About LED Lamps

The Technology

LED technology is currently the most energy-efficient technology available to replace the classic incandescent bulb. In our store, we have selected products that we believe you would want in your home. What sets LED apart from many incandescent bulbs and other low-energy lighting is that it is directional light that requires some form of optics or many diodes in a lamp to spread the light.

An important difference between LED and low-energy lamps with fluorescent technology is that LED does not contain mercury or prohibited materials, hence the RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances) marking. Another is that LED is not as sensitive to shocks since it is an electronic component.

The lifespan of an LED is often very long. The product we sell with the shortest lifespan has about 25,000 hours of lifespan. As the product ages, its light output decreases to about 70-80% of the output from when it was new. High-quality products that we sell at pålyset.se last a long time before they start to lose efficiency.

Although many lamps can be replaced with LED, it still doesn't work everywhere yet. LED does not tolerate heat very well since it is an electronic component. It is also sensitive to direct sunlight exposure. Therefore, many of our lamps are equipped with heat sinks made of either metal or ceramic for optimal cooling. It is also important to ensure good ventilation around an LED lamp. Due to the heat, LED is not suitable for use in places like saunas.

What Differences Exist Between Different Products

There are many different manufacturers of LED lamps. There are only a few manufacturers of the diodes themselves, where some manufacturers produce higher quality diodes than others. For a diode to emit light, it needs a driver. A diode needs optics to spread the light and often some form of phosphor coating to create a desired light appearance. Additionally, there is the work of ensuring a product does not interfere with other electronic equipment and thus getting the products CE-marked.

All these factors mean that some manufacturers have focused on making cheap lamps by perhaps compromising on quality in some of these factors.

For example, if you want to save by having 8 diodes instead of 14 but increase the current to make the diodes shine brighter, you get a shorter lifespan (these diodes often have a lifespan of maybe 10,000 hours). If a cheaper pear-shaped lamp costs, say 45 SEK at the supermarket and lasts 10,000 hours, and our equivalent costs 75 SEK but lasts 35,000 hours, then our product is cheaper in the long run, so it's easy to be fooled. Check durability in hours to compare!

Another example is considering the cost of coloring and instead of having a phosphor layer that lasts the entire lifespan, using a thinner layer. This means that when new from the store, the diode looks comparable to others, but it loses its color faster and has a completely different light appearance for the rest of its life.

Many cheaper products today are not CE-marked. All products we sell in the store have CE documentation.

Some Common Abbreviations

LED

Light Emitting Diode, or in Swedish "Lysdiod". It is a type of electronic component that emits light when current passes through it. What doesn't become light becomes heat.

CE Marking

The marking used for products that are approved for sale and use within the EEA. The conditions for a product to be CE-marked are that it meets the requirements for safety, function, environment, and health and that the prescribed control procedure has been followed. There is also a "false" CE marking that stands for "China Export" that circulates where the consumer may be misled into thinking it is our European marking. We only sell products with documentation regarding the marking from our suppliers.

The importer is responsible for ensuring products brought into the European market are CE-marked.

RoHS

A directive that restricts the use of certain heavy metals and flame retardants in electronic products sold within the EU. It has been in use since 2006.

RA, CRI, or Color Rendering Index

CRI stands for Color Rendering Index and is often referred to in Sweden as Ra to describe how well a light source is balanced compared to a reference light source with a value of 100. Different measurements are made for light sources with a color temperature above or below 5000K, as 5000K is the threshold for white daylight. We sell light sources with warm light with a color temperature below 5000K and those with white light with a temperature above 5000K.

Light Output, Lumen (lm)

The new unit we need to learn to compare the light output from different light sources since Watt is no longer relevant. Lumen is the SI unit for luminous flux and is written as lm. The luminous flux in lumens is the total flow of light in all directions.

An approximate table of how many lumens incandescent bulbs emit:

• 25W -> 200 lm
• 40W -> 420 lm
• 60W -> 720 lm
• 75W -> 950 lm
• 100W -> 1300 lm

Since LED is directional light, you can often use a lower light output than the equivalent for an incandescent bulb, as the incandescent bulb is omnidirectional and not all light is "useful".

Light Intensity, Candela (cd)

Candela is the unit that has been used since ancient times to indicate light intensity. 1 candela is approximately the light intensity a 25 mm candle has. In Candela, you talk about the light intensity in a certain direction.

Illuminance, Lux

Lux is the SI unit for illumination. One lux is defined as one lumen per square meter. In the store, we always state lumens as it is the luminous flux that is most interesting when choosing a lamp. Illuminance indicates how many lumens hit the surface, and factors such as distance, beam angle, etc., affect the result. With a light meter, you can often measure illuminance in Lux.

Light Temperature

The light temperature determines what kind of color tone the light has and is measured in degrees Kelvin (K). We talk about warm light and cold light, and the threshold is physically at 5000K.

• Mood lighting 2500-3300K as you have in the living room or kitchen
• Lighting in the hallway, rooms with hard surfaces, reading lamps, etc.: over 3000-4000K
• Cold lighting: Anything over 4000K gives quite cold light even though the physical threshold is at 5000K

RGB

For some of our LED strip products, there is an opportunity to create any other color by combining red (R), green (G), and blue (B) light. It is the same technology used in TVs and monitors, but now to create lighting. An RGB strip has four connections, a common connection to the diode's "anode" side, and a connection for each color to the diodes' "cathode" connection.

Lifespan

Power, W, Watt

Beam Angle