Green LEDs no longer holding back high-power LED projectors?

Producing green LEDs with enough “poop” (output for all you engineering-types ) to allow their use in high-powered projection systems has been a real drag. A company called Goldeneye thinks they have come up with the solution with their patented “light recycling” technology which they claim can produce over an RGB white output over 430 lumens per square-millimeter. That is quite a bit of light from an RGB HP LED module and Goldenye claims it’s an industry record. I don’t doubt it.

Kudos to goldeneye! Very kewl!

Click here to read the article from LEDs Magazine

Technorati Tags: leds , solid-state lighting , lighting industry news , lighting industry market , lighting market , solid-state lighting market , lighting market analysis , global led market , global led news, global lighting industry , global lighting fixtures , global lighting , led technology , leds in the news , record breaking leds, brightest green led module, brightest green led, led projector, led projection lamps, led projection lighting, green led projection lamp, rgb led, rgb led projection lamp, goldeneye

Rogue Epoxy Causes Sticky Situation for Lumileds

LEDs Magazine – Lumileds ditches rogue epoxy, restarts production

First there were rogue waves, made famous by the movie A Perfect Storm and now a bigger threat looms menacingly on the horizon….duh…duh….DUH….ROGUE EPOXY! Ahhhhhhhhhh……..<author runs away screaming>. Rogue epoxy? What the heck, exactly, IS rogue epoxy? Did the epoxy refuse to wash it’s hands after using the mens room? Does it steal from the rich to give to the poor? If you read this article it will go on to say that Lumileds has concluded that a batch of epoxy used to make their TFFC LEDs (used in Luxeon Rebel and Luxeon K2 LEDs), was “contaminated”. Then they refer to the epoxy as “non-conforming” which had the potential to cause the LED dies to prematurely crack. Then they mention that this “rogue epoxy” has been replaced with “fresh supplies”. FRESH supplies…..Is anyone else getting the vibe that nobody was paying attention and the night guy grabbed that old, dented, leaky can of epoxy from 1998 that the Haz-Mat guy’s were supposed to come and collect six months ago and dumped it into the production hopper? Well whatever actually happened, that “rogue epoxy” sure turned out to be expensive. First the production stoppage, then the recall, then all new epoxy (should have done this anyway), and now a host of reliability testing on the quarantined new production before the final release at the end of February. Not to mention the unknown cost in PR.

Would have been cheaper to throw the night guy into the production hopper.

Just kidding

Click the link above to read the whole story from LEDs Magazine

Technorati Tags: leds, led modules, solid-state lighting, high-power leds, high power leds, ultra bright leds, super bright leds, super bright light, luxeon, lumileds, lumiled, TFFC, leuxeon rebel, luxeon k2, lumileds recall, luxeon recall, lumileds production problems, epoxy, led epoxy, contaminated led epoxy, rogue epoxy, flashlight, led flashlight, flash module, flash led, flash led module, bright white led

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Sharp Takes Stab at Multi-Chip LED Modules

Sorry I’ve been away from blogging lately. Great to be back. Well, let’s start out with a neat little piece about Sharp. Sharp has recently introduced a line of LED modules each consisting of 30 LED chips divided into 10 parallel-switched groups of 3 LED chips on an aluminum ceramic substrate. The modules range from standard white to warm white up to what Sharp calls “High Color Rendering” (HCR) modules. These have CRI (Color Rendering Index) of 90. These new modules range in output from 170 lumens for the HCR modules to 280 lumens for the standard white module when driven at 360 mA. I’d like to see how well these can handle being driven to 720 mA on a graphite heat spreader. Anyrate, stated efficiencies are 80 lumens per watt for the standard white down to 50 lumens per watt for the HCR. Stated life cycle is 40,000 hours for all modules in the line.

Now all Sharp has to do is come up with a really spiffy name for these things and they’ll be all set. Maybe, Sharp Light Sabers…no,no,no….Sharp Star-O’s….Sharpeon’s? Super Sharp’s? Sharpstone? Hmmm….

Anyrate, you can check out the entire press release at LEDs Magazine

Technorati Tags: leds , led modules, led technology , leds in the news , warm white leds, color rendering index, cri, high color rendering, sharp leds, shapr microelectronics

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What is the Current Market Price for LED Under Cabinet Lighting

Calling all sales and marketing personnel….Calling all sales and marketing personnel!

Well, sales & marketing personnel in the under cabinet lighting industry anyway.

I want to pose a question to you all: What is the current market price for LED under cabinet lighting? Obviously there is high-end and low-end markets. I am interested in the market price for high-end LED under cabinet lighting. The reason I ask is that my company has a new LED under cabinet lighting fixture called the Illumaled under cabinet lighting system which is now hitting the retail and commercial distribution channels and just as it is, I am hearing buzz that the pricepoint for LED under cabinet lighting which had been about $80 per unit has now fallen to around $40 – $50 per unit. The source of the information had a product that came in at around $80 per unit and had been selling for awhile but sales have dropped dramatically which they suspect was due to the price point drop. I suspect that my source for the information is actually targeting a lower-end market since they mention the installation was for multi-unit housing.

Has anyone heard anything from distribution channels about the current market price for high-end or low-end (if there even is such a thing due to the current cost of LED lighting in general) LED cabinet lighting? What are you hearing out there?

I’m going to try and make this post sticky for awhile to give everyone a chance to see it and comment. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: leds, led modules, led luminaire, led lighting, led luminaire design, led under cabinet lighting, led under-cabinet lighting, led undercabinet lighting, led under cabinet market, marketing leds, led marketing, lighting market, lighting marketing, led sales, led luminaire sales, led market price, led under cabinet lighting market price

Halloween LED Jellyfish Costume

Click to see a picture of this first hand at the Daily DIY Blog

Here’s a cool one for all the DIY’ers out there just in time for Halloween: Make your own LED Jellyfish Costume using some LED rope lights and a translucent plastic salad bowl. Hey it’s weird and neat at the same time! Perfect for Halloween!

Boo!

Technorati Tags: leds, led modules, led rope light, led rope lighting, linear lighting, linear light, color changing light, color cycling light, rgb leds, color leds, light design, designing with light, lighting design, diy, fun projects, kids projects, Halloween project, Halloween costume, Halloween leds, leds for fun, fun with leds, led projects, projects with leds

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LED Display Case Lighting

Here’s a case study (uggh!Pardon the pun) in the works:

Our engineering department and myself would be very interested to get any feedback you might have on tackling the issue of shelf lighting (i.e. under shelf lighting) for product illumination on low-clearance shelves in a display case. The problem is this particular customer wants uniform or near uniform illumination of the top and front face of the product from shelf to shelf when the clearance between shelves is about 10 inches or so. They currently use and are not happy with fluorescent lighting which have a short life cycle in a heated environment and cannot be adjusted for color-temp or dimmed etc… so they want to switch to LEDs. When your product is so close to the lights, what is the best way to spread the illumination across the top and front face? Have any of you done something similar? We have our own thougts on this but would love to get your’s.

Here is a 3D Sketchup render (click to shoot over to my Architectural Lighting blog for a quick article about Sketchup and the Kerkythea Renderer) of the type of case (typical, not exact) this would be employed in:

Click thumnail to view full size image

..and here is the exact same Sketchup 3D model and scene rendered in Kerkythea:

Click thumbnail to view full size image

Technorati Tags: leds, led modules, accent lighting, display case lighting, engineering lighting, light engineering, color changing light, color cycling light, rgb leds, color leds, light design, designing with light, lighting design, led display case lighting, engineering case study, led case study, led projects, projects with leds, sketchup, google sketchup, 3d software, 3d rendering, architectural visualization, visualization software, 3d rendering software, lighting design software, lighting visualization software, kerkythea, kerkythea rendering system, 3d rendering, interior lighting, light modeling, 3d modeling, lighting design tools, 3d engineering, 3d drawing, 3d models

To Hella and Back: LEDs Make an Appearance on BMW

Innovative LED lighting from Hella stars in new BMW 5 Series
Well, this article is a tad old but I figured if I spotlighted Audi, I needed to mention that BMW along with a little help from auto lighting giant, Hella has implemented some neat LED technology into the car’s lighting, specifically ,the 5 series. While it is true that they did not implement LED headlights it is only a matter of time since Audi went and made that jump in the time since this story originally ran back in April. The LED fed light guides for the tail lights are neat. Check it out. Cool!

Technorati Tags: leds, led modules, high-power leds, auto manufacturing, automobile news, car technology, automobile technology, lighting in cars, lights in cars, car lighting, car lights, car tail lamps, car tail lights, auto tail lights, auto tail lamps, breaklights, break lights, car break lights, auto break lights, led car lighting, led car lights, led auto lamps, led auto lights, leds in autos, leds in cars, led tail lamps, led tail lights, led head lights, led head lamps, solid-state tail lamps, solid-state tail lights, bmw 5 series, bmw news, bmw led tail lamps, bmw led tail lights, bmw head lights, bmw head lamps, leds in bmw 5 series, auto industry, car industry, headlight technology, headlamp technology, led technology, leds in the news

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Audi First to Bat with All-LED Headlights

LED Headlights Making Their Way Into The Audi R8
It was only a matter of time that LEDs make their way to the headlights of a car since they have been used as break or marker lights for a while but I do have a few questions after reading this article:

I wonder what the energy consumption of the active “electric ventilators” (i.e. fans) is? Is their consumption factored into the “50 watts” for the dipped beam headlights? On individual LED failure, does the entire headlight “module” have to be replaced? Lets face it, anyone in the industry knows that LEDs are more costly than lamps so I can only assume that the cost for one of these Audi LED headlights is gargantuan. I do agree with the lower voltage requirements statement and the LEDs are more efficient than the halogens or xenon lamps. I am not sure what is meant by “non-wearing design”? Does that mean these things don’t fail? Because that just isn’t true. High-power LEDs (1/2 watt and up) typically have a life-cycle of 10,000 hours down to 2,000 and perhaps even less for the super high-power LEDs (5 watts). Perhaps they mean that LEDs are less prone to failure due to the stresses from driving? That would be a fairly accurate statement although I hope they chose some fairly sturdy, brushless, ball-bearing fans that are dust sealed as I know these things are prone to failure due to vibration and shock.

It will be neat to see where and how the LED headlights show up and how they have progressed from here and where they go after their introduction. Of course, I’ll have to wait until they make their way into econo-cars before I can try them out unless Audi would be so kind as to ship my a test R8?…..Didn’t think so.

Technorati Tags: leds, led modules, high-power leds, auto manufacturing, automobile news, car technology, automobile technology, lighting in cars, lights in cars, car lighting, car lights, car headlamps, car headlights, auto headlights, auto headlamps, breaklights, break lights, car break lights, auto break lights, led car lighting, led car lights, led auto lamps, led auto lights, leds in autos, leds in cars, led headlamps, led headlights, led head lights, led head lamps, solid-state headlamps, solid-state headlights, audi r8, audi news, audi led headlamps, audi led headlights, audi head lights, audi head lamps, leds in audi r8, auto industry, car industry, headlight technology, headlamp technology, led technology, leds in the news

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Cree, Inc. Revenue Drops for Fiscal 2007

Cree’s Many Accomplishments Belie its Financial Results for Fiscal 2007

August 8, 2007…Compound semiconductor and solid state lighting innovator, Cree Inc. of Durham, North Carolina USA, reported its financial results for fiscal 2007. The yearly revenue for fiscal 2007 decreased 7 percent compared to the revenue for fiscal 2006 dropping from $423 million for fiscal 2006 to $394.1 million for fiscal 2007. The GAAP net income for fiscal 2007, $57.3 million was also down compared to $76.7 million during fiscal 2006.

During the fiscal year the company completed the acquisition of Cotco, a supplier of high brightness packaged LEDs based in China. The company made available XLamp LEDs with a minimum luminous flux of 100 lumens at 350 mA. Additionally, both the city of Raleigh, North Carolina USA, and Toronto Canada became the first and second cities to join the company’s “LED City” program.

“Fiscal 2007 was a challenging but successful year for Cree as we made great strides in our transformation from an LED chip and SiC materials technology company into a components company positioned to lead the LED lighting revolution,” stated Chuck Swoboda, Cree chairman and CEO. “…We believe the combination of growing XLamp® LED sales, our new high-brightness, packaged LED product line and a more stable LED chip business has put Cree in a strong position for growth in fiscal 2008.” Company Financial Results for Fiscal 2007

Article courtesy of the LIGHTimes

I somehow get the feeling that Cree doesn’t have to worry too much. Cree is one of, if not THE industry leader and is certainly one of the LED technology companies to beat. Currently, they are in the driver’s seat in the industry. They are the leading sponsor of theSolid-State Lighting ASSIST research program at the Lighting Research Center at RPI (see article below), they are driving the LED city program, they are pushing on Lumileds in the high-power LED module market and with their acquisition of Cotco, now have a 100 lumen, 350 mA LED. Thats hot!

Technorati Tags: leds , solid-state lighting , lighting industry news , lighting industry market , lighting market , solid-state lighting market , lighting market analysis , global led market , global led news , asian lighting market , global lighting industry , global lighting fixtures , global lighting , led technology , leds in the news , global industry analysts report , cree inc, cree leds, cree modules

Tremendous source of free publications for the lighting industry

Lighting Research Center at RPI
The Lighting Research Center (LRC) is part of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). As such they are the world’s leading univeristy research center devoted strictly to lighting. Among their graduate education in lighting offers, they have many research programs running including several that deal with or revolve around solid-state lighting. These guys are real experts on this. As part of the research programs, and the reason I blog about it today, is they also have some fantastic resources available to the public for free! Thats FREE! F.R.E.E. They even have email contact information and forms if you wish to contact the groups or the group directors heading up the research to form partnerships or to get more information. Here is a few of the programs and resources they have there:

They have the DELTA (Demonstration and Evaluation of Lighting Technologies and
Applications) program which is a research program to design, evaluate and publicize
energy-efficient lighting solutions and those publications are available free in PDF format. These are sorted by commercial, retail, institutional, industrial, residential, and outdoor lighting and are a must-read for anyone in the biz. Their Light and Health research program has some awesome booklets (PDF) available as well as journals and research papers.The

Lighting Futures is an online quarterly newsletter that offers news on the latest advances in
lighting technologies, techniques, and trade, especially those that have environmental,
economic, and human benefits. They are sponsored by the United
States Department of Energy with previous support from the
United States Environmental Protection Agency,You can get view back issues online for FREE!

The Solid-State ASSIST (Alliance for Solid-State Illumination Systems and Technologies) research program sponsored by industry leading corporations and headed up by the LRC’s Director of Research, N. Narendran, Ph.D. is a tremendous wealth of free research papers and materials all about advancements in the effective use of energy efficient solid-state lighting and it’s acceptance in the marketplace. You have to spend a lot of time reading the materials here if you are at all, even remotely connected to the solid-state lighting industry.

This is just a sampling of the programs and information available at the LRC so head on over and check them out. Twelve thumbs up!

Technorati Tags: leds, solid-state lighting, solid state lighting, lighting research, lighting research center, rpi, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, lrc, free resources, lighting publications, free lighting publications, free lighting resources, free lighting research papers, industry white papers, technology advancement, lighting industry news, lighting industry market, lighting market, solid-state lighting market, lighting market, global led market, led technology, global industry report, energy star, energy-star, energy savings, saving energy, energystar, energy efficient

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