Lamina Ceramics, Inc. announced another milestone achievement in solid state lighting with the launch of a new super bright, high power LED light engine featuring a warm, eye-pleasing light quality similar to popular halogen and tungsten incandescent lamps. The BL-4000 Warm White with its 3,000° K. color temperature is the latest addition to the company's product line.
More than three times brighter than any other commercially available warm white LED array, the BL-4000 Warm White delivers 95 lumens – nearly as much light as a 10W halogen bulb – while consuming only 5.3W of electricity. Its usable lifetime (rated at 50% of original brightness) is three to four times longer than the longest lived halogen. It is smaller than a U.S. nickel, as are the RGB+ (red-green-blue) and cool white models in Lamina's BL-4000 series.
"Lamina's BL-4000 Warm White LED light engine is not only a tremendous addition to our award-winning product line, it also represents another very significant advance in solid state lighting," says Taylor Adair, Lamina Ceramics' president and CEO. Adair also noted the BL-4000 Warm White's eye appeal should encourage interior residential and commercial lighting designers and architects to mix solid state lighting with conventional halogen and tungsten lighting designs.
While LED lighting is now designed into a steadily growing number of interior and exterior applications in both the commercial and residential categories, the characteristically cool light produced by white LEDs has not been pleasing to the eye in living rooms and other relaxation oriented environments. "Cool white light correlating to that of the midday sun is often preferred for work environments and task lighting," explains Adair. "But lots of research has shown we have been conditioned over thousands of years to prefer warm light – like that of a setting sun, fireplace or candles – for our living environments." Warm white light, he noted, creates an intimate, relaxed atmosphere and also enhances the appearance of wood and furniture.
Lamina's warm white LED light engine rounds out the BL-4000 series, which includes an RGB (red-green-blue) light engine producing 120 lumens in up to 16 million blended colors – including white with variable color temperature – and a 120 lumen, 5,500°K cool white light engine.
Developed by listening to the wants and needs of customers, Lamina's BL-4000 series pushes solid state lighting to center stage by making possible applications which until now could only be accomplished with traditional lighting sources, and by creating many entirely new lighting opportunities.
The BL-4000 RGB+, through 3 independently controlled input/output channels, can produce any of 16,000,000 blended colors (including white with variable color temperature) from a single 120 lumen point source. The BL-4000 white LED light engine provides a daylight color temperature of 5,550°K with a color rendition index (CRI) of 78, rivaling the quality of natural midday sunlight. It's designed for many architectural lighting applications, desk and other task lamps, machine vision and flashlights.
All BL-4000 LED light engines are designed for the popular drive current and are available mounted to Lamina's EZ-Connect board for solderless connections. Narrow, medium and wide optics and optics holders designed in partnership with Fraen Corporation are also available. All feature integrated protection from electrostatic discharge (ESD) and an isolated metal base for wiring on a common heat sink in either series or parallel. Lamina heat sinks are available for rapid prototyping.
During the past year, Lamina Ceramics set two successive world records for brightness with its Aterion LED light engines in RGB and white – the brightest ever produced – at 13,300 and 28,000 lumens, respectively.