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LED checklist
Here you will find out which features determine the quality of an LED luminaire
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High-grade LED components
Components that have been manufactured from high-grade materials with extreme care and great precision are a basic prerequisite for premium LED luminaires. This applies both to individual LED chips as well as to the entire LED module. LED technologies are quite tricky and there are many things that can go wrong.Not every LED chip delivers what it promises; looks can be deceptive and incorrect handling can quickly degrade a LED's claimed characteristics. Zumtobel's Quality Assurance operates at two levels: on the one hand, only tested LED chips that meet the brand's exacting requirements are used. The second aspect of our QA is extensive quality testing and careful design and manufacture of LED modules. This underpins tried-and-tested Zumtobel quality that comes with a five-year guarantee.
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LED-optimised luminaire technology
Development work at Zumtobel is geared towards meeting the requirements associated with various application areas. Luminous flux, service life, installed load and lighting quality are all decisive criteria. The relationship between luminous flux and installed load is very important. It determines a luminaire's efficiency. A luminaire must incorporate sophisticated thermal management in order to achieve peak efficiency. If the LED chip gets too hot, an LED luminaire's efficiency soon suffers and its warranted characteristics deteriorate.Low-quality control gear (drivers) can have similar damaging effects due to unacceptable current spikes. Keeping colour rendering and colour temperature as stable as possible throughout an LED light source's entire service life is a huge challenge. Zumtobel deploys the very latest technologies such as Pi-LED which meets strict criteria that specify a precise colour in MacAdam ellipses. The smaller this deviation, the better the result is.
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LED checklist
Features to which you should attach great importance in the case of LED luminaires (depending on the intended purpose):- High efficiency, long service life
- Good colour rendering
- Stable colour temperature throughout entire service life
- Sophisticated thermal management – this has a decisive impact on the durability of LEDs. Zumtobel is one of the trailblazers in this area.
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Colour rendering as a quality criterion for LED luminaires
The general colour rendering index (Ra) is an important critical-to-quality feature of any light source. Find out more about colour rendering as a quality criterion for LED luminaires here.
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How is the Ra value defined?
The Ra value is defined using the first 8 test colours of the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) and uses just one number to describe colour rendering. This average value only describes colour rendering relative to a reference light source, not other impressions such as naturalness, attractiveness or colour fidelity.The International Commission on Illumination is therefore working on a new index and Zumtobel is supplying data obtained from in-house research studies for this work.
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Zumtobel colour rendering is at least Ra 80
The general colour rendering index (Ra) is an important critical-to-quality feature of any light source. It is also referred to as the “CRI”. This abbreviation stands for Colour Rendering Index. The maximum Ra of 100 is equivalent to natural sunlight or a halogen incandescent lamp. All Zumtobel LED luminaires offer colour rendering of at least Ra 80.Ra 80 means that 80% of colour information is reproduced by the light source, this meets standard requirements for office and industrial applications.
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Premium LED modules
Today LED lighting solutions achieve high colour rendering in excess of Ra 90, and hence are more sophisticated than many solutions using fluorescent lamps. Even the colour rendering levels of discharge lamps are achieved, as are other technical lighting properties. For Zumtobel's high-quality products, LEDs produced by various manufacturers are used. In addition, Zumtobel collaborates closely, and in some cases exclusively, with LED and LED module manufacturers, such as Cree, Philips, Osram etc.; this ensures the integration of the latest technologies at an early stage of new product developments. As regards colour rendering of LEDs, the following indications are of key importance: Normative colour rendering in the warmer colour temperature range is usually higher with single-chip LEDs with a blue dye (light-emitting component) and yellow phosphor.Colours should be rendered as naturally as possible by choosing the corresponding phosphor mixes. Unfortunately, the efficiency of warm white LEDs is usually lower than that of intermediate and cool white LEDs. For a cooler colour temperature, the phosphor mix is changed. LEDs with cooler light colours are usually more efficient, but their colour rendering index is also lower. By mixing white light through LEDs of different light colours, excellent colour rendering can be achieved with simultaneously high efficiency.
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Information material
Regional competence on the World Wide Web: with its individual country portals, Zumtobel presents itself as a premium brand providing customer-oriented services on the Web, too – also in geographical terms.
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