In the next few years, the shift to LED lighting will be huge. LED lights will capture 60% of the world’s demand for new lighting, and the shift will be motivated not only by a global response to climate change, but especially by the economic benefits of LED lights. With favourable economics of LED lights and market acceptance shooting up, huge business opportunities will open up for the LED manufacturers, integrators, designers and traders, worldwide. Initially used as status and indicator lamps, high-brightness LEDs have emerged within the last few years, but only recently have they been seriously looked upon as a feasible option in general purpose lighting applications.
Before one recommends or installs LED lighting system, one should understand the basic LED technology and the LED lighting system. By using LED lights, you can save up to 90% energy if you compare with the traditional incandescent bulbs or halogen bulbs. LED bulbs or tubes have a much superior life span, as they last for about 10,000 hours compared to a traditional bulb which usually has a life span of only 1,000 hours. Now let’s compare LED bulbs with the CFL bulbs, which are also considered as low energy lights, even a few years back. However, on comparison, we will see that LED lights have many advantages and clearly stand out as the most efficient light. For example, when you switch on an LED light, it will instantly light up without any flicker and will give full illumination. On the other hand, a CFL bulb will still be warming up. Today, LED lighting can also be made to produce a variety of different colour temperatures and these bulbs come with high quality of light called colour rendering. However, consumers need to know and understand that LED lights vary massively in quality. So, a buyer should understand and check a few technical features while purchasing LED lights. Quality is absolutely key with LED lights as you will spend a higher amount on them as compared to the traditional lights. Even if you have to spend a little more, go for the best quality LED lights to get a headache-free performance. It will also last for years, and save you money.
The most important aspect to check quality is to understand and check its heat dissipation aspect. Mostly consumers believe that LED bulbs don’t get warm. Although, this is a misconception, LED bulbs don’t get as hot as incandescent bulbs, but as power goes into the LEDs, they do produce heat. Hence, this heat needs to be drawn out of the LEDs. LEDs cannot throw out this heat on its own the way incandescent bulbs do. As a result, a heat sink is used to draw out this heat from the LEDs. This heat sink is placed at the bottom of the bulb, which absorbs the heat produced and then dissipates into the surrounding environment. Here the role of the heat sink is very important. If it doesn’t do its job efficiently, the LED bulb will get overheated and can even burn out. Also, design of the heat sink is also very important and detriments the lifespan of the LED bulb. So an LED bulb requires an efficient thermal management to ensure that the LED bulb’s Lifespan enhances. To make LED bulbs more efficient, manufacturers make efforts to innovate and try out different designs for heat sinks. With the variation of designs of heat sinks, the look of the LED bulbs change. Hence, different brands have LED bulbs with different appearance. For example, some have metal fins on some LEDs higher end LEDs have aluminium fins or ceramic heat sinks. Ceramic fins are more effective than metal heat sinks because they possess tiny pores and help in easy dissipation of heat compared to the metal ones. Ceramic heat sinks also have low thermal capacity, but with more surface area loss of heat into the surrounding environment maximizes. So, better quality LED bulbs usually have ceramic or aluminium heat sinks.
The chip used for converting electricity to light is equally important for the quality of the LED bulb. If the quality of the chip is not superior, it will generate more heat inside the bulb, and consequently, it will not last long. Manufacturers who are conscious about quality use chips from reputed brands that generate less heat and convert more energy to light. The quality of the chip set used. Since you will pay a good amount for LED bulbs, it is good to question about the chip and its brand as well.
The power driver plays an important role as it regulates the power that enters the LEDs, ensuring that the LED bulb functions optimally and does not get overheated. If you choose an MR16 LED bulb, the power driver is not inbuilt inside the build, it is found either in the fitting or in the light switch. GU10s, on the other hand, have inbuilt drivers and therefore they do not need any external devices. But it is advisable to buy an LED bulb, which has an inbuilt power driver.
While halogen and incandescent bulbs usually produce warm white light, LED lights are found in many different colours known as the color temperature. Some consumers want to replicate the colour temperature produced by a halogen bulb, for them, a warm/daylight colored LED bulb is suitable. Office spaces, on the other hand, should have cool light bulbs.
Beside colour temperature, LED bulbs are found in varying brightness? This can be judged with lumens. While purchasing LED bulbs compare lumens to ensure you are getting the right amount of light or the right level of brightness. For decades, we were buying lights by checking how much energy they consume (watts), and we never considered how much light they produced (lumens). Lumens measure how much light we get from a bulb. More lumens means brighter light, and fewer lumens means dimmer light. So when you buy LED bulbs, think lumens, not watts. For example, an equivalent 5w LED GU10 spotlight can replace a 50w halogen GU10 spotlight, which means if you go for lower wattage, you can achieve massive energy savings from LED bulbs. You need to ensure that the lumens are similar between the two types of bulbs? The new one and the existing one to make sure you are getting the same type of light intensity.
Besides brightness and color of the bulb, consumers also want that the lights should reflect the true color of the object it is illuminating. This is called colour rendering, which is the ability of the LED bulb to give a true reflection of the colours of the object it is illuminating. As a result, the higher the colour rendering index the closer to daylight the bulb is, and we all know that daylight portrays objects perfectly as it has a CRI of 100%. If you use a certain LED light for longer hours, then you should go for an LED bulb with a CRI of 80+. But if you use a bulb for just emergency lighting, then it can be sub 80. With higher CRI of the bulb, the price of the bulb goes up, so it is smart to go for a mix of bulbs with higher CRI and some with lower CRI.
Beam angle is the angle between the two planes of light where the intensity is at least 50% of the maximum intensity at centre beam. The average beam angle of most LED lights is 25, which works well for most cases. Hence, it is essential to check the beam angle of the LED bulb. If you are switching from halogen spotlights to LED spotlights, checking the beam angle is even more important so that you do not feel uncomfortable. Halogens produce a wider angled light. So if you simply shift from a 35 degree angle bulb for an equivalent LED bulb, it will give you a very narrow angle of light. For example, if you have low ceilings and you want the light to spread evenly across the room, then you should look for a wide 100+ degree angled LED bulb. If you have a high ceiling and you need a narrower and focused light, go for a lower angle beam.
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