A Guide for Online Information About:

LIGHTING THE FUTURE

by Rick Prescott

LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) are the wave of the future. All lights have a device within them that emits light. That device is a lamp. Most lamps found in today's lights are incandescent lamps. These incandescent lamps are reasonably tough and reasonably efficient—that is they use reasonable amounts of electricity to create light and last for reasonable amounts of time (25 to 500 hours) before they burn out. However, things have been changing.

A new type of lamp is now available. It is the LED or light emitting diode lamp. An LED lamp is essentially a semiconductor diode that emits a single color (monochromatic) light when operated in a forward direction. An LED lamp consists of the die or light emitting semiconductor material, a lead frame to support the die, and an encapsulation epoxy that surrounds and protects the structure. The LED lamp has been around for thirty years, however, the old units were dim and available in only a few colors. Today's LED lamps are far brighter than ever before and are now available in almost any color, size, and voltage.

There is some bad news about LED lamps. Individual lamps are still not as bright as many incandescent lamps. Therefore, most LED powered lights require a group of LED lamps. However, even this can be an advantage because the group of LED lamps acts as a standby system. Therefore, lighting devices will not go dark even if one lamp fails. There are a few good features of these lamps:

• New LED lamps are extremely tough. There is no glass to shatter and no filament to break, so shockproof LED lamps can take abuse far beyond that of the incandescent lamp.
• New LED lamps are efficient. They can emit light equal to an incandescent lamp while consuming only 10 percent of the electricity.
• New LED lamps last for a long time. Many have life spans of 100,000 hours—that is 600 weeks, or over 11 years of continuous use!
• LED lamps are excellent for to use near explosive gasses or liquids.
• LED lamps can withstand large shock and vibration far beyond those tolerated by incandescent lamps.
• LED lamps are energy efficient and environmentally friendly. They do not waste electricity or require large amounts of batteries. This also means they can be solar powered more easily.
• LED lamps practically eliminate costly maintenance.
• LED lamps have a low failure rate, so they reduce liability when located in areas where a failed light can cause an accident.

Many new products have been developed incorporating the new brighter LEDs technology. They range in application from use in automobiles to home lighting. Below are links to manufactures of such products.

offers military, vehicular, marine, aviation, warning, industrial, solar powered, flood and flashlight, and scuba LED lights.

Skylites is a manufacturer of full color, full motion, indoor and outdoor signs using HP ultra bright LEDs. Price changer signs, time and temperature signs, exit, open, closed, service, and entrance signs, as well as standard or custom signs and modules are available.

sells LED displays and infrared LEDs.

is India's leading manufacturer of LED displays comprising of LED: seven segment displays, alpha numeric displays, dot matrix displays, bargraphs & arrays, light bars, dual/triple digit displays, and arrow indicators.

Creative Energy Technologies produces LED DC and AC lighting fixtures.

Karst Sports is a source for camping, caving, climbing, and rescue equipment, including LED lighting equipment.

Life Brite are producers of LED lighting for motorcycles, scooters, trailers, cars, watercraft, trucks, snowmobiles, and golf carts.

LED Signs OnLine offers a complete line of electronic displays for indoor and outdoor applications—LED displays, electronic message boards, and programmable moving message led signs.

Bright View Electronics produces LED indicator lamps, infrared lamps, surface mount assembly LED, LED array, light sources, LED back lights, numeric/alphanumeric, and dot matrix displays.

PARA Light makes high-quality electronic LED displays.

ECGI are makers of LED lighting fixtures.

Mingstar offers super high brightness LED lamps.

There are also a lot of companies that manufacture super bright LEDs in virtually any color, size, or voltage to be incorporated into devices or products. Listed below are a few of these companies.

LED Power offers opto-electronic devices and products. Fiber optic solutions, laser diode products, wafers and chips, custom design and engineering to your specifications, discrete LED products, and based LED products to replace incandescent lamps.

Sun LED offers a wide range on LEDs and LED applications.

Lumex is a major globally based designer, manufacturer, and distributor of opto and photo electronic components and devices.

Marktech Optoelectronics is a marketer of Toshiba high-performance LEDs and constant current LED drives.

Micropac's Optoelectronics Division offers the broadest line of standard high-reliability optocouplers, visible light emitting diodes, and optoelectronic components available today.

Also now available is bright, white LED light. This technology offers users only 1/10th the power consumption of an incandescent bulb. White LEDs allow you to bring the light to the task area, to an area where there is no power source. White LEDs drastically reduce your overall cost to produce light for any reason, anywhere, from any type of power source. Whether your light is generated from 110VAC, from batteries of any size, by solar power, white LEDs will do it more economically and with less maintenance.

The LED Light is a a source for white LEDs, LED flashlights, light emitting diodes, LED lamps, and other LED and solar products.

ALF Enterprises offers white LED lighting and flashlights.

Bicycle Lighting offers white LED lights and other LED lighting systems for bicycles.

Glow-Bug offers a wide variety of LED flashlights and products.

Epicenter produces white light LED flashlights, solar and dynamo powered flashlights, and BayGen freeplay wind-up flashlights.

I am always looking for more material on interesting subjects. If anyone would like to share information on the subject above or would like to see a resource page on a particular topic contact me, Rick Prescott.

All product names and logos contained herein are the trademarks of their respective holders.

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