The popular media darling – Smart Grid – lighting control completely powerless. This inevitably cast doubt on the whole smart grid concept is purely a speculation bubble farce.
The vast majority of Electrical and Electronics Engineers felt the same confusion, why it comes to lighting dimmer, we still have to rely on an old components – SCR silicon control? The design of a dimming function, really so difficult?
led lights
In fact, the difficult point is the device cost and market uncertainty. If self-installation cost of the advantages and disadvantages of the silicon-controlled dimmers and dimming program to analyze a lot of confusion will be clarified.
In this paper, the existing dimming solutions for resolution. And to propose several bold prediction:
(1), the silicon-controlled dimmer into history and incandescent
(2) electronic dimmer with remote control tune optical devices market prospects
(3) EZ Dimming is the only viable universal dimming program and it will become ubiquitous dimming.
(1) lighting needs benchmarks
First, let us first understand the relationship between lighting needs basis dimming energy saving. The lighting design must consider the intensity of the light source, and the illuminated object, or according to the plane of luminous flux. The light intensity measurement unit is the lumen (Lumen). The unit of measurement of the illuminance is Lux. The relationship between the two is 1 Lux = 1 Lumen/m2
Suppose we have a 10W LED lamp, issued to the total luminous flux is 600 Lumens. 600 Lumens are all concentrated in one square meter of the desktop, that desktop illuminance is 600 Lux,
(1) Commercial lighting – bright food, especially bread, burgers, seafood, barbecue, etc. can stimulate the appetite. Bread, cake shop, fast food restaurant in Hamburg, the window of the restaurant to have more than 1000 Lux illumination. Jewelry, watches, clothing stores, must have bright illumination, and to stimulate the desire to purchase. Precision Industry, color printing, museums, galleries, optical shops, 3C stores, bookstores, typing, drawing, clinic room must have illumination of 1000 Lux.
(2) for general lighting services – offices, classrooms, discount stores, general stores, coffee shops, fast food restaurants, factories, production lines, there must be 300-800 Lux.
(3) non-workplace – such as railway stations, airports, hospitals, building lobbies, wards, corridors, stairwells, toilets, to 100-300 Lux. Parks, parking lots, and streets can be as low as 10-50 Lux.
(4) non-business hours – commercial lighting, general lighting during non-business hours can be reduced to 100-300 Lux.
Moderate lighting, we do have a significant impact on the competitiveness of the stores. Focus counters of convenience stores, department stores on the first floor, including cosmetics, jewelry, illumination of more than 2000Lux. Poor lighting, it will not attract the attention and desire to purchase. If the lighting is excessive, we will increase personnel fatigue and drowsiness. An obvious example is the Taoyuan airport entry and departure lobby, a serious shortage of illumination. Bright compared to the Hong Kong International Airport and Narita Airport, the more people feel the Taoyuan airport’s old, deserted. Only duty-free shop area stores are brightly lit.
(2) dimming energy saving led street lights
The lighting is artificial lighting, to provide adequate illumination at night or in natural low light situations. But the lighting power consumption, switching off lights when not needed can save energy. However, in some periods and circumstances, if the lights transferred to the dark level (25 ~ 50%), but also can significantly reduce energy consumption (-50% ~ -75%).
Many public buildings or places, such as airports, railway stations, docks, parking lots, streets, parks, shopping malls, schools, hospitals, ward, factories, and at night is not appropriate to all the lights turned off, or have limited mobility or security concerns.
Office building lobbies, toilets, corridors, stairwells and other places in after work to maintain a moderate lighting, can also facilitate the employees to work overtime, and to avoid the dead ends of law and order.
24-hour convenience stores, gas stations, hotels, etc., in the late-night business is lighter, the lights dimmed part to save electricity.
Existing dimming devices
Common dimmers, including silicon-controlled dimmer (the triac is dimmer) (before-cut), electronic dimmer (-cut), and remote control dimmer (infrared or RF type).
(1) electronic dimmer – you can add many advanced features. But it must be construction, change the lighting wiring (wall switch is only connected to an AC cord, and can not provide power to electronic circuits), the high cost of the device.
(2) remote control dimmer – you can add many advanced features. But the remote control is expensive, easily lost, and public occasions NA. Philips and Sharp have remote lighting dimmer products. The price is quite expensive, dimmable light bulbs cost about non-dimming light bulb twice. Remote control the other terms, usually asking price at $ 30 to $ 50. Remote control dimmer Another drawback is easily lost, especially in public places such as schools, office buildings and other places.
To make matters worse, both of which have lighting dimmer with the same label, so there is no uniform specifications. Not compatible with each other because each label, so the existing market is very small, the future is unlikely to be popular.
GE, Toshiba, Panasonic has not yet launched a remote control dimmer lighting products, believe that the competitor’s product specifications. Zhu Dachang their own ways, like the cell phone charger, Nokia, Samsung, LG, and Motorola are mutually exclusive.
(3) silicon-controlled dimmer – Electronic dimmer, remote control dimmer device costs are high, nor uniform standards, so the old silicon controlled dimmer volume slightly. Although the silicon-controlled dimming has many shortcomings, but without changing the wiring, low installation cost, performance and specifications of each brand of silicon-controlled dimmer is not very different, many of the currently selected by the LED lighting factory dimming scheme.