What is LED lighting?
LED lighting is a lamp or other light that uses LEDs as a source of illumination. Most lighting comes from an incandescent or fluorescent light bulb. Different than the traditional bulb, LEDs can be put into traditional lamps and used like most other light bulbs. They are much more efficient than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs.
LED stands for light-emitting diode. That is, simply, a semiconductor device that converts electricity to light by using the movement of electrons. LEDs were invented in Russia in the 1920s. They were put into practical use in the United States in the 1960s by General Electric. In the late 1960s, Monsanto Corporation was the first to mass-produce LEDs, and Hewlett-Packard used them in its early calculators.
There are many consumer advantages to LEDs over incandescent or fluorescent light bulbs. LED lights consume much less energy. They are 300 percent more efficient than a compact fluorescent light (CFL), and 1,000 percent more efficient than an incandescent bulb. They have a very long life, about 50,000 hours of use at 70 percent of their original power. (LEDs don't burn out or flicker, they simply fade.) This works out to eight hours a day for 13 years at 70 percent power. A typical 60-watt incandescent bulb may last about 1,000 hours.
LED Lighting is the new lighting technology that is set to replace every light bulb in every home, shop and office in every street over the next decade.
Lighting is undergoing a revolution that is set to change the way we look at the simple light bulb forever. Recent advances in LED manufacture now produces light bulbs that provide up to 90% energy saving over most current lighting product and will last longer than the fitting or design of the room; 25 year life is not unreasonable, saving you a lot of money whilst being kind to the environment.
LED Product terms abbreviations
B | Bayonet – push and twist, this is the typical light bulb found in most UK households. Where B22 the ‘22’ refers to the width of the fixing point or cap in mm. |
BC | Bayonet Cap – the same as bayonet, ‘cap’ refers to the end of the bulb being Bayonet style. |
SBC | Small Bayonet Cap – As Bayonet Cap, but a smaller diameter base that a standard light. Usually used in small light fittings, chandeliers etc. The B15 is the most common small bayonet light bulb |
SMD | Surface Mounted Device - This is mostly a description of the architecture of high powered LEDs used for illumination purposes. |
E | Edison Screw fit – common in America and much of continental Europe this is the standard light bulb fitting that needs to be screwed into place. |
ES | Edison Screw fit – common in America and much of continental Europe this is the standard light bulb fitting that needs to be screwed into place. |
GLS | General Lighting Service – GLS bulbs are the standard light bulbs many of us have hanging from our ceiling at home. They either have a bayonet ‘B’ push and twist fitting or an ‘E’ screw in fitting. |
CRI | Colour Rendering Index - short description & Link 80 normal |
CCT | Correlated Colour Temperature – sort description and link |
LOR | light output ratio – sort description and link |
HPS | High Pressure Sodium – yellow streetlights – link |
PAR | Parabolic Aluminized Reflector – Where light needs to be focused onto a specific area, e.g. on stage in a theatre, a PAR lamp may be used. The integral design ensures internally reflected light only leaves the lamp in a controlled beam. The PAR value reflects the maximum angle of that beam of light, e.g. PAR 38, PAR 56. |
MR | Multifaceted Reflector –commonly used in feature lighting in homes and shops, these are compact Halogen lamps with a bumpy reflector surface. They are available in many beam angles to focus or spread the light as desired. Most MR lights are MR-16’s, the ‘16’ describing the width of the bulb in eights of an inch, i.e. 16/8ths or 2” (51mm). MR-11’s are smaller and less frequently seen and MR-8’s are very rare. Strictly speaking MR refers to the reflector style and not the connector or base, however, an MR-16 tends to refer to a two straight pin connector for low voltage applications and not a GU-10 which also uses a MR reflector but has a two pin push and twist base for high voltage fittings |
GU | The origins and application of the GU and its numbered variations are complex and without full explanation confusing. In the context of most applications, GU10 refers to the two pin connector on mains voltage spotlights, characterised by the stepped diameter on the pins requiring a push and twist fit. GU5.3 refers to the two pin fitting generally found on low voltage MR16 bulbs that are just pushed in. |
LFL | Linear Fluorescent Light – the common fluorescent tubular or strip light – More |
CFL | Compact Fluorescent Lamp – the prioneering energy saving light bulb before LED lamps became available and superceeded the technology. CFL’s are characterised by their ‘pig tail’ curly design, slow strike times and dim light. More |
HID | High Intensity Discharge - An HID lamp is a type of Arc lamp. An arc of electricity passes between two electrodes in a gas filled tube. The gas is a metallic vapour, which heats to such a point that the arc of conductivity forms plasma and emits an intense high bright light. More |
LED | Light Emitting Diode - LED lamps are often referred to as solid state lighting and consist of one or many very small semiconductor light sources mounted on an electrical circuitry, optics and cooling management, generally seen as the metal fins at the base. More |
OLED | Organic Light Emitting Diode |
T5, T8, T12 | Associated with Fluorescent lights the ‘T’ stands for tubular the shape of strip light bulbs. The number relates to the tube diameter in 1/8ths of an inch. T5 5/8” = 15.9mm. These are modern and efficient T8 1” = 25.4mm. These are the most common fluorescent size T12 1½” = 38.1mm. Old and relatively inefficient. |