LED Blog: LED Lighting And All Things Green

Energy Ball - Powered by the Wind, Sadly not Chi

I’ve decided to expand the realm of the blog to encompass the second half of the title rather only focusing on LED-specific information. As much as I love LED lights (and could talk about them all day) I feel that broadening your horizons ultimately makes you a better, more well rounded person.

I found this energy ball (unfortunately not the Kamehameha variety) while trolling through the interwebs, and it’s pretty, and pretty innovative. It’s basically a small wind turbine in a round configuration that provides increased efficiency and quieter operation than conventional windmill-style versions. It can operate in relatively low winds and can provide up to 15% of the energy of a typical Swedish family. For fat American’s I’d say cut that by 1/3rd, so maybe it can power 1/2 a PS3. The added benefit (or detriment depending on how you see it) is that it’s less likely to make spontaneous chicken (or bat) nuggets for you throughout the day.

A turbine is a turbine is a turbine, you say? Well then I guess you you haven’t seen enough turbines. A large factor for the purchase of any consumer is form (vs. function), so having such a cute-looking windmill ball on the top of your house could make you the envy of your neighbors as well as providing a service to the environment. The other big factor is cost, so if they can make these at a good price point, I’d love to get a couple and put them outside. I would even name each of them after obscure DragonBall attacks.

[Via Inhabitat]

A bulb-shaped LED bulb. Intriguing

Now why didn’t I think of that? Wait, I did. It’s our website logo. All they have to do now is put it into a leaf shape. Luckily this is just a concept because as beautiful as this LED light bulb looks, the light it outputs would only be coming out of the top hemisphere, if even. Normal incandescents can do it, because their element is large and the supports are made of glass. But we can always dream can’t we?

Back when I was a young’un and lived in the ‘burbs, there were times when I would be walking down the street or riding my bike alone at night. Sometimes as I was passing under one of those yellow-orange sodium streetlamps, they would, without any type of warning, suddenly turn off. Now having a wild imagination, I came up with two possible hypotheses for this occurrence. The first was that I was gifted with some magical power, or subconscious sixth sense, that interacts with the electrical field generated by the light, causing it to turn off. The other explanation was that a ghost or apparition was turning it off, as though sending me a sign that something bad (ala death and/or dismemberment) was going to happen. Generally, the latter idea would take hold and I would sprint the rest of the way back home.

With these new lights, I may not have to worry about that ever again. Not only is it solar powered and using LED lights, it also works on a motion sensor. This makes a lot of sense in theory, since there’s no point in lighting up a path where there is no one walking down. My favorite feature is how it sits at 30% brightness, until something walks by and trips the motion sensor. So if all the technology can converge the right way for this to eventually become a reality, we’re looking at these lights being “off the grid”! Preposterous! Imagine all the strange places you could just put these things. In a dark corner of an empty park. On the top of a cliff. In the middle of the desert. As a prank on top of a dome!

The design is very “trendy” which is always a benefit, but I’m wondering if this is still more of a proof-of-concept, than something that can be usefully implemented. From what I see, the LEDs being used are still the standard sized small LED’s that are used for keychain flashlights. Even used in an array, there isn’t enough power output to make the light as usable as it needs to be. The Eternaleds bulbs use more powerful LED circuits with energy output two orders of magnitude greater than the smaller bulbs. I worry that lights such as these will give LEDs the continuing reputation that they are not bright enough of not ready for consumer use. On the other hand, if the larger power LEDs are being used, then it’s also pulling more wattage, so there needs to be a brightness vs. power balance here.

Still, it’s great to see things like these even publicized (even if it’s very obvious it’s still in concept stage), and I feel like this is the first step towards the golden chalice of usable energy-efficient lighting fixtures. Right now though, more realistic goals need to be made for LED application, or the technology needed to fulfill those promises need to be put in the hands of responsible designers and architects.

Via [Gizmodo]