Today I am going to tell you how to select LED light bulbs after reading;
you will have the knowledge necessary to buy the correct product to fit into
your existing lighting fixtures
First of all... congratulations!
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| led light bulbs |
You have made the right decision of switching to LED lighting
products to save energy and money comparing with traditional light sources
LED light can save up to 80% of energy and the life span of LED bulb
is 5 times longer than the compact fluorescent lamps and twenty five times
longer than traditional incandescent bulbs that means in the long run you will
be saving a lot of the expenses spending on the energy maintenance and
replacements.
Plus, LED light bulbs contain no hazardous materials to contaminate
our environment. We are saving the earth for our new generations. when you buy
a LED bulb,
First of all you will need to know if it is going to physically fit into
your fixture. Lamp bodies are categorizing into shape and size. Shape is
indicated by English letters most commonly seen including, a lamps PAR lamps, MR
lamps...ect.
Size is indicating by numbers immediately go after the shape code. For
example A19 bulb, PAR38 bulb, and MR16 bulb ...etc.
Next, we need to make sure the mounting base will fit. Mounting bases are also indicated by English
letters followed by numbers for size. For residential customers, the most
commonly seen mounting base is Edison screw-in
base for example E26.
This is usually called "medium base". There are also pin
style mounting base. For example, a lot of MR16 lamps use GU5.3 bi-pin
connectors. Refer to the information provided with your lighting fixture and
find the correct lamp body, size and mounting base to use.
Now, the lighting performance of the lamp a lot of time you will find
a "LED Lighting Facts" label printed on the retail box. Lighting
Facts is a U.S. Department of Energy certified program for LED lighting
products. It provides essential information to evaluate products and identify the
best options.
On the lighting facts label there are several keywords that you need
to understand before you can make a decision.
First of all, Brightness the brightness is indicated by Lumens, which
is the scientific unit used to describe whole light coming out of a light
source regardless of the beam direction. The higher the number, the brighter
the light source is.
Second, total power consumption indicated in Watts.
This number tells you how fast this bulb will be burning energy.
And then, the Efficacy this is the ratio of Lumen over Watts.
The first number over the second which indicates how efficiently the
energy provided will be transferred to visible light.
This number is essentially the most important indicator telling us
how well is this product designed. On the upper right hand side you will be able
to find the brand name of the product next is the CRI short for Color Rendering
Index this is the aptitude of a light source to correctly render color. We will
cover this one later on.
Finally color temperature this number tells us the color of the light
generated the color of white light can be either warmer or cooler, and it is indicated
by Kelvin temperature certain color temperature is considered better in certain
situations
and we will talk about it shortly here is a reference about how much
energy can be saved by switching to LED bulbs to generate four 450 Lumens or
more a traditional incandescent A19 needs to bring energy at 40 Watts a 60
Watts incandescent bulb generates 800
Lumens and a 75 Watts incandescent bulb
generates about 1100 Lumens to reach the same level of lumen output, a compact
fluorescent bulb uses less amount of energy which is about 30% of the incandescent by
switching to LED bulb we can further save tremendous amount of energy as well
as maintenance cost due to the long life span of the LED light bulbs the Color Temperature
information on the lighting facts label tells us in what kind of situation this
light bulb can be used at it's best usually for residential customers
or hospitality industries warmer color temperature can provide the
atmosphere and ambient fallings desired this means the color temperature should
be below 3,000 Kelvin traditional incandescent lights are in the 2,700 Kelvin range for industrial users or working
environment, cooler color is usually preferred because it mimics dat light and will keep people alert A 3,500 Kelvin or about
light is considered in cooler range most of the traditional fluorescent lights
are in 4,000 Kelvin or above
The Color Rendering Index or CRI on the lighting facts label tells us
how well can the light bulb correctly present color in our eyes it is measured
and calculated based on the response of
the light on 8 indexing colors
The CRI is measured in reference with a perfect black body radiation
or incandescent light source for incandescent CRI is set to be 100 the closer a
light source can get to 100 the better quality of light it provides industrial
standard for CRI of warm color LED light is about 80 or above
here is an example the color stands out more under a higher CRI light
source while on the right hand side low CRI light is causing the color to be
fade and washed out this tutorial covers the most fundamental knowledge and key
concepts required when buying LED lamps
I hope this can help you to pin point the correct products and make
a correct decision in your lighting retrofitting projects