Light Emitting Diodes or LEDs are a developing lighting technology with quite a few proven uses and many more applications in the design and testing stages. Lighting manufacturers are designing and manufacturing new LED products at a brisk pace.
LEDs, also known as solid-state lighting (SSL), are already popular for colored signs, signals, and displays because of their versatility, long life, and good lighting efficacy. LEDs have an efficacy between 15 and 50 lumens per watt, but that is evolving rapidly upwards. They are very rugged and have a long service life, averaging 100,000 hours, and also have a wide temperature operating range.LEDs lead the way in producing precision colored light energy-efficiently. The initial purchase of LED advertising signs and border lighting costs more than neon, but saves up to 80 percent of the energy use, resulting in a two to three year payback of the extra initial cost. LED colored border lighting is as bright or brighter than neon and doesn’t need glass or filaments, which are easily broken. LEDs are more efficient than incandescent colored signs that use filters to produce colored light. Much of this incandescent light is filtered out and wasted.
LEDs provide a small point source of light, which is usually arrayed in strips or panels, and can save energy in display cases where their close-up installation highlights a product or exhibit more efficiently than flooding the display with more powerful lamps. LEDs’ small size and wide range of illumination angles also give them unparalleled capacity for delivering light precisely where it is needed.
In the future, LEDs may be more efficient and reliable than low-voltage halogen lighting for store displays. LEDs are becoming popular for manufactured store display cases, and some large department stores are using them to highlight custom displays.
Because LEDs can withstand temperature extremes well, manufacturers of refrigerated cases have begun using them. The cold environment combined with vibration from door operation and product movement is sometimes a problem for fluorescent and incandescent lights.