With the advancement of new municipal engineering renovations around the country,
LED street lights have become the main protagonists, making a big splash. At the same time, as the prices of various accessories in the industry chain continue to fall, the price of LED street lamps is also falling. In the case of low profits, “slimming” of various components has become the best choice for many companies, and miniaturized
LED driver power has emerged.
Miniaturization brings cost reduction
In the Spring Festival of the Year of the Horse, there are fewer firecrackers and fireworks in the streets and lanes, but the festive atmosphere is quite the same. Instead, there are a variety of colorful LEDs, from LED street lights, landscape lights to some complicated LED decorative lights.
LED lighting has caught the limelight in this Spring Festival, and it has also made the industry more and more looking forward to 2014. “2013 is the first year of LED lighting, and 2014 is the year of sprint acceleration. The industry will be good enough to 'below the glasses.'” Wu Qinghui, chairman of Taiwan Dongbei Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. said, but also to see last year’s The phenomenon of “incremental increase without income” will still exist, especially LED street lights and their supporting industries.
As the price of LED street lamps continues to drop, the driving power supply, which is one of the core components, also declines. “The
LED power supply market was obviously oversupplied last year, which caused the gross profit to fall by 10% from 50% in the previous years.” Jiang Shuxing, general manager of Continental Express Electronics, said that fierce price competition forced enterprises to start from structural adjustment. cut costs.
LED street lights are mainly used for outdoor lighting. The use environment is more complicated, wind and rain, sun and rain, installation and maintenance is very inconvenient, and maintenance costs are relatively high. Therefore, the efficiency, heat dissipation, waterproof and moisture resistance of the drive power supply itself and overall reliability become critical.
As the heart of the LED lighting system, the driving power source can no longer "save" in the selection of raw materials, then it can only achieve "throttle" by optimizing the structure.
With the advancement of nano and related micro-technology, miniaturization has become the trend of the future development of the semiconductor industry. The miniaturized LED power supply utilizes microelectronics technology and ultra-large-scale integrated circuit technology to further reduce the size of the power supply and further reduce the price.
The existing LED street light power supply is generally large in size, and the outer casing is made of high quality aluminum. "If you narrow down these 'big guys', you can't save a lot of costs on the outer shell." Shenzhen Yi Erte Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. Chairman Gao Feng said in an interview with this reporter, "Rely on With the accumulation of technology in high-end micro-control, we have succeeded in making the 50W power supply the size of a matchbox."
The manufacturing cost of the LED street lamp itself is on the one hand, and the installation and maintenance cost of the LED street lamp is also a small expense.
Miniaturization makes installation and maintenance easier
In the case of frequent problems with the quality of LED street lamps, the use of miniaturized power supplies not only facilitates the maintenance of LEDs, but also greatly reduces costs.
In October last year, two workers in the ancient town of Zhongshan replaced the installation of LED street lights when they were electrocuted, and poured a cold water on the tide of replacing the LED street lamps. Although the accidental man-made operation was the main cause of this accident, the safety of LED power supply has once again become the focus of attention.
“The maintenance rate is still high, which led some local governments to wait and see the replacement of LED street lights.” Wang Xingang, general manager of Shenzhen Jingchen Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. said that many installed LED street light power supplies have been reworked.
Since the power supply is generally built in the lamp housing of the LED street lamp, the conventional power supply not only occupies a large space to affect the overall heat dissipation, but also is troublesome once damaged and repaired. If you switch to a miniaturized LED power supply, these problems will be solved.
The cost accounting of LED street lamps includes the replacement maintenance cost and product manufacturing cost caused by the fault, and the former is also a lot of trouble for many street lamp companies and users.
It is understood that if the high temperature does not burn the lamp beads and the miniaturized power supply, the LED street lamp can use the plastic case, which can greatly reduce the weight. The price of the whole lamp is only equivalent to the cost price of the ordinary street lamp housing, and it is quite simple to replace it if there is a problem.
The use of some special material casing has greatly reduced the weight of LED street lights. "There are already mature heat-dissipating kits made of high-heat-conducting plastics on the market, which can reduce the weight of the whole lamp by a third. And it can withstand 5000 volts of high voltage. There is no problem with over-safety." Pu Tao, general manager of Puwan Optoelectronics, said that the question now is whether other performances of the power supply after miniaturization can pass the safety regulations yet to be verified.
How far is the road to miniaturization?
To achieve miniaturization under the premise of ensuring power supply performance, it is inevitable to put forward higher requirements for IC technology. "Unaffected by unsafe factors such as unstable mains supply voltage and various surge surges, the power of miniaturized LED power supplies is still not much." Chen Hengyu, general manager of Dianhua Green Integrated Technology Co., Ltd., said Their newly developed high-voltage segmented constant current drive ICs also have outstanding applications in terms of medium power.
"The standard of power and high power in LED streetlights is still quite different. With 100W as the demarcation point, the power supply safety regulations below 100W should meet the UL1310 standard; the above 100W should comply with the UL8750 standard. At the same time, the waterproof level should basically be IP67.” Li Shiji, the marketing manager of Saixi Lab, said that from the figures, we can see that the latter standard is much stricter.
In addition to the technical requirements are relatively high, the high price is also one of the reasons. “The existing technology of 50W miniaturized power supply can basically be done. Several companies in Taiwan have already launched samples. But it is very difficult to achieve more power.” Pang Guiwei, chairman of Shenzhen Tongpu Technology Co., Ltd. said that even The 50W LED miniaturized drive power supply is also more expensive, and there is no real cost savings for their street lamp manufacturers.
Chen Kai, general manager of Huapu Yongming, who has made great achievements in the field of LED street lighting foundry, also agreed. As the second-largest LED street light in China (2013 research institute ranking), the company focuses on ODM, and Maple Yongming has unique insights on cost control. “Although the size of the miniaturized power supply is small, the various integrated components inside will not be reduced. Because of the large integrated components, the price will be higher.”
After a new technology is introduced to the market, the high price is also normal, because the technology and market are still immature. However, miniaturization is the inevitable result of the modern electronics industry. Just like the miniaturization of electronic computers and communication equipment, when the market is opened, the price will be rationalized. Therefore, there is still a long way to go before the popularity of LED streetlight power supply miniaturization.
The above content is provided by WOSEN. WOSEN is a professional manufacturer and supplier of Led Flood Light, Led Street Light, Led Solar Light, etc. For more information, please visit https://www.wosenled.com/ or contact admin@wosenled.com or WhatsApp +86-13425434349
