“L-E-D”. In terms of lighting, you’re hearing these three letters over and over again… you view it posted all over lighting websites, and its starting to bug you. It seems to be an exciting new trend…some type of new innovative light…nevertheless, you have no idea what it is. You would like to know very well what everybody’s talking about- what’s extremely popular?
LED’s – LEDS – To put it simply, LED’s are diodes that…(huh?) hold on, I’ll explain: a diode may be the simplest type of semiconductor device. (what’s that?) wow, you’re impatient: A semi-conductor is really a material with the ability to conduct electrical current. Basically, instead of emitting office lighting types from the vacuum (as within 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 maneuver around within its semiconductor structure.
They tell you when to stop and go. They have ruled your driving, saved your life countless times, and that little red man made you hold out till you were in a position to cross the street. That’s right – the red, yellow and green on the traffic lights are Led lights right before 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 understand that LED lights were smoking cigarettes your digital clocks, flashlights and telling you when you’ve got a new voice message on your own cell phone. Expensive at the start, 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 a little power. For instance, one 5-watt LED can produce more light (measured in lumens) than one standard 75-watt incandescent bulb. The 5-watt LED could get the job done of the 75-watt incandescent at 1/15 of the energy consumption. LED’s save energy and, therefore, money. It is because in LED lights, 90% of energy is changed 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 which will burn out, so they last much longer. A typical “longevity” household bulb will burn for about 2,000 hours. An LED might have a useful lifespan up to 100,000 hours! By some sources, LED’s can last so long as 40 years. Imagine devoid of to change a lamp for years. There are LED products available this year that may make frequent light bulb changes so 20th century.
How it really works… (skip this part if you don’t really care) Light is a form of energy that could be released by an atom. It really is made up of many small particle-like packets, called photons, which will be the most basic units of light. LED’s are specially constructed to release a lot of photons outward.When an electric charge strikes the semiconductor, a small electrical current, which 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 give off photons. The vast majority of the energy emitted is light energy.
In an ordinary diode, such as incandescent bulbs, the semiconductor material itself eventually ends up absorbing a lot of the light energy so it produces more heat energy than light energy.That is completely wasted energy, unless you’re utilizing 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 higher percentage of the electrical energy is going right to generating light, which significantly reduces the electricity demands considerably. As you can see in the diagram,they’re housed in a plastic bulb that concentrates the light in a particular direction. Almost all of the light from the diode bounces off the sides of the bulb, traveling on through the rounded end.
They are an improved buy (over time). Until recently, LED’s were too expensive 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 more cost-effective lighting option for an array of situations. While they might be more expensive than incandescent lights in advance, a 60-watt LED replacement bulb runs in the area of $100, and even the lower-output versions, useful for things such as spot lighting, will definitely cost between $40 and $80.
That’s compared to a $1 incandescent and a $2 fluorescent bulb.The truth is, even at $100 for a single bulb, LEDs find yourself saving money in the end, as you only need a couple of every decade and you also spend less overall on home lighting, that may take into account about 7 percent of your 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 generally expects LED costs to come down quickly. Lighting Science Group, a company that develops and manufactures LED lighting, estimates a 50 percent price reduction within two years.