These devices were invented by someone in 1962. The name of the inventor was Nick Holonyak. These devices are some of the most interesting inventions in the world of lighting technology to have emerged within the span of the past century. These provide a low-cost, safe and also ultra-efficient alternative to the more traditional bulbs out there in the market. These lights have been recently experiencing their fastest growth rate in terms of market shares. One of the major benefits of this technology is that these devices can be used for years on end to come. Estimates of how long these lights can last state around 10 years for each of the bulbs. The problem, however, is that when applied in real life situations, about 30 percent of these bulbs break down long before their due date.
So, what exactly is the reason that a lot of these lights are not being able to reach their full potential? Read on to know more about it.
How is life expectancy measured?
One of the primary determinants of how long these bulbs will last is how they happen to be measured. The life cycle of the more traditional bulbs are calculated in a much more simple fashion. It is commonly known as Average Rated Life (ARL). This is the length of time it takes for about half of the bulbs that are sampled to completely fail. (This equals to an average of about 1,000 hours for more traditional bulbs)
How long the more modern LEDs last, however, is measured quite differently. This is due to the fact that LED lights fail completely very rarely and definitely not as much as traditional bulbs do. Normally, their ability to produce light will gradually fade away with time.
Therefore, the lifespan of LEDs has to be calculated in a way that is much less binary. This has led to 70 percent of the initial capability as being listed as the point when the light needs to be replaced. Also, unlike the traditional bulbs that generally operate for a maximum of 1000 hours, the good quality of LED light therapy bulbs on the other hand are able to last for anything between 10-50k hours.
Every form of LED light will generally have a rating defined by the L70 that is normally measured in hours.
So, what exactly is the reason for there being such a huge difference in the life expectancy of the two types of devices? In order to understand this, we need to understand how LED lights generally tend to go bad.
Factors that influence the life expectancy of LED lights
When a bulb of the traditional variety fails, the reason why it has failed is very apparent. The bulb simply breaks and then it just turns off.
LED lights, however, are able to emit energy as a type of light of different intensities and colors when a particular type of current pushes the electrons through the different materials. So, instead of just failing completely at one go, these LED bulbs decay in a very gradual manner as the defects within the material forms.
Let us now focus on a type of this defect in particular and take a look at it in greater detail.
Material Defects
Within LED lights, there are regions which are active. It is in these regions that a process known as radiative recombination takes place and then light gets produced. If the material that is being used in this particular region has some form of defect in it, it will get worse due to heat and also electric current. This will eventually lead to a decay in the output of the device.
This particular issue can be avoided if the manufacturer of the product chooses an LED which has the ability to exceed the lifespan of the other components present within the bulb itself.
In order to make sure that you maximize the length of time that your LED lights last, make sure that you check the choice of materials being made use of in the manufacturing process of the product.
Electrical Over Stress
This phenomenon is caused when an LED light receives much more power than the amount that is recommended. This can happen due to a number of factors such as human error, power supplies that are faulty, a bad layout of PCB or just plain components that are faulty within the assembly of the product.
One of the primary reasons why these things happen is due to the static discharge which makes contact with the device during the process of manufacturing, shipping or even how the component has been handled. One of the best ways to prevent this from happening is to make use of a static suppressor. This will be able to then absorb the frequencies that can otherwise damage your LED. This can also be caused by poor design or also a driver that is inappropriate which can then regulate the output consistently. This will lead to a surge in the level of voltage when the LEDs are turned on. It can also be due to the testing process where the devices are connected and then disconnected very rapidly.
You can generally stop these types of things from happening by making sure that you use protection circuits that have thermal and also the electrical parts of the device’s system. These circuits typically work by regulating the voltage that the LED receives, very much similar to a traditional fuse. This circuit will be able to kick in and protect the system when a predefined limit has been exceeded, and it will then reset once the fault has been cleared.
