Author Topic: Overrated LEDs or not ?  (Read 2185 times)
Ash
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Overrated LEDs or not ? « on: August 20, 2013, 05:00:09 PM » Author: Ash
This came up in a discussion in an Israeli computers forum

A user wants to make some LED setup, nothing fancy, just white LED on resistor poweed from a computer power supply....

Well he bought some of those :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-PCS-10mm-40-1W-Watt-White-LED-300mA-390-000mcd-NEW-/370399364152?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item563d85c438
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-10PCS-10MM-1W-40-White-LED-390-000mcd-HOT-/290594253149?pt=FR_JG_Auto_Tuning&hash=item43a8c4695d

At 350mA they are really bright and seem to work

At 500mA (resistor miscalculation...) left for the night, this was found in the morning :
http://s16.postimg.org/5r08wfjjp/hwsend3.png



They dont look to me at all like 1W capable LEDs. Maybe half that if they are soldered flat (with the wide tabs) into a multilayer PCB with large soldering pads acting as heatsinks. I would not go above 200-300mW with them when connected as is without special heatsinking provisions....

Your thoughts ?
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jrmcferren
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Re: Overrated LEDs or not ? « Reply #1 on: August 20, 2013, 05:24:58 PM » Author: jrmcferren
At 1 watt I would be surprised if these lasted an hour. Keep the current between 10 and 30 ma.
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Ash
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Re: Overrated LEDs or not ? « Reply #2 on: August 20, 2013, 10:25:32 PM » Author: Ash
Those are big 10mm LEDs, presumably with more powerful chip so i would expect them to do significantly more than plain 5mm LEDs. Question is, how much more ?
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jrmcferren
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Re: Overrated LEDs or not ? « Reply #3 on: August 20, 2013, 10:29:24 PM » Author: jrmcferren
Those are big 10mm LEDs, presumably with more powerful chip so i would expect them to do significantly more than plain 5mm LEDs. Question is, how much more ?

Not much if any. Most LEDs between 1mm and 10mm are rated for the same current. The limitation is heat dissipation from these. At rated current heat is minimal from the diode. I have a 10mm LED that is rated for 30ma absolute maximum (datasheet printed on the package).
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Medved
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Re: Overrated LEDs or not ? « Reply #4 on: August 21, 2013, 05:36:35 AM » Author: Medved
The 1Wis an Absolute Maximum limit, not the operational condition rating. These could handle the 1W, but only when you keep the wide metal flanges at 25degC. Well, pretty hypothetical scenario, but that is how the Absolute Maximum ratings are defined: "Prolonged stress to values listed in the Absolute Maximum Rating may affect the device reliability".

So using any device on it's AbsMax rating mean very bad design, it would die very soon, the AbsMAx rating is meant to give a clue, what the device would not withstand even in a short time overload.

In any case, the wider flange should be well thermally connected to a heatsing, designed for larger copper area for each LED on a thick copper layer (at least 4oz) PCB.
And with that, the maximum practical loading would be about 0.5W (the ambient temperature around the LED would by far not be 25degC, you need a margin for overshoots,...).
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Ash
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Re: Overrated LEDs or not ? « Reply #5 on: August 21, 2013, 04:02:00 PM » Author: Ash
I dont think the 1w is anything but a marketing figure. When searching Ebay for 0.5w LEDs you find a lot more identically looking ones - so all my guess is that they sell a LED with 0.5w abslute maximum as 1.0W LED for profit....

But even then something does not look right to me with that "0.5w" LEDs. They are rated for If 100mA. Vf is 3.4 as usual. So they really are 0.34w LEDs not 0.5....

So this LED i marketed as 3 times its real power capability

Now that is the power that it would probably hold with heatsinking applied. But how much can be expected from it with n heatsinking ? My guess is about 200mW, yours ?

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Medved
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Re: Overrated LEDs or not ? « Reply #6 on: August 22, 2013, 02:39:08 AM » Author: Medved
The 1W could be the correct AbsMax rating. It is a 100mm device with proportionally sized heat sink connections as the similar looking 5mm "0.5W" ones.
The LED marketing very frequently incorrectly use the AbsoluteMaximum rating as the operation characteristics, part of it is the fact,, that these AbsMAx are the only place in the datasheet, where you find the values like power and/or current figures.
The same way the fact, the lumen output is rated at given current does not mean such current is safe for long term use.

Because there are other figues as well, like maximum junction temperature, reliability data, thermal property parameters (thermal resistances from the virtual junction,...) and so on. So when you design something, your duty is to verify, than no single value listed in the limitting value list is exceeded even for very short time, including any possible component tolerance and external condition variations and the device operate under such condition, the reliability would be acceptable (life, degradation, failure rate,...).

This is the way, how such data are published in the complete electronic industry (rating for short term peaks, lifetime data for failure rate in ppm, parameter tolerances,...)
Tt differ from what the lighting industry use to publish (nominal voltage, median lifetime, no ratoing for excessive conditions at all, no tolerance figures,...).

The reason is, than the exact current/power the device could handle very strongly depend on the actual fixture design, so you can not put them into the datasheet (datasheet values should reflect only the component, nothing else, otherwise the document become an unusable mess). So it is the role of the product design engineer to evaluate the safe levels.

Here is, in very shortened and simplified form, how to ensure you won't overload the led's:
Get the figure of thermal resistance (Rthjc) between the junction and the cooling lung attachement point from the datasheet and the maximum operational (not abs-max; if not specified, it is AbsMax-25degC) junction temperature (Tjmax).
Now you should establish a maximum expected temperature on the cooling lungs (Tcmax; it is an initial guess, it would be subject of optimization later on). It would be quite above the ambient, ~80..90degC would be the first guess I would use on a simple PCB design
Now you could calculate the maximum power the LED could handle: Pmax=(Tjmax-Tcmax)/Rth
Now you compare it with the AbsMax power rating, of course the maximum load value you need would be the lower one from these two, but you will see, than usually the Pmax you have calculated would already be not much more than half of the AbsMax rating.
Then you should assemble one prototype and drive it in the calculated manner. During that you should monitor the temperature of the LED luing and other critical points (tabs of power transistors, transformers, all the components where you expect the heat to be generated,...). Make sure the enclosures are closed as they would be in normal operation, as they affect the cooling.
Now measure the margin, how far you are from the Tcmax on each of the ctritical component (the Tcmax is individually obtained for each one, in a similar way as for the LED's).
Add this difference to the actual room temperature and so you would get the maximum ambient temperature to operate this. My guess, you won't end up much above 30..40degC...
If this is too low, either improve the heatsink, or select higher value of the Tcmax and reduce the drive accordingly.

Now if you fit the AbsMax power rating figures into these equations, you end up (again my guess) in maximum ambient temperature around -20..-30degC... Well, pretty cold limit for the upper temperature limit...

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