LED

Terminology
Reference
Guide

LED Introduction

Contents
Standards page 4
Controls page 6
Efciency page 7
Colour page 8
Reliability page 9
Hardware page 10

In any smart city design lighting plays a prominent
role. At a time of signicant technological change,
the evolution of LED from an innovative to a
mainstream and leading light source has impacted
positively on energy use and carbon emissions.
LED sets new challenges for designers and users
alike, introducing new legislation, terminology
and sometimes misunderstanding.
At the heart of Thorns drive to help our customers
understand these challenges we have introduced
this guide to explain the common terms and
their meaning.
LED Introduction
Standards
LM79 A North American standard dening how LED should be
measured for electrical and photometric characteristics.
LM80 A North American standard dening how LED should be
measured for lumen maintenance characteristics.
EN13032 A European standard dening how LED should be
measured for electrical and photometric characteristics. Whilst
there are parallels between LM79 and EN13032 there are also
signicant differences.
The main hazard from LED is blue light which can cause damage
to the retina. Under normal lighting conditions almost all LED are
RG0 or RG1.
IEC EN 62471 - Photobiological Safety (also PD IEC TR
62778) Light is a form of energy and is capable of causing
physical harm. All light sources are classied by RISK GROUP
(RG) which indicates how safe the source is. RG0 and RG1 are
completely safe, RG2 is safe as long as nobody stares directly into
the light source (glancing briey at it is safe), no light source for
general use should be RG3 (although technically the sun is RG3).
The main hazard from LED is blue light which can cause damage
to the retina. Under normal lighting conditions almost all LED are
RG0 or RG1.
4
Standards
Low Voltage Directive
This demands that products
are designed, manufactured
and tested to give proof of
electrical safety.
Electromagnetic
Compatibility Directive
This requires that products are
designed and operate without
interfering with or being
interfered by other electrical
products within dened limits.
RoHS Directive This
places restrictions on the
use of certain hazardous
substances in electrical and
electronic equipment.
Energy Related Products
Directive The aim of this
directive is to reduce
consumption of natural
resources and energy, and
to minimise the environmental
impact of a products across
the whole of their life cycle.
CE Mark The CE mark shows
that a product conforms to the
required European directives
for placing on the European
market. It helps customs and
market inspectors in facilitating
the free trade and movement
of product within Europe.
Displaying the CE mark signies
compliance to four main
European directives.to four
mainEuropean directives
TM21 A North American technical memorandum on projecting
long term lumen maintenance of LED light sources. It denes the
number of units required for testing and how far the results may
be safely extended to predict long term values. The maximum
extension allowed is 6x the real test period, so for a 50,000 hour
prediction the real test must have been for 8,333 hours. For a
100,000 hour prediction the real test must have been for 16,666
hours. (Generally accepted practice within standards is testing for
6,000 hours which according to TM21 only allows a prediction of up
to 36,000 hours).
5
Controls
Bi-power Dimming (BP x) This is a method used by exterior
lighting to reduce energy use during periods of low demand. The
luminaire is automatically dimmed to 50% output around the middle
of the night.
The dimming regime is indicated by the designation BPx where
x is the number of hours the luminaire will be dimmed during the
night. For example BP7 will dim the luminaire for 3 hours before the
middle of the night and for 4 hours afterwards.
For cases where dimming is to a level other than 50% this may be
shown as BP x-y. For example BP 7-25 would indicate the luminaire
is dimmed for 7 hours by 25% (i.e. running at 75% power).
The middle of the night is automatically calculated as the midway
point between switch-on and switch-off. For a luminaire tted with
a photocell to detect nightfall this automatically adjusts for the
changing seasons throughout the calendar year.
CCR - Constant Current Reduction A method to dim LED. Unlike
pulse width modulation the LED is constantly on and the drive current
to the LED is reduced to lower the brightness of the LED.
PWM - Pulse Width Modulation A method to dim LED.
The LED is turned on and off at high frequency, invisible to the eye.
The larger the amount of time off compared with on the dimmer
the LED appears.
6
Lumen Output The lumen output is (approximately) the amount of
light produced by a product. This may be either related to the lamp
or the luminaire. The lumen output of a luminaire may be considered
to be the lumen output of the lamp reduced by the losses within the
luminaire (the light output ratio). The luminaire losses are related
to optical materials used (diffusers, reectors, prisms) and also to
any thermal losses due to the ambient temperature internal to the
luminaire.
Input Power The input power can vary considerably depending
upon the LED driver and the LED construction and conguration.
Standards indicate that the quoted input power value should be within
10% of the worst case situation (e.g. maximum input power).
Efcacy How efciently a light source converts electricity into light
is described by efcacy, with units lumens per Watt. The higher the
efcacy value the more efcient the light source uses electricity. This
may either be the:
lamp efcacy lm/W using lamp lumens, or luminaire efcacy
L lm/W using lamp lumens multiplied by the luminaire light output
ratio which indicates the losses within the luminaire.
Efciency
7
CCT - Colour Temperature LED may either be coloured, typically
red/green/blue/amber, or white. However, similar to daylight, white
can vary from a warm white with a higher red content to a cool white
with a higher blue content. This is described by the colour temperature
where warm white has a lower value (in Kelvin) than cool white.
Typically warm white could be considered as 3000K or less, cool
white as 5000K or above, and intermediate as between 3000K and
5000K
Ra - Colour Rendering Every light source is characterised
according to how well it shows colours. This is described by the Ra
number where the higher the number the more accurately colours are
shown. For the majority of indoor workplaces a minimum of Ra80 is
required. For general outdoor lighting Ra70 is more usual. Increasing
the Ra number to 90 or above generally comes at the expense of a
reduction in efciency
Binning The LED manufacturing process is not accurate enough
to ensure that every LED is identical. Therefore the LED are sorted
according to specic characteristics such as colour, light output and
electrical properties. This sorting is called binning.
MacAdam Elipse One MacAdam elipse contains the variation in
colour possible without this variation being visible.
Colour Shift As white LED age the colour temperature will slowly
change. The colour shift is normally given as the maximum number of
MacAdam elipse the colour will change by.
Colour
8
Reliability
LED Driver (LED Control Gear) The reliability of a LED luminaire is
also dependant upon the driver. If this fails the luminaire will also fail.
Therefore it is important to make sure the driver has a suitable rated life
or is easily replaceable.
Note that whilst the description LED Driver is commonly used the internationally recognised term
is LED Control Gear

Ambient Temperature Ta When any testing is performed on a
product it is for a dened surrounding air temperature. This is the
ambient temperature and is designated as Ta. The standard Ta dened
for testing is 25C although testing at any other value is permissible as
long as the temperature is declared.
Dimming and temperature When dimming is used or products are
used at a lower ambient temperature than normal the number of failures
may be expected to decrease and the rated life may be expect to
increase. However the size of these changes are technology dependant
and there is no standard method to calculate these effects.
Lx - Rated life The time in hours during which the LED will produce
more than a given percentage of their light output at new. x is the
percentage of light output. e.g. L80 at 80,000 hours means that after
80,000 hours the light output from the LED will have dropped to 80%
of the light output when new
Fy - failure fraction The percentage of individual LED which will
have failed within a given time in hours. y is the percentage of failures.
e.g. F10 at 50,000 hours means that after 50,000 hours 10% of the
individual LED will have failed.
Fy is a combination of two components, By and Cy
By - describing gradual loss in light output
Cy - describing total loss in light output
9
Hardware
Junction Temperature Inside an LED chip is a junction between two
materials, one positively charged and one negatively charged. Light
is emitted from this junctions by the exchange of electrons between
the two materials, and as a side-effect heat is also generated at the
junction. The temperature of the junction needs to be controlled to
ensure that the light output and LED lifetime fulll the requirements for
a given application.
LED Driver A LED luminaire contains electronics to convert the mains
electricity into the correct condition for the LED light source. This is
called the driver.
Drive Current This is the electrical current supplied through the
driver to operate the LED. Over-driving the LED (giving a higher than
recommended current) will result in high light output but a reduced
lifetime. The drive current should provide the correct balance to ensure
the performance and lifetime claims are met.
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LED Luminaire Luminaire
containing an LED light source,
either a LED module or a LED lamp
LED Module One or more LED
package with mechanical and
optical components but no
lamp cap
LED Lamp One or more LED
package with mechanical and
optical components and a
lamp cap
LED Package A LED chip in a
form allowing simple electrical
connection
White Light For LED white light is generated in one or two ways:
RGB or RGBY As white light is a combination of the colours in the
spectrum (or rainbow) coloured LED can be similarly used to give the
appearance of white light. The coloured LED blend on any surface they
are lighting, giving white light.
Phosphor Conversion Blue LED are used to light a chemical
phosphor, similar to that contained in a normal uorescent tube, which
converts the blue light into white light. This method will generally give
superior colour rendering as the white light contains more colours
within the spectrum.
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