Everywhere there is a replacement of conventional lamps for LED. Today it is the best way of lighting for cars and houses, more durable and easy to replace. So, what is the principle of operation of the LED and how to choose it correctly?
LED and its principle of operation
A LED is a special electrical appliance that processes current into a certain glow. Today, LEDs are better known as LEDs, which means “light emitting diode”.
The device is a semiconductor device and consists of a crystal chip, a housing, contact leads and an optical device. Light comes from the crystal, and its color may be different and depends on the material used. The brightness of the LED, as well as its color, can also be different. So, for example, for a greater light effect, several crystals are often inserted into a single lamp, producing monochromatic light, which in combination forms a bright glow.
The brightness of the device directly depends on the strength of the electric current supplied to it. In turn, too powerful a flow of electricity causes rapid overheating of the internal crystal and destroys it. In view of this, the design of the LED is somewhat costly in terms of the cost of materials, which somewhat negatively affects the choice of such lamps.
By brightness, LEDs are usually divided into categories:
- ultrabright, their minimum power is 1 W;
- high brightness LEDs - reach 20 mW;
- standard lamps.
Today, the LED block is widely used, which is built into the lamp. Thanks to him, it is possible to adjust the brightness and select the optimal glow mode.
The advantage of LEDs over other types of lighting
LED is the best choice of lighting type today, which has several advantages:
- Durability.
- The ability to adjust the color and brightness of the lamp.
- Color saturation, the ability to pick up red, blue, green LEDs or make the color change.
- Possibility of electronic control.
- Environmentally friendly materials that do not contain heavy substances that are harmful to the environment and dangerous if improperly disposed of.
- Low power consumption, 1 watt produces several times more light.
- The light is pure and as close to natural as possible.
- They do not overheat thanks to competent light conduction.
- Reliability and durability.
Why have LEDs become popular in the auto industry? This type of lighting is ideal for cars, gradually replacing halogen and xenon lamps. His positive qualities:
- the ability to direct lighting behind the steering wheel - the creation of adaptive headlights;
- aesthetically looks better than other types of headlights;
- increased safety through improved visibility on the road;
- resistance to vibration;
- often LEDs are installed in a housing where moisture does not penetrate;
- achievement of the working state is faster, for this reason the brake lights work better.
Of course, these advantages are inherent only to really high-quality products, so you should not save on them, especially since the period of their operation is significantly increased compared to Chinese products. Additionally, the period of operation of LED lamps, when compared with conventional ones, is also significantly longer.
LED classification
There are 2 main types of LEDs - for backlight (indicator) and for lighting. Their strength and durability depend on the supply of electric current, because of this, the second type of LEDs serves a shorter period, since the crystal wears out faster. However, these lighting devices are very durable and last several thousand hours.
Lighting LED is a device that provides reliable and powerful light. It is widely used in design, creating the desired level of illumination.
By type of housing, it is customary to highlight an LED in the form of "Stars", "Piranhas" and SMD. Among them, the most popular are Piranhas, as their luminous flux seems to be better. Their design feature is the shape of a rectangle with conclusions at the edges, with the help of which they provide tight adhesion to the surface. In addition, the substrate of the device has excellent heat dissipation. These devices are used widely in automobiles and in advertising. They are diverse in size and color: red, white, green, blue LED.
Indicator LEDs have a simpler design, their light is not so strong and is used to illuminate displays and dashboards. Round, oval and rectangular indicator LEDs are distinguished in shape.
Lenses are also different from each other, they can be built into both lighting and indicator lamps. Some are designed to scatter light (the vast majority of these devices), others are for focusing, thanks to the directional beam of the produced light. Moreover, in the second group lenses are distinguished flat, conical and round.
The color of the lens LEDs are:
- colorless transparent;
- painted transparent;
- painted matte.
In addition, the color gamut of the device is now very diverse. There is a yellow, red, blue, green LED, etc. These colors are skillfully combined to create an even wider spectrum. The most difficult, oddly enough, is to get a pure white color.
The white LED is obtained in three ways:
- simultaneous use in the right proportions of red, blue and green colors gives a feeling of white color;
- the use of a blue diode with an admixture of yellow;
- the third method requires the use of fluorescent materials, which converts ultraviolet, acting on the principle of a fluorescent lamp.
A white LED is the most common, although it is somewhat difficult to obtain. It can be cold and warm. On a light bulb, this parameter is usually indicated in kelvins, the lower the indicator, the color will be yellower and warmer. Manufacturers recommend choosing an averaged parameter, although you can also quickly get used to the cold, bluish light.
Choosing a lamp for the home
The choice of a lamp for the home includes several stages, where it is necessary to determine the type of network, the diameter of the base and the appearance of the lighting device itself.
A 220-volt LED is produced in the most common types of cap - E27 and E14. The numbers indicate the diameter of the thread in millimeters. The first type of lamp is often found in the form of a ball, the second - a ball or corn.
What are their main advantages? Firstly, it is the ability to lock and adjust the brightness of the glow yourself. Secondly, it is the choice of color lighting and the ability to remotely control it. Thirdly, the durability of operation and increased reliability.
When choosing a form, you need to pay attention to the fact that corn lamps, although they have quite good characteristics, are still unsafe. Their contacts go outside, and manufacturers recently refuse to release devices of this form.
To illuminate non-residential premises or bathrooms, less powerful lamps are used, so if you do not need to use a 220-volt LED, you can get by with small flat appliances with a G53 and GX53 socket. These are round lamps where several diodes are used.
The color is recommended to choose plain white, as it is not too warm and not very cold color, the optimal characteristic of which is 4200 K.
When buying a lamp, pay attention to the following characteristics:
- the number of diodes - on how many LEDs are in the lamp, its brightness depends, especially during a long period of use, when they begin to fade and burn out;
- operating temperature mode - you need to consider that when choosing a lamp for the street it should be effective and in possible frosts, this is usually indicated in the passport of the device;
- the possibility of pulsations - blinking occurs in cheap lamps, usually when buying expensive it is minimized;
- operating conditions sometimes require increased protection of the device, for example, resistance to moisture, it is necessary to ask the seller about this parameter;
- when choosing a manufacturer, you need to pay attention to the diameter of the socle, since not all imported developers produce 220V LEDs;
- The necessary luminous flux, which is measured in Lumens, is lighting or indicator lamps.
Manufacturer's choice
There are many manufacturers on the market who demonstrate different levels of quality. Accordingly, their pricing policies of suppliers are also significantly different.
The main disadvantage of LEDs is their cost. Therefore, if you already pay a lot of money for the product, it is necessary that it be really high quality. Therefore, it is worthwhile to approach the choice of manufacturer and supplier with responsibility.
Manufacturers can conditionally be divided into 5 groups.
- Chinese cheap unknown brands.
- Famous Chinese and Asian manufacturers. The most popular are Selecta, Camelion, LG. They use modern equipment, and the quality of the products manufactured by these companies is quite high, so a fairly large segment of the domestic market is occupied with goods from Asia. We should also mention LG LEDs, which since 2016 have significantly reduced the price of their goods through the use of new technologies in production. Moreover, the quality remains the same. There is no doubt about it. The company specializes in medium-power lamps and performs quite well with respect to analogues.
- Domestic manufacturers who make a high-quality product, but their technology is quite expensive, so the price of lamps is corresponding. Unfortunately, in Russia late learned about the wide possibilities of LEDs and domestic manufacturers so far not so much. This, for example, Optoman and Gauss. These companies have their product range and are available nationwide.
- European manufacturers are represented mainly by German companies Philips, Osram, Bioledex, which have extensive experience in the production of lamps. Perhaps Philips remains the leader in this market segment, although it is relatively expensive.
- Sino-Russian projects, such as Ecola, Newera, are also good brands in terms of quality and price, which are much younger than competing firms.
Thus, among such an abundance of manufacturers it is sometimes difficult to choose a worthy brand, therefore it is especially important and it is necessary to pay attention mainly to the characteristics of the product and its operating conditions.
Approximate algorithm for installing the LED
If there is even the slightest knowledge of electrics and there was experience installing any lamps, you can try to install the LED yourself. First you need to make sure the lamps are working. The sequence of actions should be as follows:
- study of technical characteristics and calculation of how many volts a single LED consumes;
- drawing up a connection diagram taking into account the voltage;
- calculation of power consumption of an electric circuit;
- Next, you need to select a power supply that would fit in power, it can also be a driver;
- on the legs of the LED indicated the polarity to which you need to solder the wires;
- power supply connection;
- installation of diodes and their fixing;
- if everything is in order, it is necessary to measure such characteristics as the amount of energy consumed, heating, electric current;
- electric current correction;
- warming up for half an hour - so that nothing happens during the initial installation and in order to prevent overheating, it is better to buy LEDs on a star-shaped substrate.
During operation, especially if it is a Chinese-made product, the replacement of LEDs is sometimes necessary. What to contact the experts, the replacement can be done independently if you have the right tools. Having unwound the lamp, diodes ring with the help of a digital multimeter. They, in turn, are poorly highlighted, and some of them may not work. Unnecessary diodes are soldered and replaced with new ones. Of course, this happens when spare LEDs are available, for this you can take an old lamp.
Today, the Arduino program is a popular addition. By connecting an LED to it, you can make it blink. The Arduino board has many features, I / O, and you can connect almost any device to it. This program is able to receive signals from various devices, which forces them to act. This is an easy and convenient programming environment, which is easy to handle even for an ordinary user.
The choice of LEDs for the car
Car owners are increasingly switching to a new type of lighting in their car. This is a really good solution, not only in terms of operating mode, but also regarding the appearance of the car. Auto will significantly change, attracting the eyes of passing drivers. With LED-type lighting, you can safely replace all the lamps that are used in the car.
How to choose the dimensions and light for the front brake lights?
Most of the automotive industry uses lamps without a base, installed in the aperture between the headlights. The advantage of LEDs is their resistance to any temperature, since they are close to the main lighting lamp, overheating of the crystal and its premature failure are possible. In view of this, when choosing lighting, it is necessary to pay attention to the additional protection of LEDs - the presence of an electric current stabilizer.
When choosing lamps, you need to pay attention to their series, for example, the SF series, although it does not have a stabilizer, is quite suitable for a car, as it has a large number of diodes and works in a wide range, perfectly illuminating the space.
It is also necessary to pay attention to the dimensions of the lamp, so the specified example of SF is a rather large device. You need to think through everything carefully before buying lighting.
A series of dimensions is also popular - SMD, which has excellent characteristics, but also costs a lot of money.
Car backlight
It is customary to equip rear brake lights with two-pin base LEDs. The most popular series: MSD, 14HP and 3x1W. They have a slightly different mode of operation, differ in the number of diodes. But all have fairly high rates. These LEDs are bright, providing rich light and long life.
The most affordable ones are the SF series lamps.
LEDs for interior
Before choosing lamps for the salon, you need to determine the type of lighting and the size of the ceiling.
In the salon you need to pick up a festoon-type lamp - these are oblong devices, 31-41 mm in size. There are 3 types of LEDs for the interior.
- They are installed in the lampshade connector instead of the old ordinary light bulb. In terms of size, such LEDs are almost identical to conventional lighting devices, they are used when it is impossible to use another lamp due to the small size of the lampshade.
- LEDs are larger than a standard bulb. Before installing, make sure that such a device fits the ceiling. Due to its larger size, the number of diodes in the lamp increases. Thus, the lighting becomes much brighter than usual.
- Matrices containing a large number of diodes. If the ceiling is large enough and can accommodate a rectangular matrix, then this type of lighting will be the brightest and most saturated.
In interior lighting, SF or SMD lamps are used.
In addition, the replacement of fog lamps with lamps with LEDs is widely used in cars. Particular attention should be paid to motorists who want to stand out among others, on the backlighting with LED strip and on the "angel eyes."
Summarizing
LED is a great alternative to old bulbs, which helps to solve the problem of insufficient lighting of the room. Even at a higher cost than an ordinary lamp, this is an excellent investment, since the LED is able to serve more than one year and give bright light to the house and car.