202 TECHNOLOGY / THE ARC SHOW
Figure 6: Photonstars ChromaWhite Tungsten+ module.
standards are only suited to LED emitters rather than full systems. This means that it is difficult for designers and specifiers to spot good products from badly designed ones. Again, I stated that relying on a manufac- turer’s warranty may not be ideal as the actual cost may be small for a product swap but the reputation of the designer and the replacement in situ costs could be signifi- cantly higher and these costs may not be covered by warranties even if they are ten years! My advice was to review the manufacturer’s warranty terms very closely rather than believing you are covered automatically if they say it’s five or ten years.
2) Colour consistency and lumen output A major concern raised by the audience was still the colour consistency and lumen output of LED fixtures, which on large white projects can be a concern. The LED manufacturers on the panel stated this shouldn’t be an issue providing the LEDs are from a reputable manufacturer and that the fixture manufacturer provides the correct binning strategies. Both OSRAM and Cree representatives state that they pro- vide very fine colour binning in production and that this far exceeds what was possible with colour binning of fluorescent tubes and CFL lamp technologies. One of the issues that became evident is there is a large number of low cost LED fixtures entering the lighting supply chain where LED colour consistency was not the priority for the manufacturer and this could cause issues and catch out the end users if they are unaware of the colour consistence. The other aspect of lumen output was also discussed and this also seems to be due to differences in lumen binning from manufac- turers.
3) Retrofit of LED products that may have
Figure 7: The new Metropole from Projection Lighting.
failed in 2 years time Several of the audience expressed concerns regarding how quickly LED technology is progressing and how short the LED fixture manufacturers design cycles seem to be getting. They pointed out that what is deemed a positive for the LED technology is turning rapidly into a negative due to the fact that some LED fixtures launched two years ago may have already been phased out leaving installations with early failures in a difficult position ie; replace with a dif- ferent type of fixture and make the instal- lation look messy or replace with the same fixture but have different light output and colour from the older generation. This is a really tough question to answer because even the largest lighting compa- nies cannot hold every light fixture in stock and as the technology improves the colour and lumen output will inherently change. The panel agreed that new luminaires with built-in intelligence should enable both the colour and lumen output of a replacement fixture to be programmed on installation. However it was agreed that this technology is not widely used and increases the cost of current LED based fixtures.
4) How can you determine if an LED fix- ture is good! Again this question theme emerged and basically I answered it by saying: ‘With lots of difficulty’. In reality it is difficult to as- sess an LED fixture without taking it apart, analysing components and testing fixtures but who has the time, resources and know- how these days? The panel stated that one needs to look at the quality of components and should start with a high quality LED from a top ten manufacturer. Following this you need to make sure the thermal manage- ment of the system is high quality to enable the LED junction temperature to be as low as possible. Another way would be to get the products
Figure 8: Toshiba’s new E-core 1600 downlighter.
tested by experts, but again this adds cost to a project. Again, the panel reiterated the need for a Caliper type programme funded by govern- ment which would assess market available products and compare their real life perfor- mance to that of the manufacturers data- sheet. In reality this is probably not going to happen and the UK/EU governments will just let the market make mistakes and learn by their mistakes over the next decade. The main LED manufacturers also explained from their perspective how difficult it is to validate their own LED products because the design cycle is so short and to get valid performance data it needs months of test- ing time. Today by the time the LEDs have been tested they are already bringing a new generation of LEDs to market so it can be very difficult to provide long term testing. There were many more questions asked of the panel but overall I was impressed by the increase in the LED knowledge of the audience which will hopefully translate into a more educated product consumer that is able to see good quality products from those that are not. It will be interesting to see all the latest products on show at ‘LED + Building’ in Frankfurt next month so hopefully I will see many of you there.
g.archenhold@
mondiale.co.uk
Geoff Archenhold has been seconded twice to the UK Government to support the Lighting, LED and Photonics industry and currently helps LED companies develop business plans to raise investment from the finance community. He is an active investor in LED driver and fixture manufacturers and a lighting energy consultancy. The views ex- pressed in this article are entirely those of Geoff Archenhold and not necessarily those of mondo*arc.
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