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LED's: Lighting The Way Ahead

Like many you may not be familiar with LED's or the stir they are causing, well in the lighting industry anyway.

The reason for this is that Light Emitting Diodes, to use their full name, are very efficient at what they do, and that is turning electricity into visible light. This is in stark contrast to incandescent (normal) light bulbs that are very good at turning electricity into heat with some light as a by-product. That's why you would touch an incandescent bulb that's been burning for a while at your peril, whereas with a LED there is very little heat to be concerned about.

In light of the above LED's have several advantages already. They use little electricity, produce small amounts of heat, are small in size and can be configured in many different ways, but the ultimate feature is that they are generally expected to last for at least 50 000 hours of burn time. To put this in perspective, if you used an LED light from 6pm to 11pm every day it would last you about 27 years!

CFL's or Compact Fluorescent Lights are referred to by most people simply as Energy Savers, which is exactly what they've done compared to incandescent bulbs. LED's could be considered the next generation though. They surpass even the benefits of CFL's, these being significantly longer burn times, that the lifetime of the bulb is not affected by frequent switching on and off, even lower electricity consumption and last but not least they are environmentally friendly in the sense that they contain little or no harmful substances (CFL's contain Mercury, a heavy metal that builds up in the environment and is considered poisonous). LED's are also considered recyclable, though with such long burn times, I wonder when you would ever get the opportunity to do so.

I still remember LED's from the movies of my childhood (I was a real science fiction buff), and what movie was complete without the futuristic multicoloured lights blinking on and of in the background of spaceship.

LED's have been around for a long time but they've sure come a long way recently...