Osram has developed a small light-emitting diode spotlight that achieves an output of more than 1,000 lumens for the first time. That’s brighter than a 50-watt halogen lamp, thereby making the device suitable for a broad range of general lighting applications. The Ostar Lighting LED, which will be launched on the market this summer, can provide sufficient light for a desk from a height of two meters, for example. Its small size also enables the creation of completely new lamp shapes.
A lumen (lm) is the unit of measurement for the amount of light emitted by a light source. A 60-watt light bulb emits 730 lm, while a 50-watt halogen lamp has an output of approximately 900 lm. To achieve the 1,000 lm output for the tiny Ostar Lighting LED, the experts at Siemens’ Osram subsidiary employed a sophisticated system for high chip-packing density, whereby the researchers managed to integrate six high-performance LED lighting chips into the unit’s small housing. Each chip has an area of only one square millimeter, which makes for very concentrated overall luminosity.
Different types of LEDs are used today in various areas, for example as background lighting in cell phone displays, as well as in car turn-signal lights, brake lights, and daytime running lights. The benefits are obvious: The diodes are extremely small and consume little energy because they efficiently convert electricity into light. The Ostar Lighting LED, for example, produces 75 lumens per watt at 350 milli-amperes of operating current — much more than an incandescent lamp, which only converts a fraction of the electricity supplied into light, with the rest lost as heat energy. In addition, LEDs contain no lead or mercury, which makes them very environmentally friendly. They also last around ten times longer than halogen lamps and 50 times longer than incandescent lamps, thereby helping to significantly reduce maintenance costs.
For many years, however, LEDs were unsuited for room lighting applications because they weren’t bright enough. The Ostar Lighting LED marks a further step toward suitability for such applications. Osram has already supplied a Migros supermarket in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen with 18,000 Golden Dragon LEDs, which have a lower output than the Ostar Lighting units. These LEDs emit neither UV rays nor heat, which means they have virtually no negative impact on delicate grocery items such as milk, meat, fruit and vegetables.
Source: Siemens
Excellent. Incandescents suck ass, especially as they age and get redder and redder. They also kill your electric bill too.
That's great news, especially since white LEDs were only recently coming on the scene. I always heard they lost efficiency bonuses as they were made bigger though, so I'm wondering if they'll ever make it to being car headlights one day, as opposed to indicators.
Cool. Enviornment friendly and cool new shapes of lamps and completely new ways of lighting rooms.
Also, these things are probably going to turn cel phones into reasonable flashlights.
The torch on my Sony Ericsson is good enough for basic lighting needs, so really they can only get better now since they're not so bad at the moment and I see they're making leaps and bounds in power output.
It's gonna need a pretty damn big heatsink, LEDs and heat are a bad mix to say the least. In theory the sucker's going to use somewhere between 12-15W which ain't gonna be good for life expectancy considering that current Lexeon 5W LEDs are already notoriously short-lived.
aerius: I'll vote for you if you sleep with me. Lusankya: Deal!
Say, do you want it to be a threesome with your wife? Or a foursome with your wife and sister-in-law? I'm up for either.
That assumes the materials technology won't progress too somewhat, though the first generation LED torches were notorious for warming up quite noticeably and had to have their casings act as heat sinks.
It has progressed, the Luxeon 5W LEDs I mentioned put out something like 45-50 lumens/watt, and the battery draw could be up to 8W on some of them.
Personally I think once you get up to the 10-15W region for power consumption, you might as well go with HID lights. The ballast & starter costs a fair bundle, but you don't have to worry about excess heat dimming the lamp and causing premature failures.
aerius: I'll vote for you if you sleep with me. Lusankya: Deal!
Say, do you want it to be a threesome with your wife? Or a foursome with your wife and sister-in-law? I'm up for either.
Given how HIDs are usually received by drivers, I doubt many people would enjoy that actinic glare being more common (people are only just getting used to fluorescent lighting being everywhere now). I'd rather see how LEDs progress over the next few years before considering something that is really even more unlike an incandescent or halogen bulb.
From what I hear anyway, LEDs are expected to surpass HID in the near future, and we've gone from quite ineffective lamps a couple of years ago to potential household lighting replacements already.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:Given how HIDs are usually received by drivers, I doubt many people would enjoy that actinic glare being more common (people are only just getting used to fluorescent lighting being everywhere now). I'd rather see how LEDs progress over the next few years before considering something that is really even more unlike an incandescent or halogen bulb.
From what I hear anyway, LEDs are expected to surpass HID in the near future, and we've gone from quite ineffective lamps a couple of years ago to potential household lighting replacements already.
I'd imagine we'd tweak the LEDs to replicate a blackbody curve over the visible spectrum (i.e. cut off the IR/UV bits; I think its called spectrum shaping). I think a good color temperature to aim for would be around 5500°C, or about halfway between natural sunlight and incandescent bulbs. It would look like a clean, slightly warm white without the actinic blue or dingy yellow.
