Monthly Archive for August, 2009

LEDs Give Handrails a Helping Hand

Published
by
Christine
on August 31, 2009
in Creative-Uses, Home and LED Lights
. 0 Comments

Sometimes we all need a little help when it comes to navigating in the dark. Whether you’re on a plane, in a public building, or in your own home, handrails are there to make stairways and other potentially dangerous situations safer. In some cases, handrails are the law; in regards the elderly, the disabled and partially sighted people, handrails can safe a life! Now, LEDs are helping to make handrails effective around the clock. What’s the use of railing if you can’t see it in the dark, right? LED strip lighting provides the perfect way to ensure easier accessibility to both private and public buildings through streamlined and economical rail lighting. LEDs are lightweight, energy efficient and can be installed anywhere. Flexible strip LED lights can even be mounted on curving or winding banisters, and will conform smoothly to even the most unusual architectural lines.

Not only will LEDs illuminate the guardrail upon which they are installed, they can also guide light onto the stairs and floors below, and in the case of public buildings, emergency exits. Furthermore, LED strip lighting can be used to not only to provide visibility and safety, but also to highlight certain aesthetic aspects of an interior or exterior walkway as well. Or, by using our dimmable LED lights, banister lighting can emit varying degrees of lumens depending on the occasion. Is your teenager having a get together with her friends? Set the banister lights to low. Is elderly aunt Betty visiting? Better set the handrail lighting on high! No matter which way you look at it, LEDs are the answer when it comes to safely lighting your home or business.

Check out Elemental LED’s array of flexible, dimmable and/or strip LED lighting here: https://www.elementalled.com/LED-Lighting/LED-Strip-Lighting

DIY: Interactive LED Light Tables

Published
by
Christine
on August 27, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Traditional incandescent, fluorescent or halogen lights come with some inherent problems. They get too hot, they’re too big, they use too much energy, etc. Once you eliminate those difficulties, however, a world of possibilities opens up. For instance, what about using light not only for its functionality, but also for its beauty, it’s artistic quality? Even better, what about combining the two—bringing functionality and aesthetics together, incorporating light into architecture or even furniture in ways one never thought possible?

Interactive LED light tables, for instance, are an example of an idea that’s sprung from this new wave of thought in LED technology. Because of the lightweight, compact and energy-efficient nature of LEDs, they can be built into the most unexpected places, like the top of a coffee table. Furthermore, LEDs can easily be programmed to detect and respond to motion, sound, light and/or dark, therefore providing unique interactive opportunities for anyone who passes by. Just think of all the fun you could have at your next cocktail party!

The possibilities are practically infinite when it comes to getting interactive with LEDs. In fact, making your own interactive LED light table and programming it to perform in whatever way you want wouldn’t be that hard. Once you built the table, you would program the lights with a network of sensors that would be able to detect changes in ambient lighting, sound or movement. You could even incorporate infrared LEDs that would allow the table to respond even in pitch-black conditions. Finally, you would install glass or another transparent material over the lights, and there you have it—an interactive LED light table!

For a detailed description of how to make your own interactive LED light table, click on the following link: http://www.instructables.com/id/Interactive-LED-table/

Let Your Garden Grow with LEDs!

Published
by
Christine
on August 24, 2009
in Creative-Uses and Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

On a hot day, it’s hard to imagine that winter is only a few short months away. But the fact of the matter is, summer is drawing to a close, and many of us who enjoy warm sunny days will soon be greeted with shorter days and longer nights. Besides what this means for your summer softball league and that tan you’ve been working on, it also marks the end of the spring and summer gardening season. But it doesn’t have to.

Gardening indoors used to be an expensive hobby; high intensity discharge (HID) grow lights are expensive to purchase and an even bigger drain on the pocketbook, especially in the wintertime when they compete with high electricity and heating bills. But LED grow lights avoid many of these downsides, and make gardening indoors easier and more accessible than ever.

First thing’s first: when growing indoors, the main goal is to replicate the plant’s ideal natural outdoor setting as much as possible. Natural daylight has a high color temperature (around 6000 K). HID lights have a low color temperature (around 2700 K) and usually give off a red-yellow hue. Outdoor sunlight is bluish in tone.

  • Color Temperature: LED lights can be blended to achieve any color temperature required by a specific plant, and can easily imitate the high color temperature and bluish tone of natural light.

Other Benefits

  • Heat: LEDs do not give off heat, a wonderful advantage since heat can pose one of the biggest problems in indoor grow rooms. If your room gets too hot under the large ballasts of HID lights, your plants might wither and die. Using LEDs eliminates this risk altogether.
  • Humidity: The lower heat levels of LEDs will cause less water to evaporate from your plants. When making the switch to LED grow lights, you will have to adjust your watering schedule, but one you find the right amount, you’ll soon realize you’ll have to water less, and thus, are saving water.
  • Energy Savings: Plain and simple, using LEDs to nourish your indoor garden can save you up to 80 percent on your electric bill, compared to what you would spend if you were using HID lights.
  • Longer lasting: Since LEDs don’t contain a filament, and instead function using a light-emitting-diode, or a semiconductor that produces light when electricity is passes through its circuit, they last much longer than HID lights. This means you’ll have to replace them much less often: another cost-reducing benefit.

Don’t let the winter months pull the plug on your garden—bring it indoors and enjoy fresh flowers and vegetables year round with the help of a little LED TLC!

Got Germs? Try UV LEDs!

Published
by
Christine
on August 20, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

We’re all well aware of the potential detriments of UV rays —it’s common knowledge that too much sun exposure, for instance, can cause skin cancer. But UV rays are not completely evil, despite what you may think after walking through the skin care aisle in any supermarket. Besides the fact that moderate UV exposure is good for humans (it kicks off vitamin D production in our bodies and therefore improves bone health), UV rays are also an important germicide used for water sterilization. In fact, UV exposure is the number one way in which bottled water companies sterilize their water.

There are three types of ultraviolet rays, all of which are invisible to the human eye. Long and middle-wave UV rays are found in sunlight and have little germicidal value.  Short wave UV rays are the most effective when it comes to destroying bacteria, but do not occur naturally at the earth’s surface, since the atmosphere filters most of them out. Therefore, short wave UV rays need to be manufactured by man-made instruments.

Traditionally, mercury vapor UV lamps were most often used for their germ-killing power. There are several downsides to mercury lamps however, mainly that they require expensive components, need high voltage to function, and contain the toxic substance mercury. UV LED lights have been proven to be as effective as mercury lights in killing bacteria and sanitizing water, while avoiding all of these pitfalls. “LED sources of ultraviolet light offer many benefits over mercury lamps. They are “instant-on”, potentially much cheaper, easily portable, and have a higher theoretical efficiency,” according to a Compound Semiconductor news article.

Just like mercury lamps, LEDs deliver short wave UV rays below a wavelength of 2950 Angstrom units. Exposure to this range of light damages the cell walls and DNA of bacteria, viruses, mold and spores, rendering them inert. Now, this technology is being made more readily available, not only to water purification companies, but also for home uses (hiking, camping, traveling), thanks to wallet and planet-friendly LEDs!

The Other LED Lights: Infrared LEDs

Published
by
Christine
on August 18, 2009
in LED Lights
. 1 Comment

It’s true that LEDs can help illuminate your life in all kinds of ways. You can use them to light your home, your garden, your pool; they’re used in cars, on planes, streetlamps and in almost every civic application you can think of. But LEDs can also emit light waves that are invisible to the human eye: infrared waves. Infrared (IR) LEDs are most often the types of lights used in remote control devices and in security systems across the globe, including covert devices used by the US Military.

Infrared LEDs are typically used in security cameras, to allow cameras to capture both day and nighttime images. Infrared light waves are invisible to the human eye, but are emitted by anything that gives off heat, such as a human body or a still-warm car engine. As opposed to night vision goggles, which simply detect infrared light, Infrared cameras both detect and emit infrared light according to the ambient light available. Infrared cameras usually have a sensor system that can monitor the light level in the recorded area. As the natural light level drops, the sensor will calculate how much infrared light is needed to illuminate the picture, and infrared LEDs will turn on accordingly. The power of the IR LED strips will increase gradually until it is fully dark out, at which point the image will be viewed in 100 percent IR light. The only drawback to IR technology is that images shot in IR can only be viewed in black and white.

Infrared LEDs are also used in most remote-control devices; an infrared beam carrying instructions in binary code is sent from the remote control to the device (your television or your child’s Tonka truck), which receives these commands and performs the action given.

Looks like LEDs have done it again, making our lives safer and more convenient not only with visible light, but with invisible light rays as well.

Save the Turtles: Use Red and Orange LEDs

Published
by
Christine
on August 12, 2009
in Green-Eco-Friendly and LED Lights
. 0 Comments

We all know that LEDs are better for the environment, mainly because they use less energy than incandescent, fluorescent and halogen lights. And less energy usage means fewer carbon emissions, which in turn creates a healthier planet. But it turns out that LEDs are the better choice for some life forms inhabiting our planet as well. Case in point: endangered sea turtles living in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Florida coast.

Your browser may not support display of this image.

Summertime in Florida means nesting season for three types of sea turtles: threatened loggerhead, endangered green and endangered leatherback. Both nesting females and hatchlings have evolved to search for the bright horizon above the open water as they make their way into the ocean at night. This means that the light from beach houses, flashlights and lanterns can confuse the turtles and cause them to remain stranded on the beach.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has asked residents and night-time beach goers to shut off all lights after dark to help preserve the turtles, and ensure they make the trek from land to water safely. The FWC suggests instead to use red or amber LED lights, since they give off a longer-wavelength light, which does not interfere with the turtles’ mating, nesting and migration habits.

So if you live on the beach and still want to safely light your beachfront staircase, deck or patio, try using our LED Multi Color strips in red or orange, our RGB led strips or maybe our dimmable led lights. Or, if you use our RGB Remote Control LED Light Bulb, which will allow you to use a turtle-friendly colored light during the nesting season, and switch to a brighter white or yellow during the winter months. Trust me, the turtles will thank you.

LEDs Come Out Ahead in “Greenness” Study

Published
by
Christine
on August 4, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Critics of LEDs have often questioned the claim that LEDs are more energy efficient than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. They assert that when taking into account the energetic costs of creation, disposal and shipping (LEDs are often manufactured in China), LEDs use more energy than standard bulbs, therefore negating the energy savings they accumulate during a lifetime of use. A new study, however, finally puts this claim to the rest, and declares that LEDs are in fact the more responsible, planet (and wallet) friendly choice, even when considering the above caveats.

Released on Tuesday, Aug. 4th by the Siemens Corporate Technology Centre for Eco Innovations, the study investigates the energy required to produce and run an LED light, factoring into its findings the resources consumed when transporting the product from China to Europe. The report compared the energy needed for the lifespan of one 25,000-hour LED to 25 1,000-hour incandescents and 2.5 10,000-hour compact fluorescents. The findings state that today’s LED lamps are as energy efficient as compact fluorescents, and that they are expected to out-do CFLs in efficiency as LED technology improves. And considering the fact that one LED light bulb will last 25 times longer than an incandescent bulb, users are saving themselves time and energy by investing in LEDs, greatly reducing the number of times they will have to purchase and change out bulbs over their lifetime.

Or, in the case of large projects, like the United States Custom House, a 102-year-old building in New York that recently switched over to LEDs for all of its lighting needs, the savings can be appreciated right away. A New York Times article about the renovation notes, “Using LED-based fixtures, [the Custom House] cut energy consumption for lighting by 43 percent, saving $6,654 a year. With an expected life of 50,000 hours, compared with the 2,000 hours typical of incandescent bulbs, the lights have also lowered maintenance costs.”

If there was every any doubt about LEDs’ efficiency, it’s quickly disappearing, almost as fast as the industry is growing.

Beat Dorm Room Blues with LED Lighting

Published
by
Christine
on August 4, 2009
in Creative-Uses, Green-Eco-Friendly and LED Lights
. 0 Comments

They say your college years are the best time in your life. Between the mental stimulation of classes and the, uh, full array of social opportunities around every corner, they might be right. There is one potentially negative factor lurking in the shadows of every college freshman’s experience, however, waiting to put a damper on that first day, or even the first whole year: the dorm room. Whether it be an issue of space, a less-than-hygienic roommate, or location (who knew you’d have to walk a mile uphill both ways in the snow to get to class? Can’t say Grandpa didn’t warn you), your dorm room can make a big difference in how much you (or your kids) enjoy the first year of college.

A good roommate can make all the difference in your first dorm room experience. But in order to have a good roommate, you must be a good roommate. One of the main ways in which you can ensure a copasetic roommate situation is to be considerate of space and sleeping schedules. A big factor within that dynamic is lighting. The University of Georgia’s student newspaper, “Red and Black,” released a recent article regarding dorm room complaints. Among the leading complaints about dorm living was “clutter and mess”, “lack of lighting” and also “too much lighting”.

Luckily, the lighting game has changed almost as much as college tuition has. LED lighting—a far cry from the dim, flickering tubes otherwise known as florescent lights, which so often grace the ceilings of dorm rooms—provides one of the best ways to achieve both efficient lighting that is bright enough for studying, but that can also be contained to one section of the room (so as not to disturb your roommate, AKA Sleeping Beauty). For instance, our LED light strips, under cabinet lighting, and flexible LEDs can fit almost anywhere and transform any dorm room into a customized lighting solution that keeps both roommates happy. Why? First and foremost, LED light is directional, meaning it can shine in one direction instead of shining outward in every direction like incandescent light. This means you can study a fully illuminated book without bothering your roommate in the bunk bed above. Equally exciting, LED lights will use so much less energy than incandescent or even fluorescent lights, colleges might even use the savings to reduce tuition costs. Here’s hoping!