We can find a variety of garden lights in the market, with all sorts of styles and light sources. Some of them are cheap but with poor quality conditions, some of them have good performances and qualities but really expensive. The over-expensive selling price of one good is the biggest obstacle of the promotion and popularization of this good. It is well known that price is the critical factor that determines the cost-effective of one good. Advantages and prices all together determine that whether one product can be easily accepted by buyers. As the new generation light source, LED garden lights started to emerge in the residential lighting market since 2010. There is no doubt that some of their incomparable advantages attracted a lot of attentions from merchants and consumers. But their expensive prices also kept them away from many ordinary families. Although, in the indoor lighting area, incandescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes are gradually replaced by corresponding LED lighting products, in the garden lighting area, traditional lighting technologies are still in the dominate position.
Below is the basic cost constitution of LED garden lights: the package cost occupies most part of the total production cost, about 50%-60%. Thus in order to control the production cost on a reasonable level, we need firstly choose a reasonable package structure. Since LED garden lights just entered the market, most current package structure cannot meet the special fixture design of garden lights. On the contrary, many designers have to created new shapes/constructions to meet the requirements of LED lights package structures, which also increase costs virtually.
Unlike other LED lighting products, LED chip cost occupies only a small part of total production cost, around 15%. Main costs are from package, cooling, structure, power supplies. Clearly, manufacturing process is the crucial section in the cost reduction. Reasonable structure design can optimize the performance of LED garden lights.
Design is account for 20% of the total cost. With the further development of LED technology, 5%-10% is more reasonable. For cooling designs, two issues should be noticed: a. shorten the cooling path between chips and external cooling devices; b. reduce thermal conductivity without affecting the cooling path.