LED Trends 2010

One more of the great advantages of the LED over all other lighting systems in use today is its long life, which is rated as high as 100,000 hours. This turns out to be as much as 100 times greater than an incandescent lamp and close to 10 times greater than the best fluorescent. This alone means lower maintenance during their lifetime of use and is certainly a big cost saving factor promoting the LED.

The Incandescent Disadvantage

In order to quantify the value of the LED versus only the incandescent lamp, we could easily make the statement that a saving of 80 % of our power needs could be seen by totally replacing the present incandescent with appropriate LED lamps. What must be entered into the picture is the fact that heat given off by the incandescent lamp that is used in home lighting needs for instance is due to its inefficiency of operation. For the user in the tropics or any warmer than normal climate where cooling is required for comfort, there is created a double whammy, where power is used to produce the lighting needed and more power is needed to then cool down the home. Here, cooling is required to offset the heat from the exterior of the home, along with the extra heat produced by the lighting. In this particular application our power savings by using the LED as a lighting source is much greater than the use of LED cluster lamps now being used in our traffic control lighting systems.

Tubular Fluorescence and Their Disadvantages

For many years now, many of our manufacturing and spacy office buildings have used the tubular type fluorescent lamps to light the way of the office worker, manufacturing floor space,etc.. They have enjoyed immense appeal over the years with their much more pleasing light and a much greater efficiency. Unfortunately, they suffered the use of huge weighted ballasts in order to run. They also suffered breakage if accidently struck even with the lightest of force, or even under excess vibrations. In other words, they are delicate. The LED does not suffer these problems. As a matter of fact, a 5mm LED lamp has been subjected to 1,000s of G’s of impact with no noticeable deterioration in the light. In other words, it can be dropped from the top of the Empire State building without damage. The LED saves money on replacement costs along with the much lower cost of operation.

CFL’s…A Close Second To The LED

Now, the CFL(Compact Fluorescent) type lamp is a close contender to the present LED lamp lighting source. At this moment in time, they can be considered neck and neck due to the fact that the LED must be adapted to our present lighting needs. This aspect is slowly being worked on by different manufacturers and should be seen at lighting shows very shortly. As it was with the introduction of the fluorescent lighting system, this will take many years for their acceptance by the consumer. We know that it is difficult for the consumer to accept any change, but this limitation may soon become a need rather than choice in the not too
distant future.

Some advantages to consider by switching from incandescent to CFL lamps…

1.- It has been calculated that CFL’s are four times more efficient.
2.- CFL.s last as much as 10 times longer.

An example of the savings using CFL lamps for instance is:

Using an 18 Watt CFL instead of a 75 Watt incandescent lamp would save you approximately 570 kwh over the CFL’s lifetime. At 10 cents per kwh, that calculates to a $57 savings. It will also prevent the adding of 1/2 ton of CO2 to our atmosphere in the lifetime of the lamp.

If everyone in the U.S. used CFL lamps instead of the incandescent, we could close down approximately 90 of our average size power plants. Of course, our immediate thoughts are the loss of the labor to run these plants and the effects on the local economy. The required manpower that would be needed to produce the vast new quantities of the more efficient CFL lamps would more than offset the loss from the power plant closings. Even greater payback would be the reduced CO2 emissions, sulfur oxide along with high-level nuclear waste. Today’s CFL’s emit a soothing “warm” light, not the “cool white” of the office lights using the older tubular fluorescent types.