PowerSource
Technical Editor Margery Conner's PowerSource streams the latest developments in electronic power design and related technologies. Follow Margery on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/margeryc.
Why MR-16 lights are an attractive LED lighting product
Lighting Science Group (LSG), the largest producer of LED bulbs in North America, has broadened its product line to include the MR-16 light. (It measures about 2-in long in real life.) LSG’s MR16 Definity HO (high output) LED lamp consumes just 8W and produces up to 550lm: At 3000K if produces 66lm/W. The lamp has a 25,000-hour rated design life. There are three good reasons why LSG is div ...... Read More
Comments (13)Udacity biz model: School is accountable for students’ value to employers
The online course on Robocars presented by robocar savant Sebastian Thrun and free to all just wrapped up, and the grading robots are busy tallying up the final grades. Many students were so impressed by the quality of Udacity’s instruction that they wanted to make a donation to Udacity, the school that Thrun started to apply his new online teaching concept. Not possible, Udacity said ...... Read More
Comments (2)Cree claims R&D record for white LED: 254 lm/Watt
Cree says that the R&D version of the white LED’s efficacy was measured at 254 lumens per watt, at a correlated color temperature of 4408 K at standard room temperature, 350 mA. In the past Cree has said it takes about a year for the R&D version of a device to go into generally available production quantities, so we can look for a commercial version in Q2 2012 2013. Cree’s pr ...... Read More
Comments (22)Use Open Source Hardware? Participate in the survey by April 15th
Many EDN readers use and design Open Source Hardware (OSH) projects. (OSH is “hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design.” It often refers to electronic circuits, but with the growth of 3D printers, it’s moving into the mechanical realm as well.) Several movers-and-sh ...... Read More
Comments (2)Cirrus tackles dimmer compatibility challenges with digital LED controller
Cirrus Logic’s initial entry into the LED lighting market indicates that the company believes the key to success in this highly-competitive sector lies in achieving near-100% compatibility with the existing base of old-fashioned TRIAC dimming switches. The company has tested its new CS161X LED controller family, based on Cirrus’ new digital TruDim technology, with over 200 dimmer swi ...... Read More
Comments (11)Lumileds’ mid-power 5630 LED aims at office lighting
The Lumileds 5630 is Philips Lumileds’ first white, mid-power LED, targeting the office lighting space (troffers and tube lights) and other distributed LED lighting applications. A mid-power LED is one designed to operate at around 100-150mA, as opposed to high-brightness (HB) LEDs which are spec’d at 350mA and routinely go to 1A. Offered in the full CCT range from 2700K-6500K with a ...... Read More
Comments (5)Another advantage of LED lights: They don’t attract bugs, and here’s why
Gary Trott, a product development innovator for Cree LED Lighting, noticed that the LR6 down lights installed at the entrance to Cree four years ago had no bugs in them. This is a remarkable characteristic for most lights. In contrast, here’s a photo of the fluorescent light fixture over my desk which was last cleaned out, um, perhaps sometime in the last decade, but on the other hand, it&# ...... Read More
Comments (30)Wi-Fi with LEDs, Bluetooth for iPhones, and wireless charging, all in one random walk
During their presentation at Tuesday’s LED event at DESIGN West, Elecia White and Rob Mitchell talked about incorporating WiFi into their hacked and arduino-controlled GE LED light string. Elecia made an off-hand comment about the WiFi shield on the arduino that’s based on a WiFly module, and that the company that makes it had a variety of wireless products at its booth on the show f ...... Read More
Comments (6)Could 4G phones drive wireless charging acceptance in autos?
A survey of 4G smartphone owners indicated that poor battery performance is dragging down the phones in customer satisfaction. It’s not that batteries are more poorly designed compared to previous generations of smartphones, but rather that the phone technology places more demands on battery power: 4G phones having to search for a 4G network to connect to, which is a big drain on battery li ...... Read More
Comments (15)TI offers bare die in quantities as low as 10 pieces
While Texas Instruments has been selling bare die for a while, you had to buy them in large quantities, which is a problem if you just need a few for prototypes or simply have a low-volume product. So the company now sells bare die in quantities as low as 10 pieces and larger quantities of full waffle trays for production use, both available through TI distributors. Bare die give you the capabilit ...... Read More
Comments (1)Authenticated power outlets say Show Me the Money
I like pre-WWI English fiction. Often the hero/heroine lives in a London flat that seems from the viewpoint of almost a century later to be more like camping than urban living. For example, you had to deposit coins to get your basic utilities like gas and electricity. Pop in a coin and get electricity to power your lamp for the evening. It seems so quaint. And inconvenient. Everything old is new ...... Read More
Comments (9)Leeper tears down Philips L Prize LED bulb
Doug Leeper got his hands on a Philips L-Prize bulb and promptly tore it down. The L-Prize bulb (10W, 940lm) is quite a bit different from the first of their secondary phosphor bulbs (12.5W, 800lm) in that it combines red LEDs with the blue. (See EDN’s teardown here, um, only the pictures aren’t displaying just now…) Philips is not the first to do this (think, for example, of ...... Read More
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