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LED lighting is just a rare and no pollution green light, composed of solid-state semiconductor devices, and it may turn electrical energy into light. Equate to traditional incandescent bulbs, fluorescent lamps, LED light bulbs with smaller size, lower power consumption, longer service life, more colors, green and excellent seismic performance.
This decided it got a leading-edge position in the modern lighting market and became popular very fast. LED needs a power supply (also called LED driver, which is one’s heart with this new generation lamp), and its quality will directly affect the life span of integrated lighting fixtures. So how to make a perfect power for LED may be the TOP PRIORITY. In this post, we are going to share some key points of the driver and its design and try to supply some help.
1. The circuit design of the power supply directly affects the life of LED light bulb
LED drivers are split into two types, digital-driven and analog-driven. Digital-driven means digital circuit driving, such as for instance digital dimming control, RGB full-color changes, etc. Analog circuit-driven including AC constant current switching power and DC constant current control circuit.
All drivers are composed of electronic components, semiconductors, resistors, capacitors, and inductors, and all of these components have life, any failure would cause the entire circuit down or partial function loss. LED’s lifetime has ended at 50,000 hours, meaning it may continuously be lit for nearly 6 years. But power is extremely tough to achieve 6 years service time and its warranty is generally offered by 3 years in the present market. Only the military product level switching power may have a 6-year warranty, but its price will soon be 4-6 times of normal power, very unfriendly. So the absolute fault of an LED lighting fixture is its driver circuit fault.
2. Heat dissipation issues
As a cool source of light, LED can’t exceed its operating junction temperature limit, and have to set aside a certain allowance once you design LED luminaries. During the entire design process, you’ve to consider how to make it a good appearance, easy be install, with an excellent light effect, a great cooling system, and a great many other aspects at the same time frame, in order to make a lamp as best because it could be.
But LED light’s history is extremely short, still in route to be better and better. Some LED light bulb manufacturers are purchasing drivers from another factory, not design drivers by themself. Unfortunately, their lighting designers don’t know the outsourcing power very much, so, the source of light gets a big heat sink space and a small part of the power supply. ceiling spotlights Even a number of them are designed lamps first, and searching for the appropriate power after the LED luminary housing design is already finished. This non-professional action only brings more difficulties and unexpected problems. Due to the small space of the lamp, high internal temperature, or budget shortfall, they even can’t find the appropriate driver.
Some professional manufacturers have ability to research and develop their very own power supply. THIS IS A GREAT ADVANCE – doing lighting design and power design at the same, will solve all the above problems. Considering the heat dissipation of LEDs and power both, to control the entire lamp temperature rises, LED lights’ quality will soon be far better in this way (This is exactly why CREE, PHILIPS, and OSRAM design & produce their very own brand LED divers – make their light sources in a perfect play, and with the very best quality guaranteed).
3. Problems may need attention during the design LED driver (LED Lighting)
- Power/wattage. Although LED has a high light efficiency, however, it really has 80-85% of heat loss, which makes the entire lamp’s inside temperature higher than outside 20-30 degree. If the room temperature is about 25 degrees, the inside of the LED light bulb will soon be 45-55 degrees. So, the ability supply needs certainly to be employed in a high-temperature environment for a long time, and in order to ensure its long lifetime, the wattage of the driver needs to be increased as 1.5-2 times to set aside a certain allowance.
- Component selection. If the inside temperature of the lamp is 45-55 degree, the LED driver’s internal temperature can get 20 degrees higher, so the components’ working temperature is 65-75 degrees. Some components’ parameters will soon be high and even drift, and some components’ life spans get cut. So power needs high-temperature resistance components, especially the electrolytic capacitor and wire.
- Electrical performance design. Driver designed based on the parameter of LED – the constant current data – current determines the brightness of the lamp. If a group of drivers has a current error, LED lamps will at different brightness cause these drivers (and the power supply’s temperature change could cause the existing change). To ensure the same brightness, driver current error needs to be controlled within +/-3%. Consider that the LED’s forward voltage has a bit of deviation, so the driver’s voltage range needs to contain it. When multiple LED series, the minimum voltage drop multiplied by the serial number is the minimum voltage. The maximum voltage drop multiplied by the serial number is the maximum voltage. The constant current power voltage range is wider than this range (minimum voltage ~ maximum voltage), usually, it’s minimum voltage – 2V~maximum voltage + 2V.
- PCB design. LED lights don’t have any big space for an internal driver, so PCB needs an excellent design, and dozens of factors need to be considered, just as adequate safety distances, power input, and output isolation, primary and secondary side circuits need to pass high AC 1500~2000V testing, at the least have 3MM distance between them. If an LED light bulb with a metal housing, the entire PCB design also needs consideration in regards to the safe distance between the high-pressure part and the metal shell. When there is no space to create a safe distance, you’ve to make use of other measures to guarantee insulation protection, such as for instance making holes in the PCB, adding insulating paper, pouring insulation adhesive, etc. In the meantime, also needs consideration in regard to the thermal equilibrium and uniformly distributed heating elements, to avoid local overheating. Electrolytic capacitors keep away from high-temperature parts to decrease their aging and prolong their service life.
