At present, the largest LED lighting market is LED backlighting for LCDTVs and mobile phones, followed by LED street lights, followed by building exteriors, interiors and road decorative lighting. The current two major trends in the LED lighting market are dimming and solar power.
In the future, whether it is LED street light or indoor LED lighting market, products without dimming function cannot be sold. Of course, this will bring an additional remote control market to Zigbee and other proprietary wireless technologies.
Solar-powered LED lighting products are targeted at three markets: parking lot lighting, indoor lighting and lawn lights. Cary Eskow, director of Light Speed ​​at Avnet, said: "If we can make cheap solar-powered LED lighting products, then we can at least open up a big market in Africa."
Of course, the simplest solar-powered LED lighting products require only four components: a solar cell array, a rechargeable battery, a Schottky diode, and a high-brightness LED. The diode is used to prevent the battery current from flowing back to the solar cell array at night. However, such systems are difficult to achieve high efficiency because the current and voltage output characteristics of the solar cells are non-linear. To improve this efficiency, a technique called MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker) must be used. Due to limited space, this article will not repeat them. Interested readers can refer to another special report to be published on the website of this magazine: “Methods to improve the efficiency of solar-powered LED lighting products.â€
However, the indoor LED lighting market with the greatest growth potential and space is still developing very slowly. Although there are many reasons for this situation, CaryEskow believes: “The three main obstacles or challenges are the difficulty in designing heat and high cost. And the supply market is immature."
He said that the first challenge in the design of indoor LED lighting systems is how to dissipate the heat from the LED chips in a cheap, energy-efficient and efficient way.
Unlike outdoor LED lighting fixtures, indoor LED lighting fixtures are in a closed environment where air is not circulating. Even if you use a heat-dissipating aluminum substrate to bring the LED chips out of the tropics, this heat cannot be dissipated. Unless you use a fan to dissipate this heat, this is the worst and not worth the solution, because the power required to drive the fan motor may have exceeded the power you would like to save by switching to an LED. Heat pipe solutions have the same problems, and the cost has to increase a lot.
Cary Eskow pointed out: "The solution to achieve a quiet, efficient and energy-efficient cooling effect of the in-line LED spotlight today is only Nuventix's revolutionary active cooling solution, which does not use a fan but can cause airflow like a diaphragm of a speaker. Exercise to dissipate heat. It is the best solution on the market to solve the next generation of indoor LED lighting cooling challenges."
Today, the LED cooling requirements created by LED high-brightness, high-power LED products from LED stage lighting to industrial and residential in-line LED lighting applications cannot simply solve the heat dissipation problem with an LED heat sink. Passive cooling methods can no longer meet the needs of LED general lighting design. If only a single heat sink is used, high-brightness LEDs will become too hot. However, high-power LEDs in large lumen lighting applications can be quickly dissipated through Nuventix's patented Syn Jet technology.
Nuventix is ​​revolutionizing active thermal management by providing quiet, reliable, and highly flexible fanless air flow devices at a reasonable price that can efficiently, directly and efficiently dissipate heat. . Its patented SynJet cooling solution can be integrated into virtually any LED lighting device to solve thermal issues. You no longer need a noisy cooling fan or a bulky aluminum-based heat sink design.
Active cooling solutions based on SynJet technology provide effective cooling with high reliability and an almost quiet sound level without form factor limitations. LED thermal management solutions using SynJet coolers can produce double or even triple lumen output while maintaining the same form factor and the same acceptable low temperature. SynJet produces a pulsating pulsating air flow that provides better cooling efficiency and effectiveness than a fan without noise.
Active cooling methods have been limited for many years by traditional air flow tools: fans. Today, with SynJet's technology, designers can enjoy the benefits of active cooling methods (such as high lumen output, smaller heat sinks, more unique designs and form factors) without the traditional air flow (such as fans). Any shortages brought. Today's active cooling solutions are no longer limited by reliability and airflow, and noise issues have been resolved.
The high cost of LEDs is the second major factor hindering the take-off of the indoor LED general lighting market. Zhong Jinhong, Director of Business Development of Avnet China, said that the LED chips currently produced are mainly used to meet the backlight market demand of LEDTV and mobile phones/laptops. The LED chips for the LED general lighting market are currently in short supply, regardless of the LED chip manufacturing capacity. Or the packaging industry's production capacity is insufficient. However, Zhong Jinhong pointed out: "In fact, compared with previous years, the price of LED chips has been reduced a lot, and the market demand will continue to decline in the future. Any emerging market is such a development trend. â€
Cary Eskow said that as a distributor, we can't solve the cost problem by ourselves, but what we can do is provide customers with higher value LED lighting solutions based on the existing LED chip price. Such as higher efficiency, higher reliability, lower energy consumption and lower maintenance costs.
However, he also pointed out: "The future of OLEDs that can be printed and manufactured may become the ultimate solution to the high cost of LED chips today. Its manufacturing method determines its low-volume production cost. OLEDs can be bent and made The planar illuminator, which makes it possible to provide truly even surface lighting for the office or home, which is currently not possible with dense distributed LED spot lighting common in indoor spaces such as offices and restaurants. In addition, its purchase cost Installation costs and maintenance costs are also much lower than current socket LEDs."
The current problem with OLEDs is that they cannot produce high-brightness light, so for a long time in the future, these two LED general illumination methods will complement each other and coexist. Cary Eskow added.
The third major obstacle is the immaturity of the supply market itself. At present, many companies competing for this market do not have sufficient technical capabilities and knowledge, because the successful indoor LED general lighting design involves four fields of expertise in mechanics, optics, electronics and thermals. These companies have disrupted the order in this market, making it difficult for them to grow healthily.
Shandong Qingguo Optical Fiber Co., Ltd. , http://www.qgfiber.com