Luxeon based moving yoke light?
Question:
Luxeon based moving yoke light?
Answer:
I thought it was quite interesting,
although I don't take a terribly positive view of it.
At 4300 alleged lumens (I am dubious) with all LEDs at full, the output
is about 25% greater than a 35W CDM metal halide. That is before you
dim out one or two colours to get a saturated colour (effectively the
same as colour filters when you get down to it). It is a gimmick.
Probably quite a profitable one while it is unique on the market, and I
am sure it will suit some funky/trendy bars and the NikeTown school of
glitz design. The reduction in moving parts is a good thing. It will
be a long time before a profile version comes out though!
The LEDs won't last 50,000 hours, they may last 15,000 if they are
dimmed regularly and are kept in a coolish environment. Mounted to the
ceiling of a retail space or club where a huge amount of heat builds up,
they are going to fry. The colours will shift slowly, and the
brightness will drop off with time. LED lives are a function of their
operating temperatures. Let them rise much over 50 degrees at the
electrode interface, and life is rapidly dropping, sometimes as low as
1000 hours.
Ultimately, these LEDs are the newest and trendiest form of lighting at
the moment, and a technology which simply has not yet matured. It is
like fibre optic ten years ago - what happened to that? It is now a
niche product with a few particular uses.
With a bit of luck and a lot of R&D, LEDs may become a genuinely useful
source, but for now they are a gimmick and a toy, maybe a decorative
accent if you like that sort of thing. For now, every man and his dog
shoe-horning them into whatever housings they have kicking around is not
a good way of producing long life products.
Just my opinion though.
If that is the exact red that you want, on a direct comparison, you may
be right, but it is not by a long margin. Assuming the red LEDs provide
1/3 of the output of the unit, then they are delivering about 1435
lumens (based on the press release). A 35W 3000K CDM lamp gives 3300
lumens. With a transmissivity of a filter of (say) 35% that is about
1000 lumens, suggesting a 45% advantage to the LEDs. I doubt that very
much, but allowing that in this simplified model, we then have to factor
in Light Output Ratio, which is fairly low for the LEDs in most beam
distributions and the appalling glare field on them. I am not saying
that they don't claim some space in the efficiency lead table, but it is
specific to its best colours.
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