Now THIS is an LED Light Bulb.

Now why didn't I think of that? Wait, I did. It's my website logo. All they have to do now is put it into a leaf shape. Luckily this is just a concept because as beautiful as this looks, the light it outputs would only be coming out of the top hemisphere, if even. Normal incandescents can do it, because their element is large and the supports are made of glass. But we can always dream can't we?

http://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2008/09/02/frog_light.jpg

[Yanko via Frog Designs]

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THE BEST LED light fixture out right now

We have our own website, that sells products but I can't help but tip my hat to this company. LLF Inc. who was bought out by CREE one of the main LED Chip Manufacturers in the US has the best led fixture out there right now:

They sell a 6-inch and 4-inch LED fixture that you can install in new construction or retro-fit into existing cans (plug and play):
What's so great about it?

• It's CHEAP - I've seen it sell for well under $100


• It's bright (enough) - equivalent to a 65W bulb using 12W


• It's widely available - type in "CREE LR6" and you can find it both on the internet and in the majority of electrical wholesale stores (No Home Depot or Big-Box retailers yet). Also from what I've heard from the wholesalers - it's selling like hot cakes.


• It's dimmable on any pre-existing system or using any standard dimmer.

This is a BIG deal especially in homes because having seen and personally talked to a large number of manufacturers from China, USA, Korea, Taiwan the one thing they can't seem to nail down is dimmability. 100% of all the manufacturers are in one of these categories for dimmability:

1. It dims partially - only down to about 30% then it start flickering

2. It dims on their own proprietary dimmer - which means you have to switch out your nice looking dimmer for a plain jane knob dimmer typically

3. It dims using a remote control - HUH?! - Why would you want to have a remote to dim your lights?!? - oh and to make it work you have to throw in a transformer (proprietary of course) between your power supply and the lights.

4. They say it dims - and it doesn't at all. When you put the bulb on a dimmer, and try dimming it produces a seizure inducing flicker.

So hat's off to Cree. For your marketing and foresight. By the way, we're actively looking for a BRIGHTER, DIMMABLE solution that will compete directly with the LR6. And when we find it, you can guarantee you'll see it in our store. :)

"Multiple Self-Sustaining" LED Streetlights

Things aren't always what they seem. But sometimes they are. This Prisma streetlamp not only uses High power LEDs to shower the streets with it's luminescence, but it's interactive and pays for itself to boot. It's supposed to be able to be controlled by a user, say for street fairs, which is pretty nifty, and even has solar panels(but then again what gadget nowadays DOESN'T have it) to help run the motor that turns the head assembly. Kind of defeats the purpose though if the main power for the light is still coming from the grid. The actual self-sustaining part is the fact that the vertical light can be pointed at various signs, banners, effigies of Jesus, or other advertising detritus to add an additional revenue stream to the mix. Not quite the supergreen product, but more like a light sea foam. Sadly (or perhaps happily), this is only a concept product, so you won't be hacking a Batman symbol on the top dome any time soon.
[via Prisma Design]

Light Bulbs with Fans?!

I bet Thomas Edison never would’ve thought we’d end up making light bulbs with fans inside them when he invented the light bulb 100 years ago. That’s what I’ve been seeing more and more of lately both online and at the Las Vegas Lightfair I attended a couple months back (more on that in a future blog entry). Why? Because it’s a race right now for every manufacturer to make a brighter bulb and grab the largest share of the market possible. So why the fans?

To understand this a little better, let’s get into a little bit of LED bulb design theory. There’s three main components in an LED bulb:
1. Chip/Die – This is the LED itself
2. Heatsink – This is what keeps LED Chip/Die cool
3. Optics – This is the lens that directs the light out of the bulb – giving you a narrow/wide beam of light

CREE is the #1 US manufacturer(brightest) for LED dies right now. (See our LED Buying Guide for more information). We can pretty much assume the majority of manufacturers are using the same chip. What about the lens? As important as the lens is, you can only bend the light in so many ways, and the light output increase is only marginal using the same chip.

So what’s the solution? Pack more LED’s into one place or drive them harder by putting more electricity through them. What happens when you do either of these and what’s the #1 killer of LED’s? Heat.

So we need a way of keeping them cool. OK let’s just make a bigger heatsink:

But now the bulb won’t fit in a traditional socket. “Doh”

OK, what about a fan? “Aha!”. This will let us keep a small form factor, and keep the bulbs the same size.

Sounds like a great idea at first but aren’t LED’s rated at 50,000 hours? That’s 17 years at 8 hours a day. Ever opened up a computer after 2 years and seen the amount of gunk the fans have picked up? Imagine the amount of gunk that they will pick up after 5 or 10 years? What happens then? Fan stops > LED overheats > LED dies. There goes $50 to $100.

That’s my thoughts. I just don’t think LED bulbs with fans are the way to go. There’s no way they can possibly last 17 years unless we come up with a self-cleaning fan technology. I DID find a company that came up with a brighter bulb without a fan and am about to get samples of this bulb. Pictures to come…
Anyone think otherwise? Anyone tried an LED bulb with fans?

The Definitive Buying Guide for LED Light Bulbs

What I've noticed lately is there's a lack of information that can be found on the web about LED light bulbs. Now there's a ton of information online about LEDs in general, don't get me wrong. But when it comes to LED light bulbs specifically and what to look for when wanting to purchase them, the information is very sparse, and if it even IS available, it's usually in a very technical format where you practically need an engineering degree to decrypt what the figures mean.

Because of that, we've decided to create a guide of our own. It's a guide that explains :

• What LEDs are
• How they work
• Why they are better than compact fluorescents

and most importantly,

• What features you should be looking for when purchasing LED light bulbs

If you like it, Digg it, facebook it, or please let us know in the comments below!!!

The Definitive Buying Guide for LED Light Bulbs

The Great Wall of China - The LED Version

Those crazy Chinese are at it again with another version of the Great Wall, at least from my perspective. I guess they're in it to win it when it comes to grand displays to impress the rest of the world. Maybe this time they're actually getting it right. This version is made up of LED's and dwarves anything I've seen lately. Probably not the biggest I've EVER seen, but then again, it also isn't an installation that uses half a million watts just for the sound system. No, this wall is so "great" because it is billed as a zero-energy fixture.

The LED wall contains solar panels that harvest the sun's rays during the day, and uses that energy to display a video light show at night. How completely perfect. It's like the true circle of life. In theory, you could build one of these in the middle of the desert, away from any and all civilization, and play large-than-life size movies off of it. Take that another step further and I would LOVE to play some old school Street Fighter II on a deserted island. Although GTA IV would definitely keep my attention for a little longer.

This is a one-off structure, so I don't think they're selling to the general public, but if you have to ask how much it would cost, you definitely can't afford it. The new green buzzword of 2008 is "zero energy". I'm already an adopter. I've had this solar-powered flashlight for years....

How do Luxim Bulbs work?

So I was sitting at home playing jacks and I couldn't get out of my head how the Luxim bulbs can possibly be so efficient. It must be some sort of voodoo magic. So I did some more research, of what little there was, and found a little animation on the mechanism that causes this little Tic-Tac sized bit of glass to emit this enormous amount of light.

So apparently the way these things work is that it's like a cross between a halogen and a fluorescent. With halogens, the filament material heats up (much like a standard incandescent bulb) and microscopic bits evaporates into the high pressure bulb. With fluorescents, a plasma is formed that emits electrons onto a phosphor to create visible light.

Now with the Luxim, the plasma is created from the gas, and then some metal halide elements in the bulb evaporate (assuming because of the heat from the plasma) and that combination of plasma and evaporated metal halide creates a light that could blind even a deity.

You can take a look at the animation and the description of it.

It looks pretty amazing with some just as amazing claims. The heatsink and heating mechanism looks ridiculously big though, from the picture, so it seems like it may be a while till it's ready for prime time. I'd be totally interested in seeing one in real life. Though from what I read into mechanism of how the bulb gets heated up and the temperatures, I'll make sure to wear my codpiece at the viewing.

The Power of the Sun in a Tic-Tac

It's a brave new world! There's a new sheriff in town and he's called Luxim. If you haven't heard yet, check out the video. Pretty amazing stuff. Apparently, this single Tic-Tac sized bulb can put out the power of a 400W Halogen bulb, and using only 250W. In comparison, I think that's the ceiling of power as far as LED's go. Also, it's purported to be twice as efficient as LED's (thus 4x as efficient as CFL's)

The interest specs :
Luxim Bulbs - 140 lumens/watt
LED's - 70 lumens/watt
Incandescents - 15 lumens/watt

Inside the bulb, it forms a plasma (so says the video) at 6000 degrees Kelvin (that's one spicy-ah meatball), which is as hot as the sun. If I was a kangaroo, I'd jump on this in a second as it sounds like the next great thing. Having over $40 Million in VC funds behind it definitely helps. As great as it sounds, it seems almost too good to be true. I mean the technology seems kosher, but is it something that is commercially viable at the moment? If they can figure out the crazy heatsink issues and somehow put it into something the size of a lightbulb, I'm on the next train to LuximLand. I will be following this like a hawk and see what other info I can scrounge up in the next few days. Stay tuned!

An Energy-Efficient Streetlight for the New Age

Back when I was a young'un and lived in the ‘burbs, there were times when I would be walking down the street or riding my bike alone at night. Sometimes as I was passing under one of those yellow-orange sodium streetlamps, they would, without any type of warning, suddenly turn off. Now having a wild imagination, I came up with two possible hypotheses for this occurrence. The first was that I was gifted with some magical power, or subconscious sixth sense, that interacts with the electrical field generated by the light, causing it to turn off. The other explanation was that a ghost or apparition was turning it off, as though sending me a sign that something bad (ala death and/or dismemberment) was going to happen. Generally, the latter idea would take hold and I would sprint the rest of the way back home.

With these new lights, I may not have to worry about that ever again. Not only is it solar powered and using LED light output, it also works on a motion sensor. This makes a lot of sense in theory, since there’s no point in lighting up a path where there is no one walking down. My favorite feature is how it sits at 30% brightness, until something walks by and trips the motion sensor. So if all the technology can converge the right way for this to eventually become a reality, we're looking at these lights being "off the grid"! Preposterous! Imagine all the strange places you could just put these things. In a dark corner of an empty park. On the top of a cliff. In the middle of the desert. As a prank on top of a dome!

The design is very “trendy” which is always a benefit, but I’m wondering if this is still more of a proof-of-concept, than something that can be usefully implemented. From what I see, the LEDs being used are still the standard sized small LED’s that are used for keychain flashlights. Even used in an array, there isn’t enough power output to make the light as usable as it needs to be. The Eternaleds bulbs use more powerful LED circuits with energy output two orders of magnitude greater than the smaller bulbs. I worry that lights such as these will give LEDs the continuing reputation that they are not bright enough of not ready for consumer use. On the other hand, if the larger power LEDs are being used, then it's also pulling more wattage, so there needs to be a brightness vs. power balance here.

Still, it’s great to see things like these even publicized (even if it's very obvious it's still in concept stage), and I feel like this is the first step towards the golden chalice of usable energy-efficient lighting fixtures. Right now though, more realistic goals need to be made for LED application, or the technology needed to fulfill those promises need to be put in the hands of responsible designers and architects.

Via [Gizmodo]