作者：Blade

Unique advantages of LED lighting technology

As the new 4th generation light source, LED lighting technology started to take place of traditional light sources, causing huge revolutions in the lighting industry. This new light source is constantly upgrading as a result of innovations in drivers. From incandescent lights to energy-saving lights, from halogen lamps to LED lamps, light sources have been not only improved in the energy-saving aspect, but also enhanced comfort. As the representative of green light sources, LED lighting technology has potentials to dominate the market. Compared with other mature traditional light sources, what makes LED more advanced?

 

As the new 4th generation light source, LED lighting technology started to take place of traditional light sources, causing huge revolutions in the lighting industry.

 

In 1923, American scientists Rosoff (O.W.Lossew) discovered that silicon PN junctions have properties of electrical conductivity and luminescence. In 1955, R.J.Haynes published a research report about properties of gemanium PN junctions. And meanwhile, G. A. Wolff shared his study on the luminous phenomenon of GaP (gallium phoshpide). In 1968, Monsanto Company and HP produced a red LED for the first time, enabling LED Panel Light become a kind of electronic products to enter the market.

 

Energy saving: LED spectrum almost all concentrated in the visible range. The luminous efficiency can reach up to 80%-90%. Compared with incandescent bulbs, spiral energy-saving lamps and T5 trichromatic fluorescent tubes: the luminous efficiency of incandescent lights is around 12lm/W, can work for 2000 hours; the luminous efficiency of spiral energy-saving lamps is 60lm/W, and can work for 8000 hours; T5 fluorescent tubes have a relatively high luminous efficiency: 96lm/W, and can work for 10,000 hours; The luminous efficiency of LED tubes with diameters of 5mm is within the range of 20-28lm/W, but can work for more than 100,000 hours. Someone even predicted that the maximum LED lifetime in the future will be infinite.

 

It is believed that energy-saving lamps saving 4/5 energy is a great invention. LED can save 1/4 more energy than energy-saving lamp does. In addition, LED lighting technology has other advantages: pure light spectrum/good-quality rays, free of radiations, environmental friendly, reliable, durable, very low cost on maintenance and replacement, etc.. Thank you for the above advantages, it is estimated that LED lighting applications will dominate the market within 10 years.

 

LED usually operate under low voltage input, 1.4V-3V; normal working current is 10mA. During the production process, LED needs no mercury and inflation, good at impact resistance and shock resistance, easy to transport, safe and very environmental friendly.

Brand war and price war in the LED lighting industry, which one is more important?

Until now, the world still immersed in the sad atmosphere of economy crises and euro crises. Under such circumstance, many industries slowed down their path of development, except for LED lighting industry. Instead of falling into recession, domestic LED lighting industry is now in a state of prosperity. Regardless of scale, product quality, market reputation, LED Panel Light companies large and small swarmed in this market, causing surging waves. At the same time, the price war has once again become the sharpest sword in this battlefield.

 

Brand war and price war in the LED lighting industry, which one is more important?

 

However, can the price war really be a sword that enables LED lighting companies dominated the market? Throughout the history of other domestic industries, the price strategy has been widely used by a lot of companies. Usually, the consequence of doing so is not only harms the interests of the market but also harm the interests of companies. The price war is a double-edge sword.

 

As an emerging market, LED is in the process of replacing traditional lighting technologies. There must be a stage of sharp prices dropping, which is inevitable. But the decline in prices should be established on the basis of mature technologies and scales instead of no-bottom-line prices dropping at the cost of reduction of products’ qualities. Seizing the market by this way will only lead to the end of this company. Companies lacking of core technologies will not survive in the along developing river.

 

Ultimately, the price war can never rise to the strategic height in any market, which only can be used as a temporary tactic. The core strategy of LED manufactures must return to the concept of building brand values, firmly seizing the bottom line of product quality, stably developing the core technology. Only LED companies that followed such sustainable developing steps can achieve a long-term development in the LED lighting market.

 

Presently, the consuming concept of the mainstream customer group has changed. Cheap products usually mean low-quality products. And customers started to recognize and accept the premium caused by the brand effect. There are so many domestic enterprises tasted the pain of this. When a company’s products are marked with low-price low-quality label, it is almost impossible for them to re-establish their brand. It is the brand war that LED lighting industry needed desperately rather than the price war.

To crack three developing constrains in the LED lighting market

LED lighting applications have many advantages: environmental friendly, high light efficiency and save more energy, long service life. With the dual stimulation of the government support policies and market interests, the domestic LED lighting industry is developing rapidly. A lot of companies and organizations tried to swarm into his field, including professional LED Panel Light manufacturers, traditional lighting companies and overseas capital. However, different from the hot upstream industry, LED still faces many challenges in the terminal market as a result of expensive selling prices, different qualities and limited recognition among ordinary consumers, which have been considered as three major constrains in the LED lighting market.

 

To crack three developing constrains in the LED lighting market

 

1)       Expensive selling prices: compared with incandescent lamps, energy-saving lamps, selling prices of LED lights can be 10 times/ Dozens of times higher. The expensive prices dramatically hindered the development of LED sales in the market.

2)       Different product qualities: vicious competitions and different product qualities roiled the market, undermining the confidence of consumers.

3)       limited recognition among ordinary consumers; As a new green lighting source, currently, many consumers has not really understood its advantages. Lacking of recognition crack the confidence of dealers.

 

In order to expend the LED residential lighting market, LED makers should drop prices (through technological innovations), improve qualities and strengthen propagating.

1)       With the improvement of LED technology and continuous reduction of production cost, selling prices of LED lighting products constantly dropped recently. This may overcome the first hurdle for the popularization of LED lighting applications.

2)       Improving LED manufacturing technologies maybe the most effective solutions for the various-quality problem. Which are LED manufacturing technologies? LED chip is undoubtedly the core technology of LED lamps. Within the entire production cost of one LED light, LED chips occupied more than 50%. Besides, cooling section, drivers, are also fairly important. High-quality, more cost effective products has become the urgent needs of the LED lighting market.

3)       Strengthen publicity and promote the LED literacy

The government plays an important role in the promotion of the LED literacy. LED Expo, LED support policies, large LED lighting projects and media reports can widely spread LED concept. All these staff should be under the help of government. Besides, LED companies can also give a hand on this part by Increasing advertising. They actually kill two birds with one stone: enhance the product reputation and meanwhile strength the publicity of LED lighting products.

 

How to evaluate the LED lighting circuit design?

LED chip is the core technology of LED lamp, and the entire industry has also put a lot of effort on this part. However, no one can deny the importance of LED drivers. LED drivers/power supplies are usually considered as the short board of LED lamps, which may probably determine the service life of the lamp. However, it is LED lighting circuit design that determines the quality of LED drivers. Overall, volume and cost are two major factor of judging the LED lighting circuit design, but some manufactures and inspection institutes also see PFC as an important reference indicators, as well.

 

LED chip is the core technology of LED lamp, and the entire industry has also put a lot of effort on this part.

 

Observing from the whole LED lighting system, there is no doubt that LED chips and packaging accounted for a fairly high proportion of the overall production cost. LED lighting circuit design is not the most important part, but is a key point to determine the energy efficiency of a LED lighting product. On the other hand, the LED industry also faced with other strict requirements on cost, lifetime and volume. Under the circumstance of facing multiple pressures, system makers would like to shift these pressures to semiconductor producers.

 

Different applications, different LED lighting circuit designs. Normally, LED lighting applications can be divided into three types: indoor lighting, outdoor lighting and automobile lighting. Although they can be further divided, but internal circuits will be slightly different among LED lighting applications from the same type. Only in the aspects of operation temperature, system volume, reliability and production cost, there will be large variations. For example, indoor lighting applications, like residential lighting and commercial lighting, will consider more about production cost and system volume. Outdoor landscape lighting is more concerned about the operation temperature and reliability. For automotive lighting, although operated under DC, electrical safety needs to pay more attention on.

 

LED outdoor lighting applications should have a higher IP level and stronger in resisting the stressed environment. But at present there is no cleared unified standard in the outdoor lighting area. It is suggested that LED outdoor lighting applications still have a long way to go to obtain further improvements. In addition to environmental factors, as a matter of fact, LED outdoor lighting applications are usually high powered due to the multiple LED chips used on their light-emitting boards. Series connection will definitely increase the operation power, while parallel connection will increase the input voltage, which is infeasible for LED lighting applications. Thus solutions for LED Panel Light outdoor lamps should be comprehensive to meet the design requirements.

Reviewing LED technology 50 years: The Secret History from the lights to street lights

GMT, October 12, according to foreign media reports, GE executives show his inventions in 50 years ago.  LED (light emitting diode) the inventor Senanayake (NickHolonyak) firmly believe that LED will replace incandescent bulbs. Although incandescent bulbs are still the mainstream product in the home lighting, yet LED has changed in many ways the lighting applications. From indicator to the high brightness of street lights on the streets of major cities to the faint red light switch, LED Panel Light has been accepted by the world.

Reviewing LED technology 50 years: The Secret History from the lights to street lights

Ubiquitous red LED

The first LED light glows red. This is not because of aesthetic considerations. The LED is made ​​through to create a multi layered semiconductor wafer on the wafer. As more and more layers of a semiconductor wafer is added up, people began to use various additives to determine the color of the LED lamp. Small silicon wafer is immersed in the molten liquid, and then add the metal contacts and conductors. First GaAsP LED lights using LED lights of the solution will be to produce a natural red. Therefore, the default color is used as the indicator LED lights red.

Making use of new LED technology lights can also be issued to other colors of light, which greatly expanded the range of applications of LED lights. But LED lights after the advent of the first 10 years always emits the red light.

The first portable calculator
Relatively inexpensive, low-power LED lights began to replace incandescent bulbs in a variety of electronic products, electronic products, prices fell, down to the level of a more easily accepted by consumers.

First LED watches

In 1972, The watch LED technology which already exists as long as a century of have begun to accept the LED lights. Pulsar was launched the world’s first LED watch: Time-Computer. It is said that the watch extremely accurate, the annual run error is not more than 60 seconds. It is the first watch equipped with LED lights, and have electronic timekeeping function, the price at that time is $ 2100.

Unfortunately, this kind of watch have the high power consumption of this new technology, so people who wearing such watches need to press a button to see the time.

Enterprises still have limited knowledge about LED fluorescent tubes

Whether LED tube technology has entered the second stage and mature enough that can be commercialized, no one can give out a satisfied answer at this moment. There is also no LED Panel Light company that has done a complete 10,000-hour aging test. Many LED manufacturers have very limited knowledge about their products. Large brand LED fluorescent tubes usually have one-year warranty. The warranty of domestic LED fluorescent tubes varies according to the quality of products, from 1 year to 3 years. Currently, domestic LED interior lighting industry is under an unordered development. Lacking of cleared uniform standards, it is predicted that the price battle of LED lighting products will be continued for a very long time.

 

Enterprises still have limited knowledge about LED fluorescent tubes

 

What are the differences between normal fluorescent tubes and LED fluorescent tubes? LED tube lights have higher quality, more durable and can save more energy, have wide options in beam angle, higher light efficiency (the brightness of a 15W LED Tube is equivalent to the brightness of a 40W fluorescent tube), can work in high temperatures, with anti-moisture/water-proof/leak-proof function. The commonly used covers for LED tubes are Glass cover and PC (Poly Carbonate) cover. LED tube lights use the most advanced lighting technology – LED, with digital appearance desighs, saving up to 70% energy. The service life of LED tubes is nearly 10 times longer than ordinary fluorescent tubes, almost maintenance-free.

 

LED tubes use green semiconductors as light source, very environmental friendly, soft rays, pure spectrum, providing more protection for human eyes and health. The 6000K Cool White light source gives a cool feeling to our eyes, which will make people be easier to concentrate and improve their working efficiency.

 

Currently, compared with traditional fluorescent tubes, LED fluorescent tubes have following advantages: 1) save more energy; 2) long lifetime; 3) Good applicability, since the small size of LED chips, they can be made in various shape; 4) short response time (several nanoseconds); the response time of fluorescent tubes is around several milliseconds; 5) environmental protection, no health-hazard metal waste, easy for recycling; 6) emit multiple pure colors (narrow spectral range, via combinations of red/green/blue rays). Disadvantages: 1) expensive; 2) great gap between theoretically light efficiency and practical light efficiency; 3) great gap between theoretically lifetime and practical lifetime; 4) the heat dissipation problem; However, all these defects can be improved by more advanced LED technology.

Some suggestions for LED tube market

Replace a 40W fluorescent tube with an 18W  LED Panel Light tube. If compared the service life and selling prices between them we could find that: the average selling price of 18W LED tubes is 165-200 yuan, average ex-factory price is 135 yuan, the production cost is around 120 yuan. LED T8 tube, 18W, 1.2m, using Epistar 3528 LED chips, luminous flux of single chip is around 6lm, embedded isolated drivers, total luminous flux is approximately 1400-1600lm. If every LED T8 tube works 10 hours one day, 365 days one year, after two years, one LED T8 Tube can save energy of: (40W-18W) x 10 (hours) x 365 (days) x 2 (years)/1000W (one kilowatt hour = 1000W) = 160.6 kilowatt hour. Save money of 160.6 kilowatt hour x 0.9 yuan/ kilowatt hour = 144.54 yuan. The average service life of fluorescent tubes is one year. Two years need two fluorescent tubes. Then price difference between them should be: 165 – 10 x 2 = 145 yuan. Therefore, if LED tubes can be used for more than two years (7300 hours, it is easy for most LED tubs to work this long). According to the above calculation, LED tubes need at least two years or more to recover the cost of production and realize the final goal of energy-saving, which is also a piece of good news for the LED tube market.

 

Replace a 40W fluorescent tube with an 18W LED tube. If compared the service life and selling prices between them we could find that

 

The average selling price of LED tube is around 150-200 yuan/each. There is still falling space. At present, the average ex-factory price of LED tubes is about 6-20 yuan/W. Prices vary among different manufacturers. A cost structure of on 18W T8 LED tube: the light source accounts for 53%, the driver accounts for 14%. Obviously, light sources occupy nearly 50% of the total production cost. Light source part is the core technology of LED lights. Different technologies, different materials cause different tubes from different LED manufacturers cost different. The difference of selling prices may as higher as 200 yuan for some products with the same specification in the LED tube market.

 

Since November of 2009, with the increasingly intense competitions in the LED tube market, selling prices of LED tube lights continuously dropped. In the mean time, the demand for light sources, power supplies, lamp shells is also increased stably, making the production cost hard to be cut down.

When can LED tube products become the mainstream in the tube market

In recent years, as a new green energy-saving light source, LED enjoyed a vigorous development, from the outdoor landscaping lighting area to the indoor residential lighting area. In the very beginning of this year, many LED Panel Light manufacturers promoted new LED indoor lighting products. Among them, it was LED tube products that attracted most attention. Compared with traditional fluorescent tubes, LED tubes have many advantages: can save more energy, more environmental friendly, longer service life and smaller. Although, LED tube products are more advanced in technology, they still have not dominated the market and become the mainstream yet.

 

When can LED tube products become the mainstream in the tube market

 

Expensive selling prices + unstable performances + insufficient supports make LED tubes hardly to be seen in the market. At present, most LED tube applications can only used in the industrial field and the commercial field, why they can hardly accepted by ordinary family? There are three main reasons: 1. Too expensive selling prices and unstable performances; 2. Inadequate supports and promotions from the government; 3. Many support policies but very few lighting projects. The cheapest LED tubes are 13 times more expensive than commonly used fluorescent tubes. The acceptance and acknowledge of this product among ordinary consumers are really low. LED tubes are more likely to be used for commercial purposes. But commercial lighting applications need to take account of multiple factors: energy-saving, environmental protection, appearance, government support, etc.. The unstable performances plus the unwarrantable service life plus government’s shifted focus from commercial lighting area to industrial lighting area made LED tube products even hard to find in the commercial lighting market.

 

PK with traditional fluorescent lamps, the over-expensive production cost of LED tube lights is real. But the 50,000 service life is not real. If take the lifetime, energy-saving effect and less pollution into account, LED is more cost-effective. The average service life of traditional fluorescent tubes is only 5000 hours. IF LED tubes can really maintain a normal condition for more than 50,000 hours, it is not surprised that the sell price of LED tube lights will be 10 times higher than that of traditional tubes. The energy LED lights saved during this time will become a pure income. However, the 50,000 hours story has been questioned.

Online shopping will become the new battleground of LED lighting business

It is rather difficult for current LED lighting business quickly enter into distribution channels established for traditional lighting industries. Offline businesses usually need huge upfront investments. Relatively, online sales have two obvious advantages: low upfront investments and wide coverage, which is more suitable for LED Panel Light this emerging market.

 

Online shopping will become the new battleground of LED lighting business

 

Online sales have two major features: wide purchase groups, without any regional restrictions; flat management, reducing intermediate links in circulation.

 

In addition, it is very hard for ordinary consumers to buy any high-quality LED lighting products from stores, supermarkets or other traditional channels. The over-expensive production cost blocked them from the residential lighting area. “They are too expensive to sell. No one would pay 50 USD to by a 50W bulb. Ridiculous!” said one of merchants of lamps. Currently, only 5% traditional lighting channels are also doing LED lighting business. WAL-MART is the only large supermarket that selling LED lighting products. Therefore, those who have some knowledge on LED lighting lamps and feel interested in this new lighting technology can only find what they want from the internet. Actually, compared with offline trading, LED is very popular in the online market.

 

According to a Taobao internal staff, they had once sold a type of LED bulbs at the price of 39.8 yuan (group price) on the website. Just a few hours, 7000 LED bulbs have been sold out. In order to satisfy the demands of buyers, Taobao had to undergo emergency replenishment and carried out the second round of group purchase, with the same product.

 

Online shopping can effectively reduce the purchase cost of terminal users, at least 15%-30% compared with traditional channels. At the same time, online selling also provides channels for brand promotion and products present.

 

Online prices for LED lamps are much cheaper than that of LED lights offline sold. There is no rent fee, no utility bill, no staff salary, but LED online merchants are responsible for the management and promotion cost of the trading platform. After calculation, although online selling prices of LED products are cheaper, the profit margin is almost the same for online selling and offline selling. The current trading profit of LED online business maintained at about 20%, which still have large upward space.

 

LED lighting market: how to get over the hurdles of price and quality

In recent years, the Quality Supervision Bureau, AQSIQ(General Administration of Quality Supervision), Industrial and Commercial Bureau conducted sampling inspection for LED lighting products, energy-saving lamps, road lighting applications, fire emergency lamps and electric light sources all over the coming from 15 cities. The result is rather disappointed: only 51% of LED lamps pass the examination. The low FPY (First Pass Yield) cracked down the confident of the entire LED lighting market. Some LED makers even use halogen powder instead of tri-color powder, making this emerging market all but impossible.

 

LED lighting market: how to get over the hurdles of price and quality

 

As for the phenomenon that using “halogen powder” instead of “tri-color powder”, experts indicated that the selling price of the later is 2-3 times higher that of the former. Compared with halogen powder, tri-color powder is more advanced in many aspects: higher light efficiency, better CRI, longer service life, but relatively, cost more. These behaviors actually do harms for the sustainable long-term development of LED Panel Light industry. Paying more energy on technological research and development is the best way to cope with the intense competitions in the LED lighting market. In order to achieve this effect, we need restrictions of rules and regulations.

 

In addition to the quality problems, the over-expensive selling price is another big obstacle of the development of LED. Compared with traditional lights, the market penetration of LED lighting applications is only 5%. LED has been developed in the mainland for nearly 10 years, which is really short compared with other traditional lamps. It is very difficult for them to drop the price exponentially. Currently, the average cost of one LED bulb is around 5 USD, which is 10 times of the cost of one incandescent bulb.

 

LED lamps are mainly composed of LED lighting sources, drivers and cooling sections. Domestic LED manufacturers engaged in almost every aspect of this area: from chip producing to packaging to application. In order to reduce the production cost, many LED makers choose to develop their own LED driver circuits. Stability, technique factor and optical-electrical conversion efficiency are the three major factors that determine the quality of one driver.

 

Using self-developed drivers can dramatically reduce the production of LED lighting products, especially LED bulbs. In accordance with the law of market development, it is believed that the price of LED bulbs will drop dramatically within the next two years. Price cut caused by vicious competitions should be eliminated in the LED lighting market.