LED Lighting

The buzzword in energy-efficient light during the past 5 years has been CFI’s or compact fluorescent lights. This trend has happened so fast that you can’t give away a standard incandescent bulb. However, there is adrawback to CFI’sand that is they contain mercury vapor which is released into the air when the light is broken. While his environmental problem is being considered another light source is closing the gap: LED’s.

LED’s are “light emitting diodes.” In the past they were the “idiot lights” behind clock radios, remote controls and machine read-outs. In the past few years strings of LEDs have showing up on Christmas trees as a cool alternative to the hotter incandescents.
The reason they are cool to the touch is that the electronic process – unlike in other processes – does not produce heat. A light emittingdiode is semiconductor diode which emits light when operated in a forward bias direction. The LED light is made up of the light emitting semiconductor material (LED chip), leads to keep it in place and to allow electricity in and an epoxy resin which is either clear or colored. This is the light part.

The key plus for LED’s is that their intake of electricity is extremely lower than that of any other light source. LEDs are now showing up as indicator bulbs for cars, RV’s and trucks, track lighting, accent lighting and most applications where low voltage is needed: emergency lights, etc.