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Post by John on Aug 23, 2014 10:06:17 GMT -5
Just got a new LED Maglite flashlight. This one has a 3 "D" cell battery, I wished I'd had a cap lamp this bright when I was working underground!! Talk about a good beam, and pure white light similar to the quartz halogen bulbs we had in the last Oldhams over 20 years back.
I have a replacement LED cartridge to replace the regular bulb on it's way for my old 6 "D" cell Maglite.
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Post by colly0410 on Aug 23, 2014 15:45:31 GMT -5
I've got one of those wind up LED flashlights, I'm surprised how bright it is, it's got a bit of a blueish tinge to it though. They're changing a lot of the street lights round Hucknall from low & high pressure sodium to LED's, seems strange seeing white street lights after them being orange for so long..
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Post by John on Aug 23, 2014 17:25:23 GMT -5
I changed an older LED bulb in my bedside lamp for a more modern one, it's rated at equivalent 60W and boy is it bright. I'm going to experiment with two lamp light fittings and see how bright they are, if they are a success, I'll replace the fluoros in the house.
But, I couldn't get over how bright the Maglite is, the bean beats any cap lamp I've ever used, and no bluish tint either, just pure white light.
Hard to believe just a few years back, the only use for LED's was for instrument indicator lamps. Each year brings new LED technology.
The two flat panel TV's we have, have LED backlighting as against the old cold cathode tubes.
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Post by John on Aug 24, 2014 8:06:22 GMT -5
Was just looking at "Cree's" site Steve, and it's unbelievable the range of LED lighting solutions available now. As you mention, street lighting, photo there of a street lit by LED lights, commercial, office, schools, university's, homes, supermarkets etc...
Just over a year back I was looking at replacement fluoro tubes, way too expensive back then, but down to around 22 bucks each now.
Looks like we may be keeping the fluoros after all, ours are twin 40 watts, so the electricity savings will be pretty high.
That will work out pretty good with our solar system when running, 20 modules are on order right now with roof mounting kits. As we will be off grid, I need every energy saving appliances we can get to not exhaust the battery banks.
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Post by colly0410 on Aug 24, 2014 13:22:34 GMT -5
Just been looking at their website John, finding it very interesting. They've got some new lights at work (Queens Medical Centre) that are dim till you go near them, then brighten up as you approach,they are tubes like fluorescent's but I suppose they could be LED's, I'll ask a leckie when I see one. We haven't got any LED's yet but will get them as the price drops..
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Post by John on Aug 24, 2014 15:02:53 GMT -5
Just been looking at their website John, finding it very interesting. They've got some new lights at work (Queens Medical Centre) that are dim till you go near them, then brighten up as you approach,they are tubes like fluorescent's but I suppose they could be LED's, I'll ask a leckie when I see one. We haven't got any LED's yet but will get them as the price drops.. |
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Post by John on Aug 24, 2014 15:05:23 GMT -5
I'm sure I read somewhere that the Joy longwall face lighting is LED lights.
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Post by John on Aug 26, 2014 7:21:51 GMT -5
The retrofit LED "bulb" arrived for my old 6D cell Maglite, removed the bulb and placed the new LED assembly in it, just like replacing a burned out bulb! It's pretty bright with a better beam than the incandescent bulb, vast improvement, but, not as good as the new LED Maglite. Probably because of the reflector angles..I might look into a reflector replacement.
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Post by smshogun on Aug 26, 2014 21:13:58 GMT -5
LED is nothing new and we have worked with it for years.
On a connection corridor we installed several solar panels as it was too bright during the summer months and this provided a lot of power for storage, other solar panels were also installed at this hospital site and we introduced a complete LED system. To answer your question Colly? yes the dimming system is LED and activated by directional sensors and this is what we used as all lighting was zoned into specific areas and it lit up two zones in front and one zone to the rear of the zone which was lit, this then dimmed to provide an ambient light at a very low setting. Each zone had its own battery pack which was charged by an intelligent charger which biased solar power and only topped the batteries from the mains when the batteries reached a pre set low level of charge and as the battery packs were set into cavities in the walls for ease of maintenance by staff. Fully charged they would provide around 240 hours of light so if the power was disconnected and at 10 hours per night of light you would get over 3 weeks of light output without charging the batteries.
In addition to this we integrated these lights into the security system and as one specific area stored lots of drugs appealing to junkies and the system allowed, and actually tracked several criminals who broke in as once a security alert was raised the security staff simply monitored which light zones were activated and followed them, police caught several thieves after the system was introduced. The system worked very simply, if a locked area was breached a separate lighting plan came up on a monitor and overlayed a map of the block, security staff then followed which zones were lighting and extinguishing to get an exact location and direction of travel of an intruder and the police were directed straight to them.
Nursing staff also felt safer as on nights they carried tracking devices and if they were in a remote area they could see if they were being followed by zones behind them or in front of them lighting up, this gave them time to open a locked room and enter the room and lock the door behind them and summon help and has been used successfully several times.
By using solar charging systems the systems recouped their outlay in around 18 months, and as 12 volt systems there was no need to have qualified electricians working on them as specific maintenance staff were trained in their operation, and as low voltage systems they were much safer, in addition to this they didn't need connecting to emergency generators which reduced their loading in times of electrical power losses as they were stand alone systems.
In street lighting applications LED is not certified for use on major roads, but should be as much development work has taken place, we developed a system of self charging street lighting which had a monitoring system built in to detect climatic conditions so light output and colour could be varied to suit conditions. One example was colour mixing where a different colour of light was emitted for foggy conditions and another colour was emitted for rainy conditions, this provided much better lighting for a range of conditions. In addition to this the LED's were arranged on a curved surface and the outer LED's were powered to provide more light on the outer ones, with a traditional tube system the light is brightest under the lamp standard and dims the further away from it you are, where you have a series of lamp standards the light is variable as it is lightest underneath and darkest at the mid point between two standards so even and consistent light by simply tuning them. By adding solar panels and battery packs you can have stand alone lamp standards in more remote areas, if you have a footpath or series of garages away from a property you can install a stand alone unit without having to dig huge cable trenches to connect them to the mains, basically self sufficient lights. We have sold many of these to industries such as quarries and other such remote industries where they have a requirement for self sufficient light and they only have to bolt a unit to the ground and forget it, as workings move they simply add more lights or move the ones they have.
We never use Cree as they are too expensive, not sufficiently reliable, and while they are a good LED they trade on their name; many other producers produce better LED's at lower prices with higher performance, as for me? all my outdoor lighting is LED and solar powered by connecting several large battery packs to them, it costs me nothing to run mine. |
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Post by colly0410 on Aug 27, 2014 6:45:26 GMT -5
Interesting post SMShogun, thanks for posting.
I usually work days & start at 7-30 AM so the lights are usually at full brightness by then. However in July they were super desperate & I did a night shift, that's when I noticed the dim lights brightening up as I got near them. It was a bit spooky with no one walking round & it was so quite, & the lights following you, it reminded me a bit of down the pit up old districts. Oh yeah, I've still not been paid for the night shift, I've got to wait till 26'th September for it, if you do any overtime you get paid for it 2 months later, grr grr...
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Post by John on Aug 27, 2014 11:57:44 GMT -5
I knew they'd been around a while, as equipment I worked on started to get led indicators from around the 1970's. Looking at the history of them, I never realized led effect had been known since the 1920's!
My first electronic watch was an led faced watch, still have it, was heavy on batteries and very hard to see the face in bright sunlight. I bought that around 1975, was pretty expensive at the time, replaced when I lived in Oz for a lcd watch around 1980.
I built a frequency counter over 20 years back that has led numerical indicators, still have it and still works, not as accurate as a hand held model I purchased later though, but that one scans to around 1.5Ghz if I remember rightly.
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Post by smshogun on Aug 27, 2014 20:58:19 GMT -5
They have been around for years John but the issue was always the low lumen output which precluded them for little more than indicators, but technology moves on.
Colly; as technologies advance we have more light/lumen output for less input and if we combine this with light rendering which is producing colours which the eyes respond to, and advanced reflector technologies we can produce efficient lighting for little cost, we pay around £3 for 100 LED's which are far superior to Cree as we buy in bulk and a small order would be 10,000. By rendering the light colour to one responsive to the human eye we can cut the lumen output even more and still have a light colour replicating daylight which is around 6500 Joules and if we combine reflector technologies we can make well tuned lighting with high output and low consumption. We can also add laser technologies and reverse it and use prismatic designs for a narrow angle single LED we can get a lot of wide angle light out but it has a short range.
LED technologies do have their problems, if we look at a normal fluorescent light it is just stuck up and it gives too much light, the right amount of light, or not enough light as the light output is fixed and relies upon the shape of the diffuser to give it a little direction, basically it is an unrefined and unidirectional unit. With LED technologies it relies upon basic geometry and the height of the ceiling as you have to calculate angles of not just the required light output, but the angles of light each individual LED emits and it is this fine tuning which gives the correct light output for low input. |
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Post by colly0410 on Sept 1, 2014 16:17:07 GMT -5
Since reading this thread I've been looking round & spotted LED's all over the place: Petrol stations, supermarket car parks, McDonalds, went to Bulwell Hall estate t'other day & they were all LED's, I'd never noticed them before, I assumed they were metal halide lights, shows how much I know.... As mentioned on another forum John & I go on: At Bulwell cemetery where my Father-in-law is buried there are hundreds of solar LED's, the place is lit up like Blackpool, looked very nice, well to me at least. John asked "do ghosts need lights?" I've no idea.  |
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Post by John on Sept 1, 2014 17:03:06 GMT -5
Since reading this thread I've been looking round & spotted LED's all over the place: Petrol stations, supermarket car parks, McDonalds, went to Bulwell Hall estate t'other day & they were all LED's, I'd never noticed them before, I assumed they were metal halide lights, shows how much I know.... As mentioned on another forum John & I go on: At Bulwell cemetery where my Father-in-law is buried there are hundreds of solar LED's, the place is lit up like Blackpool, looked very nice, well to me at least. John asked "do ghosts need lights?" I've no idea.
I should mention, when I was at Angus Place in NSW, the rail mounted personnel carriers had LED red rear lights, they were units made up of dozens of red LED's, not as bright as todays, but U/G you could see them "miles" away. |
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Post by smshogun on Sept 3, 2014 18:33:35 GMT -5
BMW now have laser headlighting as an option, my company car has it and its brilliant as it consumes very little power and gives a variable light output, but LED is superior and I have then on everything except the headlights as I made them myself and fully waterproofed them, on a heavily used 4X4 used in mud and water total waterproofing is a boon as most 4X4's suffer from corrosion in multi-plugs and bulb contacts sooner than an average car.
By leaving a couple of tails on the light unit we have the benefit of the durability and longevity of LED's and if one of the 32 goes in my indicators I don't lose the full function as you would with a bulb, we have the ability to waterproof them with clear resin so no wet or dirt can get inside them as the light is full of resin, and if a lens gets smashed the unit is still waterproof and as the LED's are coloured you still get the correct coloured light for its application so much safer.
Much the same applied for commercial lighting applications, in the workplace you lose one LED and you don't lose the light, in emergency signs you have much longer life with smaller back up batteries which is beneficial for both people evacuating a smoke logged building and the emergency services, the same applies to security lighting with multiple LED's or LED chips so its much safer. |
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rob52
Shotfirer.
Posts: 199
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Post by rob52 on Sept 28, 2014 0:21:52 GMT -5
snip..."in emergency signs you have much longer life with smaller back up batteries"..... Hmmm....I have not seen "LED Light Output Deterioration Curves" defined in the Emergency Exit Light Standards as yet.....from what I have seen the LED Units Light Output deteriorates with time and the individual LED Globe is not a replacement item so you have to replace the whole fitting when the LUX level in the emergency egress path drops below that defined. The older cold cathode units had a pretty well defined life span and once the globe blew on replacing it you were back to full light output thus compliant LUX in the egress path. With the LED units are the fancy electronics drivers "Hardened"? or is that another area for improvement. The current drawn by most of the LED light drivers I have tested is far from sinusoidal.....it might be just 6W but it is often 25VA.....Just wait until the LSA starts to charge customers on kVA/Hr. I have a "LED Lenser H7" head light 140 lumens from 3 x AAA's alkalines gets a nominal 8Hrs its brilliant for working hands free in a roof or under a house or going fishing......LED technology has also advanced bicycle lights substantially in the last three (3) or so years. Rob |
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Post by smshogun on Sept 28, 2014 19:51:08 GMT -5
Rob:
This is true and this is the manufacturer and not the LED itself. Manufacturers want income from sales of new units and spares, if they make them too durable then they lose sales on new items as they are not replaced as frequently and they don't sell as many spares either. If they make them as sealed units then you sell another sealed unit to a customer.
Light output used to deteriorate with time and with older LED's this was significant, but with advancing technologies this has been reduced to insignificant and you would not notice any deterioration in an LED visible to the naked eye, you would need sophisticated test equipment to notice any difference.
In most equipment you don't need any form of LED driver as this is another way of complicating them and making them more expensive and more profitable, all you need is a stabilised supply which can be done simply with a basic voltage regulator. |
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Post by colly0410 on Jul 12, 2015 16:26:59 GMT -5
They're installing LED lights on the F floor corridors at the QMC where I work. I usually work on F19 ward. SMShogun are you involved in this work?
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Post by John on Jul 12, 2015 16:38:17 GMT -5
Going to be replacing fluoro tubes with LED tubes, they should be here on Tuesday. I'll have to rewire the fittings as the tubes are not "plug and play".
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Post by colly0410 on Jul 14, 2015 11:58:04 GMT -5
People are moaning about the new LED lights at work, they say they are "too blue!" I think it's just a thing of getting used to them. They seem to have got used to the LED streetlights that are on the Hucknall bypass & some other roads round here. Mind you a couple of them were flashing the other night, so I presume they're buggered...
BTW I found a nice LED flashlight on my hols in Burnham the other week, it was just laying there on the grass near the caravan we rented, very nice it is...
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rob52
Shotfirer.
Posts: 199
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Post by rob52 on Jul 15, 2015 7:09:14 GMT -5
yab aelf has:
a) 2000 Lumen (Chinese Lumens that is) CREE XM-L XML T6 Cycling Bicycle Bike Light Headlamp Headlight
b) 170 German Lumens LED Lenser H7.
Both go great
Rob
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Post by John on Jul 15, 2015 11:39:08 GMT -5
People are moaning about the new LED lights at work, they say they are "too blue!" I think it's just a thing of getting used to them. They seem to have got used to the LED streetlights that are on the Hucknall bypass & some other roads round here. Mind you a couple of them were flashing the other night, so I presume they're buggered... BTW I found a nice LED flashlight on my hols in Burnham the other week, it was just laying there on the grass near the caravan we rented, very nice it is...
Anyway, 6 LED tubes arrived yesterday and I'll be modifying one fluorescent today and see how it works out, I'll post my opinion tomorrow. These are frosted to match the "daylight" fluoro tubes.
If I'm happy, I'll be going all LED lights in my workshop with spots over the machinery. |
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Post by John on Jul 15, 2015 13:20:01 GMT -5
One of the kitchen light fittings changed out for LED tubes, WOW, bright!! I'll have to wait until sunset to give a better report. These are Jackyled tubes, had to disconnect the ballast as we have electronic ballasts and wire direct from the supply to the tombstones.
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Post by John on Jul 16, 2015 6:32:45 GMT -5
100% happy with these LED tubes, way brighter than the two 40 watt fluoro tubes and only 44 watt total.
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Post by Wheldale on Jul 17, 2015 17:10:15 GMT -5
I am currently replacing my GU10 50w lights with 4w LED GU10 light fittings. The light output is brilliant! I've replaced 15 fittings which works out at 750w, the new fittings consume 60w! The new lights are so much brighter, they cost more, about 3 times as much, but have a 3 year guarantee. The old halogen lights generally lasted a year so the 3 year guarentee on the led lights is good, according to the box they should save me 7 quid per year per light! This works out about 100 quid a year!
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Post by smshogun on Aug 1, 2015 14:12:45 GMT -5
Colly, I had nothing to do with the LED lighting at QMC, this said; the regulations they conform to were developed by us as were the systems and these were adopted for use in all Government buildings for future development.
E.g, by being future proofed you can add on things such as solar panels to make them more efficient or self sufficient. In the event of a total failure they can be plugged into external batteries to provide localised lighting for specific areas such as what might be encountered in an "emergency scenario". |
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Post by smshogun on Aug 1, 2015 14:22:09 GMT -5
Rob: another interesting point raises so do you know why the light deteriorates?
Its all to do with temperature and if they are run with their core temperature above 60 degrees C they deteriotate. Much work has been done in the cooling area and this means they are more efficient in terms of deterioration rendering deterioration curves void as they simply fit them with a superior chip and under rate it, or run it at 50-55 degrees C which means it has next to no deterioration curve or about 1% over a 20 year span which is less than any other form of lamp. |
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