What is LED Lighting?
LED lighting is a lamp or other light that uses LEDs as a source of illumination. Most lighting comes from an incandescent or fluorescent light bulb. Different than the traditional bulb, LEDs can be put into traditional lamps and used like most other light bulbs. They are much more efficient than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. LED stands for light-emitting diode. That is, simply, a semiconductor device that converts electricity to light by using the movement of electrons. LEDs were invented in Russia in the 1920s. They were put into practical use in the United States in the 1960s by General Electric. In the late 1960s, Monsanto Corporation was the first to mass-produce LEDs, and Hewlett-Packard used them in its early calculators. There are many consumer advantages to LEDs over incandescent or fluorescent light bulbs. LED lights consume much less energy. They are 300 percent more efficient than a compact fluorescent light (CFL), and 1,000 percent more efficient than an incandescent
LED lighting has been around for many years and is just now really coming into its own. For years, the Light Emitting Diode was simply used as an indicator or display light in various small-scale applications. Think of those old Texas Instruments calculators, or your blinking VCR light. LED is a solid-state technology. This means there is no glass bulb, no pressurized gases, no mercury and no burning filament. In the traditional bulb, Heat was the main result while light stood as a mere by-product of electrifying the filament. With LED technology, what you have is a circuit board and a computer chip. The properties of the chip create light that is generated and focused through a plastic diode to create light. Depending on the chip and materials used, different colors in the color spectrum can be created. Early on the easiest color to create was red, which is why your calculator and VCR had red display lights rather than any other color. For many years, there were no advancements in LED
