LED lighting is the right choice for hazardous environments

Generally speaking, hazardous environments include chemical plants, power-generation plants, oil, gas, and petrochemical refineries, mines, drilling platforms, nuclear or the other hazardous plants. These places are usually used to manufacture or handle some explosive gases, contaminated liquids and flammable materials. The features of these places are humid, high dust, high vibration and extreme temperatures, which determines them need very rugged and reliable lighting systems to guarantee the security of the environments.

Over the years, LED technology has been rapidly-developing in term of light output, color options, wattage options, efficiency and manufacturing costs. With the phasing out of incandescent lamps and high-intensity discharge in many countries, which are higher power consumption, higher heat dissipation and low light output, LED lighting is becoming more and more popular. LED lighting is energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, rugged and reliable, it also have a longer lifespan about 30000 hours. All of these features make it become the right choice for hazardous environments.

Let’s talk about the reason why LED lighting is the right choice for hazardous environments.

First of all, LED lights have great features of dustproof, waterproof and shockproof, which guarantee the lights can withstand severe weather conditions, corrosive atmospheres, excessive moisture of dust and high ambient temperatures. Compared with conventional lights such as incandescent lights and fluorescent lamps, which is made of glass and easily broken, LED lights are resistant to shock, vibration and corrosion, and can be used in hazardous environments for a long time despite some special damage.

The second, hazardous environments are usually located in remote areas and are inaccessible, and hence, it is very unwise to maintain or replace the lighting systems regularly. What’s more, the maintenance in hazardous environments can be dangerous. However, LED lighting can solve the problem easily. LED lights are well known for great performance and have a long lifespan. The approach not only reduces maintenance and labor replacement costs, but also improves the security of hazardous environments.

The third, LED lighting do not produce any harmful UV or IR radiation, which will not cause other harmful effects on high-risk environments. According to some high-risk work environment, there must be a continuous supply of electricity; otherwise it is likely to cause an accident. So it becomes very important that the workplaces cannot afford to be without lighting for even a second. At the same time, LED lighting is easily to switch on to be fully high intensity, but generate less heat than conventional lights.

It is worth noting that LED lights designed to be used in hazardous environments must comply with standards and requirements needed in such areas. It must be checked to ensure that a hotspot or a spark does not lead to fire, or an internal ignition will escape from the fixture of the housing. If a spark or s hotspot appears in some environments of explosive gases or liquids or flammable materials, the consequences are very serious. Therefore, if LED lights are used to apply in hazardous environments, the manufacturing and testing standards for these LED luminaries are controlled strictly.

Is LED the future for automotive lighting applications?

Many vehicle drivers are always upset by the insufficient light from their headlights or taillights, which will provide poor visibility on the road, making the driving more dangerous. Especially at night, the strong glare from the other vehicles coming from the opposite direction will make the drivers feel nervous and difficult to see the road ahead. Accidents often occur in this case because the drivers have some difficulty to judge the distance and see clearly the vehicles ahead. However, with LED lighting being used for automotive application, the safety on the road has greatly increased as the road ahead gets well lit by LED headlights and the drivers feel eased when driving at night.

LED lights have been produced for commercial lighting and industry lighting for a long time ago, but LED lighting for vehicle was first introduced in 2003. With the increasing LED technology and improving performance of LED lights, many customers begin to buy LED lights for vehicle over fluorescent lights and halogen lights. What’s more, many manufacturers realized that there will be a huge potential LED lights market for automotive lighting applications and have started producing the kind of lights.

Compared with all other types of automotive lights, LED lights have some very distinct advantages. Their features of longer lifespan, great performance, lower power consumption, high light output and lower heat dissipation make them become the perfect solution of automotive lighting. Slowly but steadily, LED technology will be applied on rear combination lamps, brake lights, turn signals, interior reading lights, daytime running lamps, fog lights, position and market lamps, etc. Over the year, LED lights are now being used for many vehicles, such as off-road vehicle, 4*4 vehicles, military and trucks. In the future, LED lights will be produced to be more suitable for different types of vehicles, such as bicycles, trains and emergency vehicles.

Cars manufacturers are selecting LED lighting over other types of lights due to their ease of assembly, reliability, longevity, and competitive price. They believe that LED lights will have a bright future for automotive lighting applications because they have more advantages than conventional lights. LED lighting is adaptive to different environmental and traffic-related requirements, the dynamic bending of light or adaptive front lighting systems will help the driver see the obstacles on the road clearly. Many lamps have a defect that the lights will move together with the cars, but LED lights are resistant to vibration generated by a moving vehicle. They react very quickly to be full light intensity, but standard incandescent car lights usually take a lot of time to get switched on. The most attractive feature is that car maker can have an innovative design of LED lighting and design a unique LED light depending on the vehicle models.

With the rapidly-developing lighting technologies and the introduction of new technologies, LED lighting manufacturers will produce even better comfort and homogenous light and more types of LED lights to meet a wide variety of vehicles. LED lights will have a bright future for automotive lighting application.

How energy-saving is LED lights?

If we want to know how energy-saving LED lights is, we need to understand the structure and working principle of LED lights. The important part of the LED lights is the semiconductor wafer, which is solid in nature. We called the semiconductor as Light Emitting Diode, abbreviation for LED. One side of the semiconductor wafer is negative electrode, and the other side is positive electrode. When electricity is passed through the semiconductor material, the wafer will begin to release energy in the form of visible light.

When compared with fluorescent lamps and incandescent light, LED lights have a very distinct advantage in energy-saving. Fluorescent lamps emit light by phosphorous powder, but 30% of the energy is consumed in the form of heat. While the incandescent lights emit light when electricity is passed through the filament, it uses a lot of energy to produce light, but 90% of the energy is wasted as heat. The LED lights typically use about 25%-80% less energy than traditional incandescent, saving more energy and the money.

LEDs emit light in a specific direction according to different need, which will reduce the need for reflectors and diffusers that can trap light. Different fixtures are equipped to prevent the light from reflecting into undesired directions and most of the light can be fully used. The features make the LED lights more efficient for many work lights and street lights. LED lights are available in the wide range of colors and light levels you've come to expect, you can decide the color of LED lights by controlling the size of the current, such as the red, green and blue, and the white light is typically used by a mix of red, green and blue LEDs.

As is all know, the lifespan of LED lights are more than 60000 hours, while incandescent lights last for 800 to 1500 hours, and fluorescent lights last up to 10000 hours. In addition to, the traditional fluorescent lights and incandescent lights are made of glass, which are easily broken and lower lifespan need for frequent replacement. According to a research, if 250000 street lights are replaced by LED lights in a city, the lighting switch will save $70000 and nearly 248000 kilowatt-hours a year in energy, and the replacement project is expected to save $14 million a year in energy and maintenance costs. From these data we can see, LED lights are extremely energy efficient and save a lot of economic cost. What’s more, LED lights are a great lighting option for those wishing to pay less initially for their needs, providing great performance, environmental protection, lower heat dissipation and the other features.

With the rapidly increasing need of LED market and advanced LED technology, LED lights are applied widely for commercial and industrial lighting, and it also has the potential to fundamentally change the future of lighting around the world. More and more customers and dealers are shifting toward LED lighting because of the lower power consumption and high light output, but the important reason is the energy-saving, which will help people save a lot of money in energy paying. At the same time, I hope that more and more people will replace traditional lights with LED lights, reducing the burden of energy.

Chinese LED products have quality issue

There are about 4000 LED manufacturers in China, making it the largest LED market in the world.And the annual production capacity is far ahead of the other countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Germany, Taiwan and the United States.

So far, LED lights are applied widely for commercial and industrial lighting, kitchen under-cabinet lighting, household lighting and the other specific application. We can notice that many public places are equipped with all kinds of LED products like street lighting, big hotels, shopping malls and big office buildings. At the same time, the variety of LED products also meets different commercial uses.

Despite the increasing production of LED lights, it also exposes some problems which need to immediately solve. In the one hand, as all we know, LED lights are more expensive than incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lamps. Some companies have manufactured poor quality products in order to have an affordable price, so as to attract more customers to purchase it. Without the support of technology, it is a very wrong way to reduce the cost of production through use the poor quality material. For example, the Chinese manufacturers are still using outdated machinery and equipment, which is a major cause for low quality of LEDs and LED productions. Many LED products, mostly the low-priced LED lights, produced by the Chinese manufacturers usually burn out after less than a year. Nowadays, Chinese products have a bad reputation in foreign countries like United State and India. Many large buyers began to refuse to buy Chinese LED products.

In the other hand, Chinese manufacturing has not completely mastered the production technology of LED chips, so Chinese LED manufacturers depend heavily on foreign companies for it, which account for about half of the production cost of LED lights. There are many companies who mainly sell LED component and LED package, which are a part of LED market, but many customers, especially the foreign customers, are also not satisfied with the quality.

The popularity of LED lights will become the main trend of the lighting industry in the future. With the increasing demand of LED lights, Chinese manufacturers should find the most appropriate and most scientific production methods to run their factories; otherwise it may hurt them in the long run.

Chinese government successfully passed a series of domestic policies that serve to not only stimulate LED lighting demand, but also to improve LED lighting mechanism. In addition, Chinese government has well-established plans and programs to phase out legacy incandescent lighting. But the most important is that Chinese government is trying to bring that technology back home so that the price of LED lighting products can be reduces further, rather than to reduce the price through using the poor quality material. The Chinese LED manufacturers should solve out the quality issue. They can order new equipment from western suppliers and learn the advanced technology of LED products, which would soon improve the quality of their products, and hence, their reliability.

The classification of LED products

LED products have been more and more popular in industrial and commercial places because of its high light output, longer lifespan, and lower power consumption. With the rapidly-developing lighting technologies, LED products will change the future of lighting industry. At the same time, the widespread use of LED products will save more electricity costs and energy output.

LED lighting is significantly different from incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lights. They use LEDs of different colors to make lights of various colors, and the mix of red, green and blue LEDs is typically used to make white light. LED lighting greatly decreases the need for reflectors and diffusers that can trap light, which guarantee better illumination and less energy consumption. The feature of LEDs emitting light in a specific direction makes it more efficient for many uses such as recessed downlights and task lighting.

LED lighting is currently available in a wide variety types, shapes and sizes because of the tremendous improvements of semiconductor technology over recent years, and the LED technology will lead to more products for specific application. Below are some of the most common types of LED products.

Industrial and commercial lighting

LED lights bring a lot of colorful light for many big cities, and they make the city more beautiful and flourishing. Many public places need high intensity lighting and wider range of illumination on the basis of lower energy consumption and less economic cost. The high efficiency and directional nature of LEDs makes them ideal for many industrial and commercial uses. LED lights can create different lighting effects, which make them increasingly common in street lights, parking garage lighting, shopping malls, leisure and entertainment places, and the other outdoor area lighting.

Kitchen under-cabinet lighting

The kitchen is one of the most important places in the house, and adequate lighting will meet the need of people to cook. Under normal circumstances, the kitchen needs some softer lighting, such as the pure white light and yellow light. People will do many things in the kitchen such as eating, cooking, washing and reading recipes. Different space needs different lighting effects. Because LEDs are small and directional, they are ideal for lighting countertops for specific application and provide cooler and softer lighting which is desirable in a kitchen. What’s more, you can choose the best fixture for your space to make some excessive shadowing.

Household lighting

We often use incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lights in our house, but it is still difficult to accept by us that they are not environmentally friendly and have high energy. With performance improvement and dropping prices, LED lights have increasing replaced more and more conventional lights. Recessed downlights are commonly used in residential kitchens, hallways, and bathrooms, and in a number of office and commercial setting. LED bulbs are small-scale lighting and replace incandescent bulbs. It is important to make sure the product is the right brightness and color for the intended location.

Holiday lights

Security is the most important factor for LED lights to become holiday lights. They produce less heat than incandescent bulbs, which reducing the risk of burnout and posing a fire. They have a longer lifespan of about 30000 hours, and the epoxy lenses make it more resistant to breakage. We often use LED light strings to decorate Christmas tree and festival venues. Some flashing and colorful LED holiday lights are more popular in festival day.

How to reduce the cost of LED lighting products

Even through the price of LED lighting products is cheaper than before, they are still unaffordable for many customers and industrial users to purchase and much expensive than incandescent lights and fluorescent lights. LED lighting is consist of many components which need more cost and technical to manufacture, and the design and production cost of LED lighting systems make it expensive compared to conventional lights. As a new type of energy-efficient lighting, reducing the price has become one of the most important issues of the popularity of LED lighting systems. So, how to reduce the manufacturing cost of LED lights has become a tremendous challenge for the manufacturing industry.

There are many ways to reduce the design and production cost of LED lighting products. Since many components cannot be replaced and the cost is constant, many manufacturers will shift towards the LED chips, LED packages and in display panel technology to reduce the cost of LED lighting products. The advanced LED chip and packaging have had good beneficial impact on the number of LEDs used, which has helped to cut down production cost of LED lighting products.

The first way, using advanced LED chips to reduce the number of LED chip. The LED lighting with general brightness need several LED chips, and the more wattage, the more LED chips required. So many manufacturers require LED lights with one chip, which means that LED chips should have significant increase in efficiency. University of bath researchers have made an innovation, they incorporated nanostructures into the LED chips, which enabled the semiconductor materials to grow in a regular crystal structure. It was found that the efficiency and light output are better, and less light is wasted. The nanostructures help to have more control over the direction of light given out by the LEDs, and allow them to focus beams of light.

The second way is low-cost plastic LED packages. The advancement in plastic LED packages will allow the LED lighting to remain long-term reliability, lumen maintenance and color stability. What’s more, the low-cost plastic LED packages will greatly reduce the production cost of LED lights, providing affordable products for customers. As a newly developed LED package, PLCC can distribute light and heat through LEDs distributed spatially, and its features can improve the brightness. However, the designers and manufacturers have to cautions and ensure that the use low- and mid-power LEDs which are made of reliable materials. 

The third way, using cost-effective silicon wafers. Purdue University researchers have developed a method of using cost-effective silicon wafers, replacing the expensive sapphire-based technology. Manufacturers will prefer silicon to produce LED lighting for the low-price silicon will ensure the low-cost products, which will bring LEDs into competitive pricing as compared to fluorescent lamps and incandescent lights. Many industries have begun to scale up the LED lighting in the help of silicon wafers. At the same time, the silicon wafers have better heat dissipation than sapphire, reducing damage caused by heating, which is likely to improve reliability and increase the lifetime of LED lighting.

Actually, as long as technology continues to progress, it is not difficult to reduce the design and production cost of LED lighting products.

The future of LED lights

Across the globe, many countries are shifting toward LED lighting because of its advantages of lower wattage demand, lower maintenance cost and longer lifetime it offers. Even though the initial cost of installing outdoor LED lighting can be substantial, it can save a lot of energy for us. For example, about 200,000 street lights will be replaced by LED bulbs in Denmark itself, which are likely to save municipalities 70% on their energy bills. Nowadays, we use LED lighting for household lighting and industrial lighting such as the lamps, the light for vehicle, the work light for operation.

As the more energy-efficient illumination options for consumers and industrial users, the demand of LED lighting has been increasing in these years. Many governments successfully passed a series of domestic policies that serve to not only stimulate LED lighting demand, but also to improve LED lighting mechanism. Countries with the most advanced economies such as the United State and Japan have well-established plans and programs to phase out legacy incandescent lighting. Chinese government proposed to spend 2.2 billion RMB on the promotion of CFL and LED lights, and to prohibit the sale of 100 Watt-and above incandescent light bulbs, along with those of halogen lamps whose efficiency levels fall below required standards. That shouldn't be surprising, because the global lighting account is about 25% of the total energy consumption.

LED lights are affordable for many customers and industrial users now. The prices of low-end and low-wattage LEDs that are produced in China have reduced by nearly half in the last one year. Higher-wattage LEDs that are produced in other regions of the world have also reduced by 15 to 20%.

So far, China, the largest LED lighting market in the world, do not have good reputation in other countries. Large buyers warn that the low-priced LEDs and LED lights produced by the Chinese manufacturers usually burn out after less than a year. According to industry experts, the Chinese manufacturers are still using outdated machinery and equipment, which is a major cause for low quality of LEDs and LED products. With the rise in demand, Chinese manufacturers have started ordering new equipment from western suppliers early this year, which would soon improve the quality of their products, and hence, their reliability.

LED lighting technology has been in progress all the time. Since the invention of the blue LED, professor Hiroshi Amano, Nagoya University Graduate school, was awarded the Nobel Prize On January 14^th,2015. Red and green LED have been appeared for a long time, with the appearance of blue LED, we can produce a variety of colors of LED lights. Professor Amano said,” I want people around the world can afford LED lights, but the current price is still very high for them. If the production costs will be reduced to one-fifth of today, the popularity of LED lighting products will ultimately be greater than it is now. ”

5 inch round 36W off road LED work light with spot beam

Most of the headlights installed in our vehicles are halogen and HID lights, but they also have very obvious problems, such as insufficient lighting, higher power consumption, etc. Due to the continuous development in recent years, LED lights have been widely used on household lighting and industrial lighting because of the advantages of energy efficient and super brightness.

If you want to replace your headlights with LED lights, I recommend you to try 5 inch round LED work lights. The specialty design of the kind of LED work light fits for many kinds of vehicles which have H7 connect point and the consistent size headlights, and the LED work light can replace the original car headlights directly.

The diameter of the kind of LED work light is 144mm, and the thickness is 88mm. The die-cast aluminum housing and toughed glass cover make the LED work light more durable and brighter, and the included mounting bracket is stainless steel, which guarantees the features of shockproof, waterproof, dustproof and anticorrosion to endure the roughest work and most demanding driving conditions. There is some unique shape convex lens reflection cups with Epistar LEDs inside, which can supply high lumen output.

The light output of these LED work lights are simply phenomenal, they produce mass of clean white daylight, free of artifacts and focus dead spots. They have good spot light effect and longer irradiation distance than the original car headlights, which will make your driving safer. They light the entire forward viewing area, giving greater visibility without eye fatigue. What’s more, it is energy efficient, providing high brightness illumination but lower power consumption. The circuitry is designed in-house to be more powerful, be more efficient, and generate less heat, which guarantee the LED work light has a longer lifespan of more than 30000 hours.

The LED work light is ideal to be used on motorcycles, and it can also apply to different types of vehicles, because of the wide voltage range: SUV, off road vehicle, rescue, excavator, large trucks, bicycle, boat or excavators, agricultural machinery, bulldozers, cruise ships, ATV etc.

When driving at night, you really need a LED work light to see all the obstacles in front of your vehicle clearly, to keep your car move forward smoothly, to avoid the car by the side of the road obstructions scrape or be destroyed. So the 5 inch round work light will be your first solution.

The price of the LED work light is only $36.45 in AuxBeam Lighting. If you are interesting in it and want to get more information, please go to this website: http://www.auxbeam.com/. Thanks for your reading.