LED
The demand for LED will be at an all-time high in 2023. Whether for home or business settings, LED demand has officially outgrown conventional choices like bulbs or CFLs. Here this post gives information about the advantages and disadvantages to know more about LED Lighting.
What is an LED?
Standing for Light Emitting Diode, LED is a semiconductor whose light efficiency is 90% higher than any incandescent bulb.
Advantages of LED
- It is energy-efficient: LED converts almost all electrical energy consumed into light energy, and very few get lost as heat.
- Superior light quality: Unlike traditional light sources, LED lights are unidirectional. It means that LEDs emit light in a single direction. Thus, it is a more useful power source than the rest.
- Highly durable and easy to maintain: In contrast to conventional light sources, LEDs don’t carry any glass or fiber components and are thus pretty durable. It comes under the category of “solid-state lightning,” or SSL. Most advanced LED manufacturers utilize high-grade plastics and aluminum parts, further increasing their durability.
- Require little to no warm-up time: Compared to incandescent bulbs, LED lights instantly with little to no warm-up time requirement. A typical LED device will light up in just a few microseconds, and those used for communication purposes can have an even higher response rate than this.
- Easily portable: Due to their small size, LEDs are easily portable and can be attached to printed circuit boards.
- Lower electricity bills: LED consume 5-6 times less energy than traditional light sources for the same brightness, resulting in high savings on your electricity bill.
- It offers varying color intensity: Custom LED signs and lights offer a wider spectrum of CCT compared to traditional sources. Now, what does CCT signify? CCT stands for Correlated Colour Temperatures, and a higher value indicates bright with cool light emission. At the same time, the lower value indicates warm lights. LEDs have a CCT spectrum availability of 1,000K-10,000, broad compared to the 2,000K-6,000K CCT spectrum of incandescent lighting. This capability makes LEDs perfect for dynamic applications like reaction training lights in sports, where different colors can enhance focus and performance during training sessions.
- Its application is pretty versatile: Technology like color-changing smart bulbs is becoming common throughout homes. A well-adjusted LED lighting also proves beneficial in hospitals and retirement homes.
- LED lights last long: Since LED lights don’t have filaments, they last longer than incandescent and fluorescent lights. Did you know its life duration can range to 12 years, i.e., 40 times more than incandescent lighting?
- Low maintenance: Since LED lights are highly durable, their maintenance cost is also far lower when compared with that of traditional lighting equipment.
- Easily dimmable: Using a pulse-width modulator, one can decrease the intensity of an LED bulb by lowering the forward current supplied to it. It is the same reason why car headlights, when viewed with the naked eye or camera, appear to flicker, a type of stroboscopic effect.
- More reliable: LEDs age by dimming rather than shutting off abruptly.
- LED lights are environment friendly: In contrast to traditional light sources, LED has no potentially toxic substances like mercury. Besides, it is also recyclable and doesn’t contribute heavily to e-waste.
However, despite these benefits, one can see a fair share of both advantages and disadvantages of LED.
Disadvantages of LED
- Highly susceptible to damage if improperly designed: A longer LED life is possible only if its design is proper and it has a quality heat sink. A too-small heat sink, or even none, will hamper its life as the heat generated during its operation will not dissipate.
- An expensive option: LED lights are far more expensive compared to traditional light bulbs.
- Require special controllers: Most LED lights need to be fixed with traditional lighting dimmers. Thus, a small investment in LED-compatible dimmers is quintessential and will be a wise decision in the long term.
- An unreliable light quality: LEDs, especially cool-white LEDs, differ from any black body radiator, such as that of an incandescent light. Its abrupt peak at 460 nm and dip at 500 nm cause distorted colour perception of nearby objects.
- No individual replacement: Most LED has a built-in design that doesn’t allow for the replacement of just the individual LED but the whole lightning fixture itself. It can be costly and inconvenient.
- Susceptible to high voltage damage: An LED is sensitive to voltage and current. A low threshold voltage and a high current above the rating can damage the LED equipment.
- Harms of blue light: Some studies indicate that blue and cool-white LEDs emit more blue light than traditional light sources.
- Limited range of illumination: Since LED doesn’t approximate a point source but rather a Lambertian distribution, its use is limited to providing a spherical field.
Conclusion – Advantages and Disadvantages of LED Lighting
While there are both advantages and disadvantages of LED Lighting, one can utilize its benefits while weighing down its downsides with a proper usage plan.
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