Dyson on You and Yours today.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Dyson and son were on You and Yours today.

Son has 'invented' a very long life high power LED.

Not like father like son, then?

[Andrew Gabriel]

It was quite interesting.

He said he couldn't get anyone in the UK to make the lamp. There was interest, but they all chickened out when presented with a volume order. It's made in Malaysia, but that's no cheaper than it would have been in the UK, because of the weight of steel which has to be transported back. He still hopes to be able to manufacture in the UK in the future.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It was, yes. A perhaps novel way - or adoption of an existing way - of keeping it cool.

Did sound a bit like they didn't want to risk their own money investing in production. And the family apparently has lots of money. ;-)

[Tim Watts]

This?

Yes - it's a good idea - recognising heat does it for LEDs and designing a fitting around it.

Typical about the useless UK manufacturers though - sounds like the transputer all over again...

[Fredxxx]

I suspect it was more about Dyson claiming patents and requiring manufacturers' to invest with a single customer who won't commit to any order.

I'm sure if Dyson asked for a quote to an engineering drawing or similar without any R&D against a specific number of units there'd be a long queue.

A company in Malaysia doesn't care about patents and would happily copy and sell to all and sundry.

[Tim Watts]

Interesting theory.

But surely Dyson would be aware of this - so might as well be less arsey with the UK factories since the end would be the same?

[ARW]

Bollocks - he could not wait to move his "vacuum" making business to Malayasia 10 years ago. It's called cheap labour and more profit and has f*ck all do with the price or weight of steel.

[Syd Rumpo]

I suspect it was Dyson acting the bully and imposing 120 day payment terms on suppliers. That's what large company bean-counters do to justify their existence.

Using a heat pipe for an LED isn't new, neither is using the BBC to advertise. And their vacuum cleaners suck.

Cheers

[Roger Mills]

It claims it lasts for 37+ years! I wonder how long the warranty is?

But £800 - they're having a laugh! You could buy a hell of a lot of replacement lamps for that amount!

[JimK]

/ He still hopes to be able to manufacture in the UK in the future./q

Mmm be such a shame if he'd over egged the market... Looks simple. - bits of painted tube (allegedly steel?), LEDs and a power supply?

FFS Wonder what the patent hinges on?

Parts bill anyone?

Jim K

[Tim Watts]

And I *never* buy fittings where the lamp is an integral part.

Even if it is non optimal, I'd rather have an LED in a standard (and in long term standard, like (S)BC, (S)ES or GU10.

Because the tech is evolving so fast that today's ok-ish LED will be replaced in a few years by one twice as good for half the price.

However, I try to choose my fittings so heat problems are reduced:

Large or open BC/ES fittings

Open GU10 (on teh end of decorative stalks

Downlighters only where they are for night lighting, so LED will be in the 3W range.

[Johny B Good]

Yes, it's a matter of balancing lamp replacement costs against running costs. Unless they're already running very close to the lumen efficiency limit (around 300Lm per watt), it's not a very wise investment unless there's an overwhelming need to avoid having to replace the lamp for decades at a time.

You can see this this replacement/running cost balance effect with the American 120v 60W filament lamp where the option to run the filament at even higher temperatures than the UK 240v 75W 1000 hour lamp results in a 750 hour rating to save 15 watts for the same Lumen output.

The 11.25 units of energy saving over the 750 hour lamp life more than covers the increased relamping costs in domestic properties.

The 120v filament allows for higher temperature (better lumen efficiency) for the same 1000 hour lamp life rating anyway but the Yanks chose to trade a bit more life off for an even greater improvement in efficiency.

[Andy Burns]

The large ones I saw on the website were ~7000 lumens from 66W and ~8800 lumens from 101W, so driven less hard than the current Aldi/Lidl/LEDhut BC/ES offerings, which no doubt will give them an easier life, but no prices available - four figures?

The small ones 545 lumens from 12W (including the low voltage PSU) only driven half as hard as the ones in the shops at between £550 and £800 quid depending on height/fixing

You're paying one hell of a lot for a designer name and the buzzword "heatpipe".

[tim.....]

I can't see too many people rushing to make LED replacements for G24q connectors.

Though I do note that the CFL prices have come down from the silly money that they used to charge. Has the patent expired or did the patent holders eventually realise that charging a premium that was greater than the cost of replacing the bulb holder with a "normal" one wasn't actually doing them any good

tim

[Colin Stamp]

It looks like he's just doing an "Apple" job - all styling and marketing. The "innovation" of using heat-pipe cooling is only necessary because of the very slender shape. He certainly didn't design the fitting around cooling the LED. He chose just about the worst fitting shape possible as far as cooling is concerned. It would have been a much better engineering solution to design a stylish fitting which can accommodate a more conventional cooling arrangement. That wouldn't give it a USP though.

Cheers,

Colin.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The usual three years - unless you pay a fortune for an extended one?

[PeterC]

I couldn't work out why it needed all the heat management when the lm/W figure was so low - the whole thing seems to be no better than a glorified under-cabinet LED strip at 20X the price. I've an Aldidl 3W, 250lm lamp that gets luke warm and has no obvious cooling.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I saw several at LuxLive last year. (Was slightly interested as we have 3 downlighers I made ~20 years ago which take these, and I wonder how long the control gear will keep going.)

Price is mostly based on volume and competition. The EU applied an import duty for a while to try and protect the EU manufacturers, but I think that's gone now.

The only patent I know of which significantly held back some CFL designs was the one which covered twisting a tube into a spiral (specifically, one way to manufacture them which is the only viable way found), and that expired some years back now. The spiral formats tend to be the most efficient (the least self-shadowing). Having said that, spiral ones didn't make as big an entrance in the UK as they did in other countries.

[Andrew Gabriel]

It's higher efficiency due to filament geometry, not higher temperature.

The ideal filament geometry for a 100W lamp is achieved when you design one to run from 55V. As you move the design voltage away from 55V in either direction, the efficiency drops because:

a) if you increase the design voltage, the filament circumverence to crosssectional area ratio means the filament has too much surface area and gives off 100W without getting hot enough (coiling and coiled-coil are done to reduce this effect so long filaments still get up to 2700K, but it is still not as efficient), and

b) if you decrease the design voltage, you start wasting more power which is conducted away from the filament ends in the thicker lead-in wires needed.

Yes, 750 hours is their standard, like ours was 1000h. They get the double benefit of higher efficiency due to higher temp because of shorter burning time, and higher efficiency because 120V is nearer to the 55V ideal than 240V.

There were some ever higher efficiency filament lamps sold in the US for a while (only in spotlamp form I think). They used 84V filaments, which is the RMS voltage you get by half-wave rectifying

120V, and they had a half-wave rectifier in the lamp cap. 84V is even nearer the 55V ideal than 120V, hence the efficiency gain.

[alan_m]

About the lifespan of the capacitors in the PSU driving the LEDs.