LED light engine booming industry will usher in a new era

1. The current pattern of the LED industry

All LED luminaires are made up of three major components, light source, power supply and heat sink housing.

Because these three parts of the technology and manufacturing process are completely different, they are usually manufactured in three industries, and of course can be subdivided into more professional industries. For example, the light source can be divided into two industries, such as LED chips and phosphors. But now the popular COB light source combines these two parts together. Power supply is a specialized industry involving extremely complex electronic technology and even chip technology. At present, most LED power supplies are still powered by well-known chip manufacturing companies at home and abroad. As for the radiator shell, on the one hand, it involves the knowledge of thermodynamics, on the other hand, it involves the manufacturing process of precision die-casting of aluminum processing, and it must also be made by a special company. Of course, there are also some large companies that cover the manufacture of all three components, but such companies are few and far between.

2. What is the LED light engine?

The LED light engine actually puts the LED power supply on the aluminum substrate of the LED light source to become a component. However, there are two main types of LED power supplies, one is a switching power supply and the other is a linear power supply. The advantage of the switching power supply is that the efficiency is relatively high (about 90-95%). The disadvantage is that the number of components used is large (about 30 or more), the volume is large, and the reliability is low. The advantage of linear power supply is that the number of components is small (about 6-7), small size, high reliability, and the disadvantage is low efficiency (about 85%).

The aluminum substrate was originally installed with LEDs. If the switching power supply is to be installed, it is completely impractical.

LED light engine made of switching power supply

3, only a linear power supply can be made into LED light engine

From the number of components, the number of linear power components is small, and it does not appear crowded on the LED aluminum substrate.

A light engine with a linear power supply has fewer than seven components, which is what the market calls AC light engines.

4, linear constant current source low efficiency disadvantages for the light engine

The efficiency of a linear power supply is a linearly decreasing relationship with the input voltage. The higher the input mains voltage, the lower the efficiency of the linear constant current source.

Usually around 220V, its efficiency is only 85%, that is, 15% of the input power is converted into heat.

Taking a 10W LED as an example, the constant current source efficiency is 85%, so only 8.5W power is used to illuminate the LED, and 1.5W is converted into heat, and the LED itself has a luminous efficiency of about 40%, and 60% (8.5x0). .6=5.1W) are converted to heat. Now add 1.5W of heat from the constant current source, which increases the heat on the aluminum substrate by 1.5/5.1=0.3, which is an increase of 30%. If the original heat sink is still used, the junction temperature of the LED will increase by 30%. According to careful calculation, a 30% increase in junction temperature will reduce the LED luminous efficiency by about 10% and shorten the life by 22,000 hours. If it turns out to be 31,000 hours, then it will be reduced to 9,000 hours!

5. Only the linear constant current source with Effie's efficiency of 99% can be used to make a light engine with excellent performance.

With its unique patented technology, Effie has developed a linear constant current source chip with an efficiency of up to 99%. The measured results of the efficiency are as follows:

In the figure, blue is the efficiency of the constant current source itself, and red is the total efficiency after adding the rectifier, and the efficiency is constant within 175V-265V. And even if the ambient temperature changes, its efficiency remains the same.

As can be seen from the figure, when the ambient temperature is raised from 35 degrees to 85 degrees, the overall efficiency is unchanged.

Moreover, the power, luminous flux and luminous efficiency of the ordinary AC light engine vary with the input mains voltage. Only Effie's indicators are independent of the input voltage:

6, Effie's light engine products

Pictured above is Effie's first (February 2013) high-efficiency AC direct-input LED light engine that integrates an LED light source and power supply that can be connected directly to 220V. And because there is no power consumption, its light efficiency is also increased to more than 130lm / W. In the future, Effie has developed a range of light engines of different powers to cover the needs of LED luminaires for all different applications.

7, the top ten advantages of the light engine

1> can maintain the same high light efficiency within a wide range of mains voltage changes and temperature variations

2> can still maintain extremely high light efficiency when using LED chips with different LED forward voltages

3>Because of the high efficiency, the constant current driving source can be directly placed on the LED aluminum substrate without increasing the LED junction temperature.

4>Because there is no need to use an independent power supply with a casing, the cost is greatly reduced and the volume is reduced.

5>Because of high efficiency, when using LEDs with the same luminous efficiency, the overall lighting efficiency is increased by more than 10%.

6>Because the heat is reduced by 30%, the life of the LED is increased, and the volume of the heat sink can also be reduced.

7>Because of its high efficiency, it can save more than 10% energy energy than other LED lamps of the same brightness, contributing to further energy saving and emission reduction!

8>No electromagnetic interference (EMI)

9> Its brightness is not flashing

10> There are only 6 electronic components, which improves reliability!

8, the light engine is entering a boom period

The emergence of any new thing has a process that needs to be recognized and widely adopted. Now the light engine has entered a large number of adoption stages. Because it will change the pattern of certain LED industries, there will inevitably be a process of industry restructuring, such as LED power supply industry may be subject to greater impact. This is also a process of shuffling. We must fully understand the coming of this stage and be fully prepared to welcome this new era!