How to improve the brightness difference of LED strips caused by voltage drop

A typical 12V LED light strip is basically formed by a plurality of light groups in which three SMD LED beads are connected in series. In an ideal situation, the voltage input to each group of LED beads should be 12V, but in actual use, the input voltage of the LED groups far from the power supply is less than 12V, resulting in their brightness is significantly lower than the LEDs that closer to the power supply. What caused this?

Voltage drop issue (from www.mldrled.com)

The main reason is that the copper foil circuit inside the LED strip has resistance. The power output from the power supply needs to go through a longer loop to reach the far-end light bar. As this distance increases, the power loss also increases, so the actual voltage input to the far end is not enough to fully drive the LED light. Similarly, if an improper wire is used in the circuit, the voltage drop will be aggravated.

It can be seen from the above that the root cause of the voltage drop phenomenon of the strip led light is the current loss in the circuit. Based on this principle, there are several ways to improve the problem.

1. Increase the thickness of the copper foil
The resistance of the conductor is related to the size of its cross-sectional area, so the use of thicker copper foil can reduce the resistance of the PCB and increase its ability to carry current. Although this method is effective, it will result in an increase in the cost and price of the lighting products.

2. Use a higher voltage LED light strips
In the case of the same power, the higher the voltage, the lower the current. Therefore, as the input voltage increases, the current in the strip circuit decreases accordingly, thereby reducing the current load of the PCB. This is why the maximum series length of the 24V strip is longer than 12V.

3. Install in parallel
We know that the longer the series length of the tape lights, the more obvious the voltage drop. Therefore, we can install a certain length of the strip in parallel to reduce the inconsistency of the first and last brightness caused by the series connection.

We are a China strip LED lights manufacturer dedicated to providing reliable and quality light strips to customers around the world.

Lumileds introduces the industry's highest brightness 3-in-1 RGB LED

Not long ago, Lumileds released the new MultiColor Module 0.5W from its LUXEON LED lighting range, a mid-power, color-changing RGB LED bead. The LED uses the 3535 PLCC6 package standard and integrates three semiconductor light-emitting chips, red, green and blue, capable of producing 1,000 McD of red light, 2300 McD of green light, and 500 McD of blue light at 20 mA operating current. Industry data shows that this is one of the brightest RGB LED beads on the market today.

Lumileds 3535 RGB LED

The detection mechanism tests the LED in a hydrogen sulfide environment, and the result shows that the LED successfully maintains the luminous flux and forward voltage stability of the internal chip under the test environment, and has great reliability. According to Jennifer Holland, LUXEON product line director, Lumileds' reliable design and packaging technology is the key to the stability of this product. The LED's independent waterproof rating can reach 8 levels, suitable for outdoor advertising screens and decorative lighting.

How does RGB LED strip work

Before we talk about how an RGB LED strip light works, what is an RGB LED. In the LED light strip industry, the most common RGB LED bead is SMD 5050 RGB LED, which has 3 chips with different colors, red, green, and blue. Various colors light can be obtained through the combination of the light of these three chips. In addition to decorative lighting, RGB LEDs are also applied to display screens, signal lamps, etc.

SMD 5050 RGB LED

RGB LED strip light is a lighting fixture in which RGB LEDs are mounted on the felxible or rigid strip PCB, mainly using for decorative lighting. Unlike the PCB of the normal white light LED lamp, the RGB PCB has 3 independent circuits that drive each chip, providing the physical basis for the color changing effect. In order to achieve multicolor lighting effects and dimming also need the external controller, adjusting the current of each circuit.

Multicolor LED strip lights are an irreplaceable part of the decorative lighting market for their colorful lighting effect and adjustability. Although the RGB strip lights have a good performance, they still can not completely replace the white light LED lights. Compare with color changing LED strips, white light LED strips have lower prices, higher brightness, and uniform white light effect.

One of the leading semiconductor lighting company: Sanan Optoelectronics

According to the industry reports, Sanan Optoelectronics has more than a quarter of shares of the domestic LED chip production capacity in 2017. Based on the company's product structure, vertical integration of the industry chain and downstream customer dispersion, the company's gross profit margin is much higher than that of its main competitors. In terms of net profit, we found that the company's management costs, sales expenses, and financial cost control are both high in the industry, indicating that the company's management and operation standards are high, financing and low costs.

Supply-side capital expenditures, domestic enterprises have become the main force of expansion. With the constant expansion, the main large lighting enterprises will further monopoly the upstream semiconductor chip market, and the competition will also become more serious.

Sanan has advanced technologies and a large scale, which guarantee the company's high gross profit. At the same time, there is still room for improvement in large-scale production. Obviously, Sanan will maintain its leading position in the lighting industry for a long time to come.

After two consecutive years of decline in 2015 and 2016, LED chip prices have been basically stable. However, influenced by the market supply and demand, the prices will still fluctuate in the short term. For example, the collective large-scale expansion of leading LED lighting suppliers in 2018 led to another drop in chip price.

China's LED application scenarios continue to expand, and the market scale continues to increase. It is expected that the LED chip market in China will reach 22.56 billion yuan in 2018.

The semi-annual report for 2018 shows that in the first half of the year, Sanan Integrated achieved a revenue scale of 67 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 1.5 times compared to the full year of 2017. Among them, Sanan integrated GaAs RF has contact with 103 customers, 58 customers have shipped, 14 customers have been mass-produced, product performance and stability have been well received by customers; GaN RF has achieved customer delivery As such, the initial performance has been recognized by customers; 5G mobile communication power amplifier chip project is in progress as planned; power electronic products have been verified by domestic and foreign customers and supplied in batches, and have entered mass production stage; optical communication chips have been sampled 26 pieces. Some products have been mass-produced and have been sold. It is expected that the profit prospects of Sanan Integration will be good in the future.

NASA uses Osram's new LED grow lighting system - Phytofy RL

Not long ago, the German LED lighting giant Osram launched a new LED plant growth lighting system, named Phytofy RL. This lighting system is equipped with 6 individually controllable spectral channels to meet the research needs of researchers and institutions involved in plant growth. With the Phytofy RL system, users can change the color ratio and light intensity without changing the lamps to evaluate the growth of plants under different artificial light conditions.

LED grow lighting system

The six spectral channels of Phytofy RL are 385 nm, 450 nm, 521 nm, 660 nm, 730 nm, and 2,700 K warm white light. At the same time, the system is equipped with LED grow lights with extremely high luminous flux and uniform light distribution. Researchers can also use the system to precisely illuminate crops with specific wavelengths and intensity of light to selectively intervene in the metabolism of the crop, thereby controlling its yield, color, flavor, and other characteristics. After professional calibration, the system can also provide accurate illumination chart, eliminating the need to manually measure luminous flux. In addition, the system can also set different wavelength combinations in one illumination cycle.

Developed by OSRAM and plant biologists, this system software has an intuitive graphical interface that greatly facilitates user operations. The Phytofy RL system has been adopted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Michigan State University.

Lumileds launches new medium power 2835 lamp beads

According to reports, Lumileds, a global lighting solutions company, has introduced the new 2835 series of SMD LED LUXEON 2835 HE, which has a luminous efficiency of up to 200 lm/W and a very high color consistency.

2835 SMD LED

This new LED emits more intensive light than the current mid-power LEDs on the market, and with the help of the MacAdam Elliptical Design Kit, the color consistency is at the highest level in the industry. When the input current is 65 mA, the luminous flux of the LED is 36 lm. As the input current rises, the luminous flux can be as high as 220 lm when the driving current is 480 mA.

For medium and high-end LED strips, bulbs, spotlights, etc., LUXEON 2835 HE is a very suitable light source, because of its high luminous efficiency, it can reach the high brightness with fewer lamp beads. And the high reliability of the LUXEON 2835 HE guarantees its longevity. The LUXEON 2835 HE's bead is available in a variety of color temperatures and CRI options for a wide range of lighting applications.

LED Lighting Facts is about to close

Not long ago, D+R International, the implementer of the LED Lighting Facts project, announced that it would phase out the project and chose to focus its work on other areas.

LED Lighting Facts services closure schedule

The project website is still accessible until December 31, 2019, but new user registrations and new product updates are no longer accepted. Prior to March 31, 2019, registered LED lighting manufacturers can submit new product listings and generate labels, and the remainder of the user's paid fees will be refunded.
The LED Lighting Facts project has been supported by the US Department of Energy and has a free policy. In February 2018, the official announced that it would close the project due to the impact of the Ministry of Energy's budget shrink. In May 2018, with the support of D+R International, LED Lighting Facts re-run and provided paid services to manufacturers and laboratories until now.

LED Lighting Facts have a great impact on the development of LED lighting industry, providing independent quality verification for LED lighting products.

Simple forecast of LED lighting market trends in 2019

According to the latest industrial research report, 2019 Lighting Grade Packaging and LED Lighting Market Outlook, the LED lighting market will be gradually increasing in size from 2018 to 2023. The CAGR is about 9% from 2018 to 2023, and the market size is expected to reach US$56.6 billion in 2023.

The market trends vary from region to region, and that of Europe, Southeast Asia, and India perform well.

The scale of the European LED lighting market continues to grow, reaching 8.292 billion US dollars in 2018, with a year-on-year growth rate of 9.5% and a penetration rate of over 50%. Among them, the growth kinetic energy of spotlights, filament lamps and decorative LED lighting used for commercial lighting are most remarkable.
1H18 American lighting manufacturers have bright revenue performance, and the main revenue comes from the US market. Under the influence of the tariffs imposed by the Sino-US trade war and the increase in the price of raw materials, the cost is expected to be passed on to consumers.

The Japanese market has a higher unit price and the Japanese economy is starting to pick up. The impact of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will keep the Japanese market growing.

Southeast Asia is gradually developing into a highly dynamic LED lighting market. Thanks to the rapid growth of the local economy, the large investment in infrastructure and large population, there is a great demand for lighting. The penetration rate of LED lighting in the Middle East and Africa market is rapidly increasing, and the market potential in the future is still expected.

Long-term outlook for the 2019-2020 lighting market trend, the three major opportunities will become the growth momentum of lighting manufacturers, one for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic lighting needs; the second is DLC V5.0 to improve light quality and luminous efficiency, will have the opportunity to re-emerge Improve the requirements of the high-end lighting market.

In addition, the most important thing is that lighting manufacturers expand the combination of different industries to create business opportunities. Currently, there are markets such as architectural smart lighting, human lighting, plant lighting, fishery lighting, stadium lighting, and special lighting.

Plessy's new LED strip grow light

In order to improve the lighting conditions for the plants of cucumber and tomato in the greenhouse, Plessy launched a new model of LED strip grow light, designed for installation in vegetation. In the greenhouse, due to the occlusion of leaves on the top, the lower plants will lack lighting. The strip LED light can provide enough lighting for the part of plants that the sunlight hard to reach. Not only for the greenhouse, but also for the closed plant factory that using hanging LED grow lights, this LED strip will be a good auxiliary lighting source.

led strip grow lights for greenhouse

The tube design makes the LED strip has a larger emitting angle and higher lighting penetration, which, additionally, increase the performance of the lighting. Moreover, there are also have a heating channel inside the LED light tube, providing proper heat to promote plant growth. As the additional lighting, the grow light LED strip can help the greenhouse maximize the output and economic benefit.

Cree launched new LED for agricultural lighting

Lately, Cree launched their new two models of LEDs, XLamp XP-E2 Photo Red (660 nm) and XP-E2 Far Red (730 nm), which are used in the LED grow light. These LEDs have higher lighting effects that can shorten the payback period, and reduce the planting cost under LED lighting.

XP-E2 series is the upgrade version of XP series agricultural LED lighting, having the same mechanical and optic property as the previous generation. In addition, compared with the XP series, the brightness of Far Red LED increase 57%, and that of the Photo Red LED is 21%. The new generation of products reached the top of the industrial level.

Claude Demby, the Manager of Cree LED said that the specific LEDs such as architectural lighting and agricultural lighting are the part of Cree's product strategy. The Photo Red and Far Red full spectrum LED grow light can save more than half of electricity than the HPS plant light. The promotion of agricultural LED lighting is the Cree's promise, that is providing the advanced high power and high performance LED.

It's reported that the farmers in the UK, Netherland, and Belgium have roundly used the LED plant light as the main light source of large indoor planting facilities. As the LED grow light manufacturer, we've been cooperating with the top brand light source supplier like Cree to improve our products.

China's successful LED plant factory

In recent years, with the continuous improvement of the people's pursuit of high-quality life, and the upstream industries such as LED plant growth lights and the agricultural intelligent systems have developed rapidly, the cost of various facilities and equipment has gradually declined. The development of artificial lighting plant factories has entered a golden period.

Red & blue LED grow light in the plant factory

Plant Factory refers to plant cultivation systems that fully or partially control the environmental conditions to make the plant growth unaffected by the natural environment. Its main features are that the planting space is closed, the artificial light completely replaces the sunlight, the production cycle is short, etc. In addition, many countries are scrambling to study space farming technologies. In November 2016, Chinese astronauts brought a miniature LED plant factory into space and conducted a number of experiments in the Tiangong-2 Space Lab.

Xicui Plant Factory is one of the first large-scale commercial vertical plant factories in China. Its industrial crop production process and innovative agricultural production methods are examples of high-tech agriculture in the future. As the industry's leading indoor full artificial light vertical farm, the Xicui Plant Factory uses the computer to accurately control key environmental factors in plant growth, so that plant growth is not affected by climate and geographical conditions. The full-circle-controlled growth conditions make it unnecessary to apply any pesticides for the cultivation of vegetables in the Xicui plant; 12 layers of dense planting, extremely high land utilization; high-efficiency water saving, only 1/10 of the water used in traditional agriculture.

At present, the Xicui Plant Factory covers an area of 3,000-square-meter in Guanhu, Dapeng New District. The daily production capacity is around 10,000 dishes, and the products are positioned as high-end customers. According to the latest research of McKinsey Global Institute, the number of middle-income and above people in China reached 290 million in 2011. The annual per capita consumption of high-quality vegetables in this group reached 115 kg. The demand for high-quality vegetables will reach 33.35 million tons, and the output value will exceed 1006. 200 million yuan. The high-end vegetable market has huge space.