“L-E-D”. When it comes to lighting, you’re hearing these three letters again and again… you view it posted around lighting websites, and its needs to bug you. It seems to be a thrilling new trend…some type of new innovative light…nevertheless, you do not know what it is. You would like to know what everybody’s talking about- what’s extremely popular?
LED’s – Light Emitting Diodes – To put it simply, LED’s are diodes that…(huh?) hold on, I’ll explain: a diode may be the simplest sort of semiconductor device. (what’s that?) wow, you’re impatient: A semi-conductor is a material with the ability to conduct electrical current. Basically, rather than emitting light from a vacuum (as in an incandescent bulb) or perhaps a gas (as in a CFL), LED emits light from a piece of solid matter, its semi-conductor. Stated very simply, an LED produces light when electrons move around within its semiconductor structure.
office lighting types let you know when to avoid and go. They will have ruled your driving, saved your daily life countless times, and that little red man made you wait around till you were in a position to cross the street. That is right – the red, yellow and green on the traffic lights are Led lights right in front of your nose. Actually, Light Emitting Diodes have already been around for some time, conceptualized in 1907. However, it wasn’t until the 1960s that practical applications were found and LED’s were first manufactured. LED was previously used exclusively for traffic signals, brake lights and headlights on luxury cars, and indicator lights on appliances.
You probably didn’t even know that LED lights were lighting up your digital clocks, flashlights and telling you when you’ve got a fresh voice message on your cell phone. Expensive in the beginning, as applications grew, benefits were discovered and manufacturing costs went down. According to the American Lighting Association (ALA), lighting manufacturers have invested time and effort, effort and research into adapting this super energy-efficient technology for household use. The technology has advanced enough to win approval from the government’s popular and well-respected Energy Star� program. So here’s why:
They do more for less. LED’s are efficient-producing lots of light from the little power. For example, one 5-watt LED can produce more light (measured in lumens) than one standard 75-watt incandescent bulb. The 5-watt LED could do the job of the 75-watt incandescent at 1/15 of the energy consumption. LED’s save energy and, therefore, money. This is because in LED lights, 90% of energy is converted into light, during incandescent bulbs 90% of energy would go to heat and only 10% to visible light.
They go longer. LED is virtually free of maintenance – they don’t really have a filament that will burn out, so that they last much longer. A standard “long life” household bulb will burn for about 2,000 hours. An LED can have a useful lifespan around 100,000 hours! By some sources, LED’s can last so long as 40 years. Imagine not having to change a lamp for years. There are LED products available this season that will make frequent lamp changes so 20th century.
How it really works… (skip this part unless you really care) Light is a form of energy that may be released by an atom. It is comprised of many small particle-like packets, called photons, which are the most basic units of light. LED’s are specially constructed to release numerous photons outward.When a power charge strikes the semiconductor, a little electrical current, that is measured by watts (oh! so that’s what they mean by ‘has low wattage’!) is passed through the semiconductor material. this causes the electrons to move around, become “excited” and present off photons. Almost all of the energy emitted is light energy.
Within an ordinary diode, such as for example incandescent bulbs, the semiconductor material itself eventually ends up absorbing a lot of the light energy so that it produces more heat energy than light energy.That is completely wasted energy, unless you’re using the lamp as a heater, because a huge portion of the available electricity isn’t going toward producing visible light. LED’s generate very little heat, relatively speaking. A much higher percentage of the electrical power is going directly to generating light, which cuts down on the electricity demands considerably. As you can see in the diagram,they’re housed in a plastic bulb that concentrates the light in a specific direction. Most of the light from the diode bounces off the sides of the bulb, traveling on through the rounded end.
They are an improved buy (in the end). Until recently, LED’s were very costly to use for some lighting applications because they’re built around advanced semiconductor material. The price of semiconductor devices has plummeted in the last decade, however, making LED’s a far more cost-effective lighting option for a variety of situations. While they may be more costly than incandescent lights up front, a 60-watt LED replacement bulb runs in your community of $100, and even the lower-output versions, useful for things such as spot lighting, will definitely cost between $40 and $80.
That’s in comparison to a $1 incandescent and a $2 fluorescent bulb.The truth is, even at $100 for an individual bulb, LEDs will end up saving money in the long term, because you only need one or two every decade and you also spend less overall on home lighting, that may take into account about 7 percent of one’s electric bill [source: Greener Choices]. But don’t worry, the scary price you need to pay upfront won’t last too much time, the lighting industry in general expects LED costs to come down quickly. Lighting Science Group, an organization that develops and manufactures LED lighting, estimates a 50 percent price reduction within 2 yrs.
