Creative Gadgets

Lumileds Lighting - Leading the revolution of light through technology and market leadership in solid state lighting

Lumileds Lighting is the world's leading manufacturer of high-power LEDs and a pioneer in the use of solid-state lighting solutions for everyday purposes. The company's patented Luxeon Power Light Sources are the first to combine the brightness of conventional lighting with the small footprint, long life and other advantages of LEDs. Lumileds also supplies core LED material and LED packaging, manufacturing billions of LEDs annually, and ranks as the producer of the world's brightest red, amber, blue, green and white LEDs. Lumileds’ mission is to bring the small form factor, long life span and other benefits of solid-state illumination based on Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to general lighting applications such as light fixtures, traffic signals, automotive, signaling and LCD displays through power LED technology.

Lumileds is founded in 1999 as a joint venture between Agilent Technologies (a company of Hewlett Packard) and Philips Lighting. Lumileds Headquarters are based in San Jose (Cal) USA, right in the hart of Silicon Valley, with regional operations in the Netherlands and Malaysia and sales offices throughout the world.

What is Luxeon?

Luxeon emitters are the highest flux LEDs in the world, delivering the brightest solid-state lighting solutions available. Luxeon white produces more than 20 lumens per Watt, and Luxeon emitters are 10 to 20 times brighter than standard LEDs, enabling luminous densities of 5 to 20 times higher. Luxeon is an optimum light source.

Lasts longer than any other light source—more than 10 years

Luxeon contains solid-state technology made in Silicon Valley using technology similar to those used in the latest microprocessors. Unlike typical conventional light sources, LEDs do not fail catastrophically; meaning they do not dramatically burn out and cease to function. In many applications Luxeon will last for more than 10 years of operation. See image chart below.

Reduced maintenance costs

Since Luxeon lasts at least 10 times longer than a typical light source, there is no need to replace the light source, thereby reducing or even eliminating ongoing maintenance costs and periodic re-lamping expenses.

More energy efficient

Be the environmental solution. Luxeon is more energy efficient than incandescent and most halogen light sources, and is fast approaching the efficiency of fluorescent.

Robust, solid-state lighting

Luxeon power light sources are solid-state devices. There are no moving parts, nothing to break, rupture, shatter, leak or contaminate the environment.

Superior lumen maintenance—by design

Luxeon power light sources contain no epoxy. Epoxy is prone to optical decay overtime, resulting in poor lumen maintenance. Luxeon technology delivers superior lumen maintenance compared to other solid-state sources and conventional lighting.

Portable lighting Application

Luxeon from Lumileds is an ideal fit for most portable lighting applications. The solid-state technology results in an extremely rugged light. The small size of the Luxeon Power Light Source allows for a compact product design, enabling you to differentiate yourself from your competition. High power white (and coloured) sources are available today, enabling you to rapidly adopt this state of the art technology in flashlights, miner headlights, lanterns, bicycle lamps and diving lamps. And they last longer: up to 50x the life of some incandescent bulbs. Combine this with the robustness and small size of the Luxeon and you can now have a product which looks great and is sealed for life.

About DC Voltage / Current Regulation on flashlights

In some flashlights, regulation is used to provide a more consistent output. This feature typically appears in more expensive flashlights because it requires either an electronic circuit or some other type of regulator system.

A typical flashlight (without regulation) starts dimming as soon as you turn it on. This is because the battery drops it voltage as it is drained. After 15 minutes or so, a typical light could be as much as 1/2 the brightness as when it was first turned on. The rate of dimming varies with battery type, flashlight design, etc. LEDs are even more prone to dimming compared to incandescent (bulbs) when used in high brightness designs. This is because incandescent bulbs have a slight self-regulating effect.

Some manufacturers advertise their LED flashlights with incredible claims like, "over 50 hours of run time!", etc. Yes, these lights will produce light for over 50 hours but the light will be quite dim at that point. Didn't you buy that light to be as bright as when you bought it at the store?

Regulators cause the light to maintain a consistently bright output, even as the battery becomes depleted. As a result, regulated lights have a shorter advertised run time but the run time is more realistic for what you buy a light for.

Another advantage to regulated lights is that is makes it easier to use your batteries up completely. Non-regulated lights may be begging you to change out the batteries when there is still 50% power left.

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Web Dynamics 2004