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Cree and LED lighting are starting a revolution

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Dispatches from the front lines of an LED Lighting Rally

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

I marched (OK, technically, I walked) in a circle on a street corner in downtown Raleigh yesterday with a group of passionate LED supporters and chanted:

“Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, LEDs are here to stay!

One, Two, Three, Four, Kick Fluorescents out the door!”

That’s not all. We had signs. A lot of signs. Hand-painted signs. Signs that declared our love for energy-efficient LED lights.

Rally

You’re probably wondering if we lost our minds. But I can assure you, we had a plan. You see, at approximately 5:45 p.m., just as our toes started to go numb in the chilly temperatures, a group of 100+ people rounded the corner.

But this wasn’t just a random mob, they were folks who knew a lot about LEDs. The group was on an LED Lighting Walking Tour of downtown Raleigh as part of the Department of Energy Solid State Lighting Research and Design Conference (or DOE SSL R&D for short).

Seeing their shocked faces was all it took for us to spring to action. We hoisted our signs in the air and started our chant.

Within seconds, digital cameras, cell phone and video cameras were fixed on us as we continued to walk in our circle. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone because it’s hard to stay composed when you’re hollering a chant. But I couldn’t miss the smiles, the curious looks, the camera flashes—and even a smattering of applause.

So what the heck were we doing? We were showing industry professionals that we’re serious about the LED Lighting Revolution. We truly believe LED lighting is better than incandescent, fluorescent and other lighting technologies. We truly believe the energy savings that can be achieved by switching to LED lights is worthwhile.

And we wanted those conference goers — the very people who have the potential to help change the way we light the world – to know that we’re out there paving the way for LED lighting by raising awareness.

LEDs Rock! If you were at the conference and saw the rally, please let me know in the comments section. I would love to see your photos and video.

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Posted in For Fun, LED Cities, Revolution, Trade Shows | 10 Comments »

Skate under LED lights at the #RaleighLED Ice Skating Tweetup

Friday, January 15th, 2010

It’s been more than three years since city officials in Raleigh, NC, first installed energy-efficient LED lighting. Since then, the city has embraced the energy-saving technology by installing LED lights at more than two dozen locations around the city!

At Cree, we’re excited to honor the city of Raleigh as the world’s first LED City® with the #RaleighLED Ice Skating Tweetup!

Triangle-area Twitter users and other LED lighting fans are invited to ice skate under LED lights at downtown Raleigh’s outdoor ice rink from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31.

You can secure your free ice skate rental by registering for #RaleighLED Ice Skating Tweetup here.

IceRinkPic

The Raleigh Winterfest Ice Rink is one of more than two dozen locations in Raleigh that features LED lighting. It’s an awesome chance to sip on some hot chocolate, mingle with Tweeps, see LED lights and get your outdoor skate on.

LED lighting will play a big role in Raleigh during the week of Feb. 1, when the Department of Energy hosts its Solid-State Lighting Research and Design Workshop at the Raleigh Convention Center. I bet you didn’t even know that the fancy industry term for LED lighting is “Solid-State Lighting,” did you? Hundreds of LED aficionados and experts from all over the country will be coming to Raleigh for the workshop and to see the light(s)!tweettweet2

We hope you can make it to the #RaleighLED Ice Skating Tweetup to see some LED lighting in action and learn more about this technology in advance of the Department of Energy’s conference in Raleigh! Don’t forget to register!!

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Posted in For Fun | 4 Comments »

How an engineer’s 21-minute YouTube video on LED Lighting and Thermal Design wiped a sour look off my face

Monday, January 11th, 2010

If you told me a week ago that I would be thoroughly entertained by a 21-minute YouTube video featuring an engineer talking about thermal design, I would’ve shot you one of these looks:

ginnyfunnylook

But that was before I was introduced to David L. Jones’ vlog. The title caught my attention right away: “Solid-State LED Lighting, and How Thermal Design Sucks.” Please note, he doesn’t say Solid State LED Lighting sucks. :o

Dave is an engineer who lives in Sydney, Australia. Armed with a video camera and a heck of a lot of enthusiasm, Dave decided to attach some Cree LEDs to a piece of aluminum to light up his new outdoor deck. For the record, Cree didn’t know he was doing this. I say this because even though he doesn’t like the act of calculating the junction temperature of each LED (hence his blog title … “How Thermal Design Sucks”), he ended up loving the results he achieved with our LEDs. And because he’s so enthusiastic and sincere, I actually sat through the entire 21-minute video and watched him fill up his whiteboard with calculations that are way over my head.

If you don’t have 21 minutes to spare, here are some highlights:

Watch the first four minutes for context. Tune in again at the 17:15 mark to hear his declarations about why his calculations are a waste of time. Then skip to 19:20 to hear him describe the difference between efficacy and efficiency (don’t be fooled by their similar spellings, there is a difference) and then stay tuned for the rest of the video to see what all his hard work went toward.

Dave tells video viewers not to bother writing in and telling him that his model was wrong. So I won’t go into whether his calculations make sense, but stay tuned to the 21 minute mark and you can see that regardless of whether his model was right or wrong, his homemade LED lighting system sure looks sharp.

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Posted in For Fun, Videos | 2 Comments »

All I want for Christmas is an LED light bulb

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

I spent Black Friday wrapped in a sleeping bag outside a Best Buy store with the goal of snagging a ridiculously cheap laptop for my kid sister when the doors opened at 5 a.m. After hours of shivering outside the store, it turns out there weren’t enough doorbuster laptops to go around. I went home empty handed, but believe me, there’s more than one tech item on her holiday wish list (that’s the danger in asking a 14-year-old what they want for Christmas).

bestbuy

I was so close to the front of the line and I still didn't get it.

But what happens when you ask one of the founders of Cree to name the product or technology on his holiday wish list? Well, let’s just say the answer is something you can’t find at an electronics store – yet!

John Edmond-Cree-web

Cree Co-Founder John Edmond.

ECN Magazine recently asked one of our founders, John Edmond, to answer the question. And John –who still works in the labs researching and developing brighter, more efficient LEDs 22 years after helping found the company – channeled his love for LED lights to answer the question.  Here’s a snippet of what he told them:

“If I could wish for any technological development this holiday, I would put an LED A-19 lightbulb at the top of my list. One that can replace a 60 Watt incandescent or a 20 Watt hazardous CFL and is available for any homeowner to purchase at a local store. Sure, engineers around the world are working on this right now. But I’m impatient and I’d like it now.”

You can read his full holiday request here.

Now let’s turn the question around on you. What’s on your technology wish list?

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Posted in For Fun | 5 Comments »

How LED lights made my “solar-powered lucky owl” come to life

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

When I was visiting San Francisco last year, I took the ferry to Sausalito to explore for the afternoon. I came across an eclectic gift shop and bought a “solar-powered lucky owl” to remind me of the trip. The light, hitting a small solar panel, was supposed to make the owl hypnotically shake its head from side to side.

But when I got back to North Carolina and took my “lucky owl” out of the package, I found out mine was broken (or so I thought). I set it on a windowsill in direct sunlight and the owl didn’t give a hoot. He remained perfectly still. I put him on my refrigerator, only a few feet from the fluorescent bulbs that lit up my former apartment, and he still didn’t shake his head.

I packed the owl away when I moved out of my apartment (he was too cute to get rid of, even if he didn’t work). Then, a few weeks ago, when I was looking for some decorations to spruce up my cube, I came across the owl. I took him to work and before I knew it, the frozen owl was shaking his head from side-to-side!

Could it be that my owl prefers bright and beautiful LED lighting to the fluorescent lights in my old kitchen or the sunlight the beamed down on him from the window? Watch how active he is now:

I’m not sure what the deal is. All I know is that my owl hasn’t stopped shaking his head since he moved into my LED-lit cube. And that makes me happy.

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Posted in For Fun, Videos | No Comments »

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