CRS Elec Lights Turned to New LED Lamp

It was reported from TORONTO that when Manhattan’s tony One Beacon Court on the Upper East Side looked for ways to reduce its energy bill, as part of a much-broader global effort to green the planet, it turned to a small Canadian company for its lighting needs.

CRS Electronics Ltd. (LED.V) based in Welland, Ont., CRS developed, designed and manufactures solid-state lamps that use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as their light source. It’s a disruptive technology that’s on the cusp of transforming the estimated US$100 billion global lighting industry. If well designed, LEDs can provide light that is the same as or better than conventional light sources, with significant energy and cost savings. According to Strategies Unlimited, a Mountain View, Calif. research firm, the commercial and industrial market for LED replacement lamps is forecast to roughly double each year through 2013.

CRS, whose roots are in school-bus lights, makes a low-watt MR16 LED replacement lamp that replaces halogen technology. MR16s are widely used for accent, task and display lighting in stores, hotels, restaurants, condominiums, commercial buildings, museums and art galleries.

“We didn’t just want to do LED because it’s green, and it saves energy and costs. It also had to have an aesthetic value, and match up with the coloring of the bulb that was already in the hallways. And that’s what we achieved. The bulb itself was just a better product than I could get anywhere else,” he says.

He’s ordered 500 lamps, and expects a 12-to-14 month return on investment, since each lamp can burn for 50,000 hours.

The commercial market for MR16s is estimated to be about US$2.2 billion, according to industry statistics. It’s such a big market that hundreds of upstarts, primarily from China, are popping up, primarily because the lighting giants, such as GE, are looking further afield. “It’s buyer beware. There’s a lot of misleading information out there,” says Mia Paget, who manages the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solid-state Lighting product testing program, CALiPER.

The CRS MR16 is technologically and aesthetically superior, a claim that’s backed up by the results of both independent laboratory and DOE testing.

In May, CRS went public, listing on the TSX Venture Exchange.

CRS, which installed the LED street lamps in downtown Welland, is eyeing the US$61 billion street and area lighting market, where there was 0% LED penetration in 2008, according to an October 2008 Navigant Consulting report.

The Main Challenge of LED Industry

In last article, we talk about that there’s a consensus that most of those barriers. They should be removed in the next 2-3 years. Impressive energy efficiency progress are announced on a regular basis by LED manufacturers and reliability is improving as engineers become aware of the challenges posed by the design of a flawlessly integrated LED luminaire (GE recently identified more than 100 possible failure mode in LED light engines).

Multiple standardization organization are working on defining and implementing testing and performance standards and communicating them to the public. Solid state lighting is progressing niche by niche.  More municipalities are testing LED streetlight and some have already committed to massive retrofits (200,000 street lights in Los Angeles). Adoption in commercial and retails lighting, while still low in volume is progressing fast (announcements from Wall Mart, Starbucks…). While we all have our eyes focused on residential applications, it’s important to realize that homes are the smallest segments (in term of lumens) compared to industrial, commercial and municipal lighting. However, for most, it remains the ultimate frontier.

But even this application now seems within reach and LED replacement bulbs might come to your home faster that you expected. Don’t rush yet though, as low quality products are still flooding the market and might create a negative initial perception of the technology, a risk that the industry is aware off and trying to control by working on performance standard (make sure you get products meeting or exceeding the Energy star criteria for solid state lighting). In Japan, the largest electronic manufacturers are making a strong push with quality products. Toshiba Lighting and Technology introduced a 60W equivalent replacement LED bulb for JPY9,000 in late 2008. The same product now goes for less than JPY4,000. Sharp launched similar offers and the price is now expected to reach  JPY2,000 in 2010. At this pace, most now expect the cost of LED replacement bulbs to reach the $10 for 1000 lumen target commonly accepted as the “magic” number that will trigger massive adoption by 2012.

In the US, Philips released the first LED bulb to participate to LPrize contest organized by the US Department Of Energy to reward the first 60W replacement LED bulb to meet aggressive performance targets.  A lot of credible light bulb replacements could be seen at the recent Strategies In Light conference exhibition floor and CREE is planning to release a retail version of its award winning LR6. The price point at which it will be released will send a strong signal to the industry.

Rockler Recalled LED light kits

Legal news for product liability attorneys. A voluntary recall of LED light kits was announced after discovery of defective wiring.

CPSC alerts product liability lawyers- Rockler Companies Inc. announced voluntary recall of LED light kits.

Washington, D.C.—Rockler Companies, Inc., of Medina, Minnesota and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have announced a voluntary recalled of LED light kits. Nearly 2,200 LED light kits were recalled on January 12, 2010, as reported by the CPSC.

The CPSC has urged consumers to stop using the recalled LED light kits immediately unless otherwise instructed after the discovery of defective wiring in the light kits. The defective wiring can cause the battery pack to overheat and explode, which poses a risk of burn and fire. At this time no injuries and/or instances have been reported. This recalled product is described as Rockler LED lights with either an interchangeable spotlight head, or a magnifying head. The recalled product models have stock numbers 26429 (spotlight or 27017 (magnifying). The stock numbers are printed on the products packaging. The LED light kits were sold at Rockler Woodworking and Hardware and other specialty stores across the country from March 2009 through October 2009 for the retail price of $60. All consumers who have purchased the product can contact Rockler Companies at (800) 260-9663 to receive a fee repair kit and installation instructions.

LED Wind Turbine Light

Windmills have inspired Mathmos to come up with Wind turbine LED lights, and you can use these lights in your gardens or inside your own room for your personal leisure.

Wind turbines are the best eco-friendly sources of energy and in this day and age we definitely need more alternative, reliable and long lasting sources of energy. These lights function based on the same principle of windmills, and they light up as you blow on them.

So you can now enjoy a relaxed breezy evening and a nice dinner in your garden lit up with these LED lights for only $14.99 at ThinkGeek.com. They are also small enough to be mounted on your bedroom window too, if you fancy that! Some other eco-friendly lights and lamps that you can look at are the Spray Can lighting and Spark green energy lamp.

Sure! It is really cool. What is the application of this LED? I think it will be not widely used in our life but the idea is helpful to our future design.

Novel LED Key Light

Do you have the trouble that always finding keys at home? The LED Key Light from Lexon stands out among a host of other keychain LED lights that resemble pigs, chickens, laser pointers and whatnot by looking like… a key.

Available in green, red or purple, the LED light is powered by a pair of CR1220 button batteries and the case can be easily opened without using tools for quick battery changes on the go.

The outer case is made from soft rubber – just squeeze once and the mini LED in the key’s nose end comes on; squeeze again and it turns off. The key light comes with a ring-type clip which allows for the addition of actual keys, or facilitates attachment to purses, rucksacks, belt loops and so on.

Using the LED Key Light, you will never find your keys everywhere.

Ultrathin Inorganic LEDs

There is now a new process under development to create ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and assembling them into large arrays, which offers new classes of lighting and display systems with interesting properties.

Applications for the arrays, which you can print onto flat or flexible substrates ranging from glass to plastic and rubber, include general illumination, high-resolution home theater displays, wearable health monitors, and biomedical imaging devices.

“Our goal is to marry some of the advantages of inorganic LED technology with the scalability, ease of processing, and resolution of organic LEDs,” said John Rogers, the Flory-Founder chair professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois.

Compared to organic LEDs, inorganic LEDs are brighter, more robust, and longer-lived. Organic LEDs, however, are attractive because you can form them on flexible substrates, in dense, interconnected arrays. The researchers’ new technology combines features of both.

“By printing large arrays of ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic LEDs and interconnecting them using thin-film processing, we can create general lighting and high-resolution display systems that otherwise could not be built with the conventional ways that inorganic LEDs are made, manipulated, and assembled,” Rogers said.

To overcome requirements on device size and thickness associated with conventional wafer dicing, packaging, and wire bonding methods, researchers developed epitaxial growth techniques for creating LEDs with sizes up to 100 times smaller than usual. They also developed printing processes for assembling these devices into arrays on stiff, flexible, and stretchable substrates.

As part of the growth process, a sacrificial layer of material embeds beneath the LEDs. When fabrication is complete, a wet chemical etchent removes this layer, leaving the LEDs undercut from the wafer but still tethered at anchor points.

To create an array, a rubber stamp contacts the wafer surface at selected points, lifts off the LEDs at those points, and transfers them to the desired substrate.

“The stamping process provides a much faster alternative to the standard robotic ‘pick and place’ process that manipulates inorganic LEDs one at a time,” Rogers said. “The new approach can lift large numbers of small, thin LEDs from the wafer in one step, and then print them onto a substrate in another step.”

By shifting position and repeating the stamping process, LEDs can transfer to other locations on the same substrate. In this fashion, you can create large light panels and displays from small LEDs made in dense arrays on a single, comparatively small wafer. And, because the LEDs can be placed far apart and still provide sufficient light output, the panels and displays can be nearly transparent. The thin device geometries allow the use of thin-film processing methods, rather than wire bonding, for interconnects.

In addition to solid-state lighting, instrument panels, and display systems, the new method also allows for flexible and even stretchable sheets of printed LEDs, with potential use in the health-care industry.

“Wrapping a stretchable sheet of tiny LEDs around the human body offers interesting opportunities in biomedicine and biotechnology,” Rogers said, “including applications in health monitoring, diagnostics, and imaging.”

Energy Saving Star – LED Lighting

In your home, lighting may be 10 percent of your bill. But in an office building it’s probably 40 percent, and so if you reduce your lighting energy consumption by a large fraction, the savings will be huge,” said James Brodrick, who leads the DOE’s solid-state lighting program.

A fact sheet from Brodrick’s office says this about LEDs: “In the coming decade, they will become a key to affordable net-zero energy buildings, buildings that produce at least as much energy annually as they use from the grid.”

The technology is advancing quickly, and costs will continue to drop, Brodrick said. The DOE tests LEDs and sets performance and efficiency guidelines under its Energy Star program.

LEDs are directional lights, used in recessed lighting and under-counter lights, for example. They’re not yet available as bulbs that cast light all around and fit in ordinary sockets.

“There’s an enormous and exciting potential, but we have a long way to go before we see anything besides directional lighting,” said Jeffrey P. Harris, the vice president for programs at the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit group that promotes energy efficiency.

Even so, LEDs already are used to light offices, hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

The DOE predicts that LEDs will have better performance capability than fluorescent lighting in the next few years, and that they’ll continue to improve after that. They’re now comparable with fluorescent fixtures in efficiency, and the DOE says its Energy Star LEDs last two to five times longer.

Cost is the biggest reason that LEDs aren’t used more widely, Brodrick said.

LEDs have other advantages: They can be dimmed, don’t emit heat, don’t contain mercury – unlike compact fluorescents – and can produce warm-toned light.

Home Depot, the world’s biggest retailer of light bulbs, is starting to stock LED bulbs this summer and plans to have 10 kinds by September, said Jorge Fernandez, who’s in charge of light bulb purchases for the company.

Philips is working on many kinds of LEDs, including one to replace a 40-watt incandescent bulb that’s scheduled to be available next year, she said.

Derrick Hall of RE/Construct Inc. in Asheville, N.C., said that residential customers weren’t asking for LEDs because of the high upfront cost. Still, he’s hearing of some nonresidential customers who are looking into LEDs for the energy savings.

LEDs are much better than other lighting options, Hall said. The quality of the light is “far superior,” they offer big energy savings and there’s no cost to society for dealing with mercury, he said. Mercury, a neurotoxin, is found in small amounts in compact fluorescent bulbs.

LED Era Come Soon

As we all know that LED (Light Emitting Diode) bulbs which will consume even less power than the CFL bulbs and once the mass production of Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulbs will start, its cost will go down. Gradually the era of electric bulbs will come to an end and only CFL bulbs will exist then. This will go a long way in promoting the LED bulbs among the masses,” said Venugopal, a senior member of the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, on Wednesday.

The occasion was the Second Capacity Building Programme, organised by the department of Industrial and Management Engineering of IIT, Kanpur. On the second day of the six-day long programme, Dr Anoop Singh of IIT-K, Venugopal, member of DERC and others were present.

Venugopal also explained that the entire focus is on to encourage the people of the country to save power instead of adopting a careless attitude towards it. Shutting down power switches when power is not required is something which people need to inculcate in themselves as a habit.

Giving an example about reduction of the load during the lunch hours in Delhi, Venugopal said, “At the time of lunch it has been observed that there is a reduction of 150 MW to 200 MW of load in the state of Delhi. This happens due to the fact that people in offices and at other commercial establishments shut down power. Such an exercise should be followed everywhere which will help in reducing the load.”

Dr Anoop Singh, said, “Power saved is power gained. Here in IIT-K we have street lights which are timer guided. The timer attached with the street light is set on a particular time as to when the street lamp should go off. The moment the clock strikes the set time, the street lamp goes off. This not only helps in saving power but also no human being is required to go from pole to pole for switching off these lamps.”

Additionaly, street lights can be put off with the help of the remote used in TVs and in other electrical devices.

New High Performance LED Lighting Systems

It is reported that AeroLED sponsored a media lunch today at AirVenture 2009 to introduce their new line of high performance LED lighting solutions. Based on super-bright LED technology, which is fully replaceable with original lighting systems, pronounced “aerolead” the company produces retrofit and OEM lighting options.

Nate Calvin of AeroLED reported the company’s product is a direct replacement for existing incandescent, or “legacy systems” products now in the field, including a replacement for the GE 4509 landing light bulb. Components include options for replacement of navigation and strobe units as well.

Calvin said all components exceed FAR requirements for lumen output. Stating that incandescent systems operate in the 2500 Kelvin range whereas the AeroLED product operates in the 6500 Kelvin range, providing a more white colored and intense light output. The lighting is directional for the strobe application, more closely matching the diminishing requirements from horizontal to vertical plane of the FAR’s. The units are also on the order of 4 times lighter than traditional systems with significantly lower amperage draw.

Initial products were offered to the experimental and homebuilt markets to facilitate a positive cash flow and to support FAR 23 and TSO testing requirements for certified systems. An added benefit to this business approach was the opportunity to receive feedback from the initial customer base. AeroLED also allowed OEM customers to provide opinions for improvements. Calvin stated that all the feedback was considered key to current product line development, resulting in a superior product.

The Pulsar series is the first all LED nav and strobe light combination according to Calvin. The units are ruggedly constructed having gone through complete and thorough vibration and abuse testing, including installation on aircraft equipped with diesel engines that destroyed incandescent bulbs in as little as 10 hours. The units are hermetically sealed and are displayed under water to demonstrate their durability for all weather operation. Calvin quipped that the underwater display was a bit “cheesy” but proved to be an eye catcher and brought people over to investigate. Testing on the units has indicated a life expectancy of around 60,000 hours, well beyond most airframe lifetimes. While not specifically stating a price for the components, Calvin said they were comparable to costs of traditional lighting systems when replacement bulbs and power supplies over the life of the aircraft were factored in.

All AeroLED units have built in overtemp protection and offer very low RF emmisions and will not interfere with radio operations. Operating on 9-36 volts the systems do not dim, as incandescent lights do, at lower voltage levels and deliver the same lumen output regardless of input voltage.

AeroLED is committed to providing a see and avoid product. The company believes, and is receiving encouraging reports, that their system allows much greater visibility at a longer range than any other system currently available. All systems have wigwag capability allowing spotting far in advance of typical legacy systems and AeroLED systems are more visible in daytime than other systems. PMA certification is expected by year end.

Tiny LED Serve in Automobile

It is reported that a tiny new LED power source could serve in applications ranging from automotive interiors to architectural fixtures to television backlights.

The device, measuring a scant 3.5 x 3.5 x 1.2 mm, could carve out a special niche for itself in hybrid vehicles and electric cars, where packaging is tight and power budgets are tighter, its manufacturer says.

“Due to its small size, you can put just one or two of them in an appliance and there’s still plenty of light,” says Rodney Bailey, vice president of optoelectronic components for TT electronics OPTEK Technology, maker of the new power source. “It’s attractive for electric hybrids because those vehicles need to use the bare minimum of current.”

Known as the OVS5MxBCR4 Series LED package, the new product dissipates a half a Watt of power, but is approximately half the size of other half-Watt power sources. Moreover, its low power-draw means it needs no thermal management, Optek engineers say.

“There’s not enough power coming out of it to merit thermal management,” Bailey says.

Optek is positioning the device in a “sweet spot” between 1W packages – which draw twice as much power and need thermal management – and very small devices that don’t offer sufficient light intensity for many interior applications. The company says the device is already been designed into several forthcoming hybrid electric vehicle programs for interior lighting applications. There, the low power requirements are making it an attractive alternative to incandescent bulbs, which can draw as much as 6A. In contrast, the OVS5MxBCR4 Series LED package uses about one-tenth of that. The use of the device in such applications is consistent with a trend toward growing use of LEDs in the auto industry.

Optek says power dissipation for the device at 150 mA is 0.48W for white, warm white and blue LEDs, 0.51W for a green deice and 0.33W for red, amber and yellow packages. Luminous flux for white, warm white, blue and green LEDs is 25, 25, 6 and 25 lm, respectively.

Applications include automotive interiors and exteriors, architectural indoor and outdoor lighting, mobile appliances and display backlighting, especially in televisions.

As the time goes by, the tiny LED should be popular in applications where they need good light.