Let there be light

Even though we don’t realize it, every day we’re using a lot of light. Much of this light is drawn from our biggestnatural source, sunlight. But more and more of the light that we use is artificial. The biggest example of this artificial light is of course the lamps we use in and outside. Since the 19th century we know artificial light in the form of an incandescent light bulb.

The incandescent light bulb

The incandescent light bulb is mainly known for it’s low return. When we talk about return in consideration of lamps, we mean the amount of visible light a lamp produces per amount of energy that’s used by that lamp. A ‘normal’ light bulb usually has a return between the 5% and 10%. So a 200Watt lamp will only produce an amount of 10 or maximum 20Watt of visible light. The rest of the energy will go to waste in invisible warmth. This low return is the main reason the light bulb is no longer in the market.

The FL

The compact Fluorescent lamp (better known as the FL) is the alternative to the light bulb. As soon as the disadvantages of the incandescent light bulb came to light people started looking for alternatives. The FL has therefore been developed in the 70’s and came to the consumer market in the 80’s.

The incandescent light bulb and the FL have been on the market together for a while. The FL made a bad start because the manufacturer costs for producing the FL were quite high and the first generation of FL lamps were not much more efficient than the incandescent light bulbs that were on the market that time. You can imagine that there were little consumers willing to throw away their incandescent light bulb and purchase the new FL.

Meanwhile we have come to the fourth generation of the FL. The manufacturing costs of this generation of FL’s has been greatly decreased and the amount of light has been drastically increased. On top of that a FL has far better durability than an incandescent light bulb. The common incandescent lamp has an average lifetime of 1.000 to 1.500 hours. A common FL has an average lifetime of 20.000 hours.

Disadvantages of the FL

Relative to the incandescent lamp the FL has many advantages. However the FL also has a lot of disadvantages:

- The FL uses a fluorescent layer which can generate only a small spectrum of colors. As a result the light of a FL can be experienced as unpleasant. It is possible to use other types of fluorescent materials, but this will result in a higher price for the FL;
- FL are known for becoming too hot during usage;
- Switching the FL bulbs on- and off frequently substantially reduces the life span;
- Almost every FL bulb need little time to be working at full strength;
- FL’s loose their light output relatively fast.

Led-lighting

The led technology is much older than you might think. More than a century ago, in 1907, the British radio pioneer, Henry Joseph Round, discovered that the contact point of a crystal detector can give light. Twenty years later it was the Russian scientist Oleg Losev, who published some details in a journal, what would later be considered as the first led technology. Oleg Losev was the one that filed a patent for led technology.

Unfortunately his findings never made a breakthrough. It was until 1962 that the led technology got more recognition. In this year Nick Holonyak, an American physicist who was employed by General Electric Company Laboratory made the first light-emitting diode.

Led lamp

A LED lamp is made up of a group of LEDs (light-emitting diodes). Because of the fact that different types of diodes can be used in a LED lamp, it is possible to determine things as the radiation angle, luminous FLux, luminous intensity and color reproduction.

LED has many advantages relative to the incandescent lamp and the FL. For instance a LED lamp has a life span of approximately 40.000 hours where an average FL has between 8.000 and 15.000 hours and an average incandescent lamp has only 1.000 hours.

Apart from the life span a LED lamp is vibration- and shockproof and will barely warm up during usage. The first generations led lamps did not have the ability to be dimmed but the models that are currently on the market do have this important function. Since led lamps are produced by placing multiple small light-emitting diodes it’s possible to make led lamps in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

Disadvantages of the LED lamp

Even though there are a lot of advantages on using led lighting, there are a few downsides.

Purchase
LED lamps, compared to incandescent lamps and compact Fluorescent lamps, are quite expensive to buy. We should however keep in mind that the investment of purchasing LED lamps is often earned back in a few years. The time it takes to earn back the investment of course depends on the usage of the lighting. Using LED lamps you can save substantially on energy and maintenance costs.

Bright light
Because of the fact that the diodes used in LED light give a very bright light it is advised not to look into the source directly. Furthermore it doesn’t feel pleasant being in a room that is too brightly lit.

Beam Angle
Earlier generations led lamps had a small beam angle. When you want to lit up bigger spaces you’ll obviously need a bigger beam angle.

Optimized Led Light Pipe by BB-Lightconcepts

Optimized BB LEDlightpipe by BB-Lightconcepts

More options with blue LED light

When the first LED diodes where made in the 60’s, the color palette was very limited. Only the colors red and green could be produced by these diodes. In order for LED light to be usable in more situations, scientist were trying to find a way to produce diodes which could light up in more colors than just red and green. The decades it took tell us this was not an easy job. In the 80’s the three scientist Hiroshi Amano, Shuji Nakamura and Isamu Akasaki succeeded in making a diode which could produce blue light.

This invention has proven to be crucial for the amount of LED lighting we make use of today. The vast majority of LED lighting we use is white and white LED lighting consists of diodes that produce blue light with a fluorescent layer that absorbs the the blue light and results in a beautiful, bright white light.

Because of the impact this invention has on the way we use lighting, the scientist got rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 2014.

One of the scientist, Shuji Nakamura, has worked at Nichia, the company that plays a huge role in the solutions BB-Lightconcepts provides regarding LED lighting.

Optimized LED lighting by BB Light Solutions

Knowing all of the benefits of LED lighting BB Light Solutions started working on the disadvantages to get a light solution for every situation.

Longer lifespan The fixtures of BB Light Solutions have a life span of more than 40.000 hours and an average downturn after 20.000 hours of only 10%.
Glare free
Advanced lighting via lens and foil techniques create a constant and even light distribution. This makes it impossible to look directly into the LEDs from any position and therefore eliminates glare. The BB lightpipe uses the patented 3M OLF film technology composed of micro- prisms to extract and spread light over the full length of the tube.

Beam Angle 
The even light distribution in combination with the 180° beaming angle results in the highly comfortable illumination. This contributes to a safe experience of the location.

External inFLuence
The Lightpipes of BB Light Solutions are completely dust- proof and water-resistant. Thanks to its shape and the material used (aluminium and poly- carbonate), the BB lightpipe EVO is very strong and extremely vandal-resistant. The impact-resistance is assessed for IK10+.

Different locations and situations ask for different solutions
There are several situations asking for a different solution. In order to be able to get the best solution to every situation we have developed multiple products.

BB Light Solutions

BB Light Solutions specializes in finding a led-light solution for your industry. We develop energy and cost saving LED-light solutions. Whether it’s in a tunnel, a warehouse or on an oil drilling platform. We got the right product for every situation and location.

For every problem, at any location we’ll find a solution with our energy and cost-saving LED-lights.

We would love to tell you more about passion we have for finding the right solution and the situations we were able to shine our lights on. Please make sure to frequently take a look on our website and follow us on LinkedIn. Feel free to ask us a question by leaving it in the comments on LinkedIn, sending us an e-mail or just give us a call.

The BB LEDlightpipe EVO is fitted in the swimming pool 'De hoge Devel' in Zwijndrecht, The Netherlands.

This project is the first swimming pool to be fitted with the BB LEDlightpipe. The fixture is fitted around the water at the edge of the pool to simplefy installation. This setup results in a very uniform average lightlevel of 300 lux. Al mounting materials are made of aluminium so no stainless steal is used.

The BB LEDlightpipe is very suited to mount in swimming pools thanks to its closed housing (IP66) and long lifetime. Maintenance cost is reduced to a minimum.

A DALI light sensor is used to compensate for the natural light entering by day to optimize energy consumption. With a remote controller the customer has the posibility the switch between several light scenes. This way the lighting can be adjusted to its usage accordingly. With a lower light level for recreation and a high light level for competion.

Three years after installation it’s time for the first maintenance interval in the Derivation tunnel in Liege.

In just three hours all 180 fixtures are cleaned and inspected for defects or flaws. A hard brush is used to remove spider webs. Water with some cleaning solution and a soft cloth where used to clean the tube from any dirt produced by exhaust pollution. No further problems were detected.

Also a light measurement has been executed to check the light depreciation. There was no noticeable aging of the LED’s detected, therefore there was no need to adjust the lumen output at this time.

The Derivation tunnel is a project of Techno Specials, the sales organisation of the BB LEDlightpipe in Belgium.

The road tunnel Blonden in Liege, Belgium, is completed and open to public. The tunnel is fitted with BB LEDlightpipe EVO fixtures in the central zone and BB LEDlightpipe HLO fixtures at the entrance zone.

The HLO is a high lumen output fixtures specially designed for use at the entrance zone of tunnels. By day a high light level is needed to make the transition from outside daylight to the inside of the tunnel more safe and comfortable.

The project is a coorperation of BB-Lightconcepts with Techno Specials.

At the Ikea Store in Delft the lighting of underground parking is completely renewed. The existing high fluorescent fixtures are removed and replaced by light lines with BB LEDlightpipe EVO. To optimize enrgy consumption several DALI fixtures are installed. With thes sensors the light is dimmed to 10% in each lane separately.

De light lines are fitted with Park Assist L3 modules. Park Assist is a camera-based park guidance system. The LED indicators on the modules colering red or green to indicate whether a parking space is free or occupied.

The newly build parking garage in the dunes in Katwijk, the Netherlands, is opened for the public. Kustwerk Katwijk is a unique project where the concrete construction of the parking is used as reinforcement of the current costal protection as well. The interior is polished and spacious and thus the city council of Katwijk wanted a high quality lighting product as well. In this project a combination of LED lighting and Park Assist is installed. The combined system reduces the need for cable trunks and thus reducing assembly costs. The Park Assist installation is a parking guidance system which points customers to the free parking spaces which reduces the search traffic.