At Cree, we’ve seen it all when it comes to LED fixture design – the good, the bad and the ugly. And now we’re launching a new set of services designed to let LED lighting fixture designers take advantage of our extensive experience working with LEDs.
Today we’re launching Cree TEMPO™ Services, a comprehensive set of quantitative and qualitative tests and analyses for LED-based lighting fixtures and lamps. TEMPO stands for Thermal, Electrical, Mechanical, Photometric and Optical and our new testing services gives LED customers a chance to have all those aspects of their fixtures tested.
We want to help manufacturers overcome system design challenges, increase product quality and instill confidence in their buyers. More details on this service are available on this website we launched today.
Watch our video to find out details on why Cree TEMPO Services could help save LED manufacturers time and money.
January 27, 1880 was a significant day in lighting history. That was the day Thomas Edison received the historic patent for the incandescent light bulb. The patent changed the way we illuminate the world and is listed by the National Archives as one of 100 milestone documents in U.S. history.
We’re demonstrating that it is possible to make an LED light bulb that delivers the same bright, warm light as a 60-watt incandescent bulb. We want to show the world that this is what LED lighting can and should look like. And we want to help our customers – don’t forget we don’t just make lighting, we manufacture LEDs and modules that we sell to lighting manufacturers – bring bulbs like this to market. See more details about this new light on TrueWhiteLight.com.
Through the use of Cree lighting class XLamp LEDs, Cree TrueWhite™ Technology, a patented Cree remote phosphor technology, and of course, plenty of Research and Development, we are continuing to break barriers in LED performance.
Last week, I got to hang out with the TrueWhite Light in a photography studio. We set up three orange lamps and put a 60-watt incandescent, a 60-watt equivalent CFL (it consumes 15 watts) and the 60-watt equivalent Cree TrueWhite LED bulb (it consumes less than 10 watts).
As soon as the photographer’s assistant plugged in the lights, I was awestruck. Our LED bulb truly looked as beautiful as the incandescent, and certainly better than the CFL. And that’s the way it should be. LED lighting should look as good as the technology it’s replacing.
We understand why so many people are reluctant to let their incandescent bulbs go. Even though they waste energy, they still provide that warm light that many of us love. But Cree is continuing to prove that LED lights can do it too.
That’s why we had a little fun with Thomas Edison this week on Twitter, on our facebook page and in this video:
Don’t get us wrong, we absolutely appreciate what Edison did 131 years ago today. But the time has come to turn off energy-wasting incandescent lights and join the LED lighting revolution.
It’s funny, a hundred years ago Thomas Edison made some predictions in the Miami Metropolisabout what the world would be like in 2011. His definitely reached for the stars in his predictions, calling for books that were printed on leaves of nickel and taxicabs made of gold. But he didn’t predict that a new lighting technology would render his incandescent light obsolete.
The incandescent bulb has served us well for many years, Mr. Edison, but thanks, we’ll take it from here.
What would you do if you dropped a fluorescent light bulb and it shattered? Your instinct might be to immediately grab the broom and dust pan (or the vacuum), clean it up and toss it in the trash.
But CFLs and other fluorescent lights contain a small amount of mercury, which means you have to take precautions to avoid mercury exposure to yourself and the environment.
The CFL cleanup list includes separate steps for a broken bulb on hard surfaces, carpeting and even bedding. And while each list has slightly different steps, the theme is pretty much always the same: Air out the room, put all debris in a glass jar with a metal lid and check with local government to see if there are any additional disposal requirements.
In one scene, grandma shows off how happy she is with CFLs. This is before she finds out about the EPA recommended cleanup steps.
While working on this darling video “Grandma Tries CFLs” I called the local household hazardous waste office. I asked the woman who answered what I should do with the debris from a broken CFL, adding that I followed all of the EPA’s cleanup steps. No joke, the woman told me she didn’t know what a CFL was. She transferred me to a manager who advised that if I had followed the EPA’s cleanup steps and sealed all materials, I didn’t need to take any extra steps of disposal.
It just goes to show that plenty of people don’t know that CFLs and other fluorescent bulbs shouldn’t just go in the trash. (Also once a CFL burns out, don’t just trash it, find a local collection site).
So we decided to have some fun and make an in-house video showing off the numerous steps you should take to clean up a broken CFL. And, for the record, we didn’t actually break a CFL in the video. A broken incandescent played the role.
So join “grandma” as she learns what to do if her shaky hands make her lose her grip on a CFL. Good thing her grandson was around to teach her the EPA’s proper clean up steps. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll probably never want to break a fluorescent light bulb.
And while CFLs are energy efficient, many LED lights are even more efficient and deliver better quality light. So take a cue from our grandson and help spread the word about the LED lighting revolution to your family, friends, coworkers and anyone who will listen. Heck you can even try to win 5 Cree CR6 LED downlights of your own in our monthly photo contest.
There’s a lot more to summer camp these days than doing crafts and building fires. At North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, students can sign up for Design Camp, Football Camp, Science Camp and even Energy Camp. You read that right – Energy Camp.
The NCSU College of Engineering offers a variety of summer camps, including a camp where students learn about the different forms of energy and how to conserve it.
And, of course, we love the idea of Energy Camp. After all, Cree’s products — from Schottky diodes, to our LED components and LED fixtures — are designed to do more with less energy. And, what’s more, Cree’s history is rooted in N.C. State’s materials science and engineering lab. That’s where our company’s founders first began working together on research that would later lead them to form Cree.
I had a chance to visit the NCSU Energy Camp a couple of weeks ago and sit in on the students’ lessons on LEDs. Here’s a video recap shot by yours truly:
In 1964, the city of Durham, NC, began construction on its first parking garage. The Corcoran Parking Garage is still heavily used more than 45 years later, providing daytime parking for downtown workers and evening parking for theater-goers at the Durham Performing Arts Center and even baseball fans at the nearby Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
Renovations on the aging garage began last year, and are being wrapped up this month. Among the new features are 200 LED lighting fixtures, which dramatically improve visibility in the newly-painted garage.
A look at Durham's oldest parking deck after it was built in the 1960s. Photo courtesy of Endangered Durham.
I walked through the deck after a recent Durham Bulls game to get footage of the new lights and I kept declaring how amazing it was. As a former Durham resident, I’ve actually been inside this deck when it was lit with the dingy metal halide lights, and the deck felt older and not as safe. The difference with the new LED lights was truly extraordinary. There were no shadows and the signage was easily readable.
City officials say the new LED fixtures use only one-fifth of the energy consumed by the metal halide fixtures they replaced. At the 0:52 mark in this video, you’ll really notice the dramatic difference in lighting if you look at the contrast of the orange high pressure sodium streetlight glowing in front of the garage.
As part of other renovations, the City of Durham is currently installing LED lighting in another downtown parking deck and has plans for yet another. The Bull City, as it’s affectionately called by locals, joined the LED City program last month, and plans to continue considering energy-efficient LED lighting as it renovates and constructs new buildings and structures.
Specifically we’ll be providing our CR6™ downlight, which is targeted to go to market this summer for about $60 each. This 10.5 Watt downlight is designed to last 50,000 hours, which means if homeowners use these lights four hours a day, they shouldn’t have to replace them for more than 30 years.
We’re very excited about this pledge because it can help reduce electricity costs for low-income homeowners. Habitat for Humanity already works to build homes that are more sustainable and efficient, and the addition of LED lights will help these homes save more energy.
In North Carolina, a Habitat homeowner should save almost $450 over five years by having the CR6 down lights installed instead of the currently-used halogens.* For a house in California, that jumps to nearly $600 in savings.*
A couple of weeks ago, I got to visit a Habitat home being built in Durham, NC. We delivered two of the CR6 downlights. My boss climbed up on a ladder to show the crew how to install the lights. All he did was take the trim off the existing fixture, unscrew the energy-wasting Halogen light and screwed in the CR6. Since I filmed him doing it, I was able to time him, and it took him 28 seconds! But you’ll have to take my word for it, because I’m not sure he’s ready to make his YouTube debut quite yet.
However, I also filmed the installation of the next CR6 by David Larkins, the construction director for Habitat for Humanity of Durham. I pulled him aside afterward to talk to him about the LED lights that were just installed. At the time he had no idea Cree was planning on putting these lights in kitchens at thousands of Habitat homes. Here’s what David had to say:
“We try to make a house that’s really easy to maintain, and energy efficiency is part of that,” he said. “A lot of the energy-efficiency improvements that we do just make a home that is smarter and simpler to maintain.”
Cree designed the CR6 specifically to make LED lighting more affordable for residential applications and we couldn’t think of a better residential application than inside homes for Habitat for Humanity.
*We came to this conclusion by using a North Carolina electricity rate of 9.42 cents per kWh and a California rate of 15.69 cents per kWh. We calculated four lights turned on 6 hours a day.
This time last year, all eyes were on Chapel Hill, NC, after the Tar Heels secured the Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship. Fans filled Franklin Street, celebrating the win in true Tar Heel style, by taking the fun to the streets.
Many of us watched the revelry from the comfort of our couches. On TV, we saw thousands of students and fans dotting the main drag through Chapel Hill, cheering and jumping over fires. At Cree, we watched intently for other reasons.
About a week before the championship game, ten high-pressure sodium (HPS) streetlights on Franklin Street were replaced with LED streetlights. The orange glow cast by the HPS streetlights was cast aside and the white light produced by the new LED streetlights helped make colors pop.
The LED streetlights were installed in the 100 block of Franklin Street where students and residents gather to celebrate events like Halloween and big Tar Heel wins.
Flickr user benuski posted this picture of Franklin Street during the 2009 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship celebration. Note the orange glow from the HPS streetlight.
Since the LED streetlights help make colors pop, it was easy to see which section of Franklin Street featured the energy-saving LED lights and which section was still stuck with the dimmer HPS streetlights. In the LED-lit section, you could actually see the Carolina blue T-shirts Tar Heel fans were rocking. In the HPS-lit section, it just looked like a dingy, orangey mob with some semblance of blue mixed in.
Take a look for yourself in this time-lapse video The Daily Tar Heel produced of the Franklin Street celebration last year. You’ll see the LED-lit side of the street on the left and the dingy HPS-lit side on the right:
I was one of the most popular people at work this week after word spread that I was melting chocolate bunnies with light bulbs. People kept stopping by my desk to ask if the scuttlebutt was true. And when they found out it was true, several co-workers declared that I have the best job ever.
But I wasn’t melting the bunnies for fun, or even for a snack. This experiment was for the sake of the LED lighting revolution.
I can preach the benefits of energy-efficient LED lighting until my voice goes hoarse (which I’ve done) or type out blog posts, tweets and e-mails until my fingers callous. But, let’s face it, seeing is believing.
So I turned an empty office into a studio for my experiment. I placed chocolate Easter bunnies under a 12 Watt Cree LRP-38 and a 65 Watt incandescent floodlight. Both lights are designed to be hung from tracks. And, despite their Wattage differences, they’re a relatively fair comparison — a 12 Watt LRP-38 can replace Halogen bulbs up to 90 Watts (the folks at Furniture Row in Denver, Colorado replaced one thousand 90 W Halogens with LRP-38s).
Here's the setup.
The results were exactly what I expected. The bunny under the incandescent light melted into a pool of chocolate that spilled over the plate and onto the desk. The LED bunny kept his shape, with just the tip of his head becoming soft when I touched it with my fingertip. Watch the time lapse video to see the incandescent bunny’s downfall:
Once the incandescent bunny collapses, you can see my hand reach over and reposition the plate. That’s because that sucker fell backwards and out of the video shot, so I had to reposition him so we could all watch him melt.
I hope the video conveys how much more energy-efficient LED lights are. Since LED lights consume significantly less energy than incandescent bulbs (and even compact fluorescents), they don’t emit as much heat. In fact, LEDs are sensitive to heat, that’s why good thermal design is important for a long-lasting LED light, and that’s what the heat sink helps accomplish (the metal fins or slots that surround LED lights).
Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll have to start melting chocolate with light bulbs around every holiday. If you’ve got suggestions of what I should melt next, post them in the comments!
I put together some clips from Vice President Biden’s trip to Cree last week. The video features some of his remarks, along with interviews from employees who got to meet with the vice president and comments from our CEO Chuck Swoboda:
Most people who visit Indian Wells, California, are probably drawn in by the four world class resorts, the spas and the lush golf courses. The resort community in the southern California desert became a retreat for celebrities after Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz opened the Indian Wells Hotel in 1958. Since then, city officials have worked to make Indian Wells a premiere destination in the Coachella Valley.
These days, city officials are keen on sustainability, and energy-use reduction has become a key goal for the city. I had the “tough” job of visiting Indian Wells last month for an LED City® Council meeting, and while I was there I had the city’s management analyst Susan Weisbart give me a tour of some of the city’s LED lighting installations.
Indian Wells was the first California city to become an LED City. The LED City program helps municipalities speed up the adoption of energy-saving LED lights by connecting them with information they need to make informed decisions about installing LED lights.
One of the first LED lighting installations in Indian Wells involved swapping out incandescent lights that lit the outside of city hall and other municipal buildings with 12 Watt Cree LR6™ recessed lights. It’s a change that city officials say saves nearly $7,000 a year in energy costs. That’s not counting the maintenance savings of not having to replace burned out bulbs, since the LED lights they installed are designed to last 50,000 hours – or 17 years if they’re on 8 hours a day!
The city also has plans to replace the 50 Watt halogen lights illuminating the signature palm trees lining city streets with 11 Watt LED lights. Get this: The city estimates it can save $10,095 in energy costs per year once the project is complete!
Watch my LED tour and interview with Susan to see what Indian Wells is doing to save energy and money:
