Project Lighting

Automatic Gradual Dimming With Multi-LED Controllers

Here’s how you can control independent LEDs with a driver that focuses on gradual dimming…

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectlighting_200901/index.php?startid=5

Choosing an Integrated Silicon Optical Sensor

Useful in a broad array of apps, silicon photodetectors offer many options for tailoring their performance to your design…

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectlighting_200901/index.php?startid=11

Cooling High-Power LEDs

Selecting a solution based on junction temperature ensures that the most critical parameter is identified and thermally managed…

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectlighting_200901/index.php?startid=16

Viewpoint: Lighting the path ahead

Recently, I’ve received several flashlights demonstrating the latest LED technologies from Cree, Osram Opto Semiconductors, Seoul Semiconductor, and others. I want to thank all who sent them, because they’re great. Flashlights, of course, have been around for a long time; they’re so old they were once called “electric torches.” (“I say Igor, have you seen those new things the villagers are carrying when they’re storming our castle?”). Invented in the 1890s, a flashlight (you might think) would be hard to improve by now.

Think again. LEDs are more durable than incandescent bulbs and can withstand being dropped. Further, LEDs use less power, so they’re more likely to work when you need them and stay lit longer on battery power. Once I’ve equipped my car, home, and camping gear with LED flashlights, I’m not likely to have to replace them any time soon.

That’s good for me, but, after an initial surge in sales, the flashlight maker is out of business, right? Solid-state lighting creates a tremendous shift in the way the market operates. In a recent forum with solid-state lighting-industry experts, Cree Product Manager Paul Scheidt noted that “the best analogy now for the LED fixture solutions is that it’s going to be like laptops are today…are you going to worry about trying to upgrade it, or are you just going to go buy a new one?”

With LEDs, the failure replacement business is much less important. Significant improvement and innovation (what Rodney Bailey, VLED Engineering Manager at Optek, refers to as “taking light boldly where no light has gone before”) will really drive the lighting market.

Richard Comerford

For more on Project Lighting, visit www.electronicproducts.com/projectlighting

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectlighting_200901/