There are many suppliers of LED chips on the market, so it
is important to purchase a product that is using a quality manufactured
chip. However, as important is the
actual encapsulation or “packaging” of the chip set. You can have a high quality chip but if the
packaging is second rate so will the end result in terms of light output and
longevity of the product. In general terms “packaging” refers to the process of
selecting and combining the lens, substrate, electrodes and encapsulation resin
of the LED.
In some instances packaging can amount to 50% of the cost of
the product, so has a large impact on the end pricing point. Many quality suppliers of LED chips also
provide packaging these days rather than relying on 3rd party’s to provide the
service.
There is a common misconception that LED’s produce no
heat. They are often referred to as
producing “cold light” which means they produce little if any heat in front of
the light source. They do however
produce considerable heat at the rear of the diode. Thus the reason for the heat sink built into
the back of the work lights and LED light bars
If the heat produced by the diode is not dissipated away
from the diode, the longevity and the light performance will be considerably
shortened and power consumption may also increase
There are other factors that impact performance of an LED
such as the selection process of the LED also referred to as “Binning” which
covers such things as the CRI (colour rendering index) But in summary, the key
factors in performance of an LED light are, a quality Diode, a proven and reputable packaging process, and
good thermal design properties such as heat sinks.
The 3 items above will provide a good starting point to find
a quality light that will provide superior light output along with
longevity. As with anything in life, you
get what you pay for, so when shopping for an LED work light or LED light bar,
think about the comparison in price between one and the other. If two lights look identical but are
considerably different in price, there is a fair chance the cheaper one may not
be up to the standard required by you, the customer.
Well that wraps up this post for now, so take it easy and
be seen, be heard!Regards
Jas
Offroadscene
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