With the rise in popularity of LED lighting, many people are confused when it comes to choosing an LED lamp.

We must first understand that the quality and price of lamps are determined by four components: LED chip, LED driver, heat sink, and printed circuit board (PCB).

1 LED chip

One of the two most important components of an LED lamp, chips come in a wide range of performance standards and consequently the price will vary depending on the brand of chip used by the manufacturer. While high output lamps use CREE or OSRAM; the price may be a bit high for most consumers. Instead, you may want to opt for a lamp with a chip from Bridgelux, Samsung or Epistar, to name just three quality and affordable chips. Using a good quality chip results in beautiful color (measured by its color temperature and rendering index – CRI) as well as high luminous efficacy (a measure of how well a light source produces visible light). .

Chip lengths are measured in millimeters (thousands), with a millimeter equaling one thousandth of an inch. Generally, the larger the chip, the better the performance. Since manufacturers’ specifications and claims tend to be exaggerated, it is prudent to compare one lamp to another to determine which components are used in the manufacture of the products in question.

Many manufacturers use SMD LED chips in indoor lighting, such as SMD 2835 in LED tubes and SMD 3014 in LED panel lights. These low-power LEDs produce fewer lumens, resulting in light that is pleasing to the human eye. Simply put, a lumen is a measure of the amount of light emitted per second. High power LEDs are used in industrial lamps due to their small size and the result is a concentrated light that does an excellent job. Many LED high bay lamps are equipped with 45×45 mil chips and are used and packaged with a chip-on-board (COB) light source.

For your information, numbers 2835, 3014, 3528, 5050, 5630 are model names of packaging processes. Another process with a very promising future is the COB light source mentioned above, where chips are mounted directly on printed circuit boards (PCBs) as opposed to surface mount devices (SMDs). As these light sources have a variety of functions, it is recommended that you take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with them in order to better meet your requirements.

As you have seen, LED packaging is closely related to its performance and handles a number of functions including heat dissipation, light distribution, and color temperature variation and chip CRI. It is interesting to note that a chip that produces white light has yellow phosphor added to it to change the original blue light it initially produces to white.

2. LED driver

The second key component is the power system, commonly known as the controller. It is the limiting factor in the longevity of the LED lamp, while there is an urban myth that the lifespan of a lamp is up to 30 years; the controller can only last 1000-2000 hours. So ignore the manufacturer’s claims of 50,000 hours of LED lamp life.

A big-name driver like Meanwell can be expected to have 15,000 hours to live. However, the cost would be 80% higher than the average controller made in China. Most manufacturers use their own driver. In these cases, it is advisable to ask if the capacitor comes from a reliable manufacturer.

Another indication of life is the warranty offered.

3. Heat sink

LEDs are sensitive to temperature, which makes the heat sink a major concern. Most of the products use an aluminum alloy heat sink for its cost effectiveness and while the specs don’t really tell us much, there are three items we need to consider.

A. Thermal conductivity: 6063 die-cast aluminum is the most commonly used material. The best ones have anodized coating. B. Number and size of fins: the more and bigger the better. C. Heat pipe is used in some high power LED lamps.

4. Printed circuit board

The material used and the layout of a PCB are important as it connects the chip to the heat sink. A PCB with low thermal conductivity results in a hot lamp. Metal and ceramic core PCBs have a good heat transfer coefficient, but most manufacturers choose fiberglass to save money.