Led Lighting

Led Lighting is the latest craze. Unfortunately as with all new technologies finding the right stuff is not at all easy. The diversity is endless and standardisation unknown. This all makes that if you want to buy some led lamps you better inform yourself with a light specialist.

Mainly you can divide led lighting in two groups, the so called 5mm leds and the powerleds. The 5mm leds are those led lamps where there are a few or many small 5mm balls visible. Actually this is the same thing as you find on your television as a wake lamp. This is indeed a light technique to forget. The future is at the powerled. This is mainly a small square plaque of only 2x2mm and with a consumption of 1 watt. As led is a very white cool light, on top they glue a coloured drop. The plaque is placed behind a lens which bundles the light to 30° or more.

The powerled always need a specific supply, the so called convertor, that not only puts the voltage down but also converts AC to DC. Yes, a powerled needs the DC power you find in batteries. The convertor can be build in the led spot or can be a separate unit.

The market is overwhelmed by led lighting and every day new led fixtures are presented. Some consideration before any purchase is necessary. Don’t think you can throw away all your halogen spots and replace them by leds. It can be done but your light level will drop. What can be done is replacing mains voltage halogen by led. Read our report about our GU10 Ledspot 3x 2watt.

Don’t change your incandescent lamps for led lamps, a much better alternative is using energy saving lamps. Nevertheless the champion is and remains the fluorescent tube lamp.

Something different and special is the RGB led lighting. Here we don’t think in terms of light levels but in terms of nice colours and moods. You can use a remote control to program some loops giving an endless change of colours. More expensive controls do allow you to program your own effects.