Flashes of light

By a waterfall

At Lightfair last week, I was shown a number of upcoming products that, while not officially announced or released, were aimed at meeting a standard, which had also not yet been released. There was justifiable excitement about the new standard, or rather series of standards, since they may go a long way to making LED lighting a lot more palatable to the general public.

The new standards are being worked out by the Zhaga Consortium, an industry group formed on February 3, 2010, to develop standard specifications for the interfaces of LED light engines so that LED modules can be independent of the type of LED technology used in the light engine. Obviously, such a standard would enable interchangeability between products made by diverse manufacturers, and thus lead to more rapid adoption of LED lighting. The consortium is named after a famously beautiful waterfall in China, whose many separate falls combine to form a single river.

The consortium has over 130 regular and associate members, and the roles read like a list of the most important players in lighting, including Bridgelux, Cree, General Electric, Havells Sylvania Europe, Leviton, OSRAM, Philips, the newcomer Samsung LED, and many more whose names are likely familiar to you. In February 2011, the consortium created its first light engine specification for a socketable LED light engine with integrated control gear. This specification, which describes the interfaces of a downlight engine, is currently available for review by members only, and will be made available for public download later this year.

In April, the consortium was discussing the interface specifications for several light engines, planning for specification rollout in several phases. In the next phase (phase 2) the consortium hopes to have a specification for a light engine for indoor lighting and, in phase 3 specifications for socketable and nonsocketable spotlight engines with separate control gear, a nonsocketable streetlight engine with separate control gear, and a compact socketable light engine with integrated control gear. In addition to the interface specification of light engines, the Zhaga consortium is also developing supporting specifications that will be reused for multiple light engine interfaces, such as the mechanical dimensions and fixation points of LED control gear.

To find out more about the consortium’s activities and how to get involved, visit www.zhagastandard.org/