has a high color temperature (approximately 6000K) and appears bluish (the most popular fluorescent light, Cool White, is rated at 4100K). Lamps with color temperatures below 5000K tend to be more yellow/red, lamps rated between 5000 and 6000K are viewed as white, while lamps above 6000K tend to have a blue cast.

Foot-Candle

The unit is defined as the amount of illumination the inside surface of an imaginary 1-foot radius sphere would be receiving if there were a uniform point source of one candela in the exact center of the sphere. Basically, it is the amount of light that a single candle would provide to a 1ft. radius sphere.

L.E.D.

LED means light emitting diode. LEDs are a solid state device and do not require heating of a filament to create light. Rather, electricity is passed through a chemical compound that is excited and as a result, generates light.

LEDs are not bulbs or lamps in the true sense of the word and application. LEDs require a lot of work to make them ready to be used by the consumer. They need to be placed on a circuit board or other material which will allow electricity to pass through it at a specific voltage and current, and with components required to operate them at specific voltages such as 12vdc, 24vdc or 120vac. They do not come ready to plug into a 12volt or 120 volt power source. These are LEDs.

Lumen Maintenance

How well a LED light bulb is able to retain its intensity when compared to new. Typically a high power smd LED bulb will retain 70% of its intensity for 40,000-50,000 hours. That means a good quality LED bulb will run 8 hours a day for 13 years at 70% of its new condition. No other light source can do this.

Lumens

The unit of luminous flux in the International System, equal to the amount of light given out through a solid angle by a source of one candela intensity radiating equally in all directions. Used to measure light bulbs as stand alone light sources. Lighting fixtures are measured by lux output which is lumens per square meter.

Lux

Typically used to measure the light intensity produced by a lighting fixture. The higher the lux reading the more light the lighting fixture is producing over a given area. Known as lumens per square meter.

SSL

SSL means Solid State Lighting. It does not use heating of a thin fragile filament to create light. Rather, it uses electrical current passing through a chemical which will get excited and thus emit light.

Waterproof

Meaning the LED product can be submerged into calm water but there is a limited depth as stated for each specific product. Most aluminum bodied LED products will not do well in salt or acidic water.

Watts

The unit for measuring electrical power. It defines the rate of energy consumption by an electrical device when it is in operation. The energy cost of operating an electrical device is calculated as its wattage times the hours of use. In single phase circuits, it is related to volts and amps by the formula: Volts x Amps x PowerFactor = Watts.

Watt per LED

It can be confusing when two watt numbers are used in product specifications. For the application to smd high powered LEDs, the 1 watt, 3 watt, 5 watt, etc, refers to the power consumption of that specific LED installed in that product. The watt numbers expressed as light output are a comparison to an incandescent light bulb light output, for example; a 60 watt light output is equal to a 60 watt incandescent light bulb.

Weatherproof

Meaning the product will take water splashing and high humidity without deterioration to the LED or circuit. LED product cannot be submerged into water.

White

White is defined by Kelvin Temperature or Degrees Kelvin. Most will say that a Kelvin Temperature of 6000k plus is white with a bluish tint. And let's say that 5000k -5500k is daylight/sunlight white. At 4200k-4500k, it is called cool white. At 2800-3300k, it's warm white, which is the color temperature most incandescent light bulbs emit.

From 5500k on down the scale, the color becomes "warmer" due to the dominance of red and yellow hues. In the opposite direction, whites will have cooler colors like blues and green becoming more apparent, thus they are called cool whites.