There are a few folks who are going to hate this post, and I sympathize with them. But, it’s time we stop skirting around what we all know. Lighting needs to be elevated as a profession, and I believe licensure is key to that.
Professional Licensure is a Necessity for Credibility
Architecture, Structural, Civil, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering are licensed professionals, as these practices have the potential for causing harm to human occupants, the environment, and their clients. These professions operate under the guidance and direction of code authorities, and best practices, which establish the foundation for safety, security, and asset protection.
General contractors, and most sub contractors are licenced practitioners. All must pass qualifications of time (including apprenticeship) and academic knowledge.
After several decades involvement in product design and development, I’ve accumulated a few basic ideas I believe are useful for small product manufacturer businesses looking to build NPD into a driver for future growth. I pulled together 33 thoughts, updated and collected into a small book for anyone interested. Each topic is described in less than 400 words to provide the reader insight without getting too deep into the academics of each one.
The Great Blue Light Panic Keeping Some Folks Awake
If you read alarmist comments on the inter-webs about the dreaded “Blue Light Hazard”, you may come away thinking that your TV, tablet, phone, and LED bedside lights are depriving you of sleep. Yes, the spectral power content, including blue light, can produce amplified melatonin suppression that can indeed disrupt your ability to fall asleep. And, yes, LED lights and many LED based displays do produce blue light at the wavelengths of greatest concern. We’ve been all over this, and there have been thousands of other discussions on this everywhere, including in mainstream media – which for the most part get it all wrong. Continue reading “Bedroom Lighting for that Restful Sleep”
This is my last bit of housecleaning from blogs being shut down, for the archives. KLW
This fixture is my very first LED light. It started life to be a halogen fixture in 2004, that sat on a workbench waiting completion. The first head got so hot from the 50W 12V light source, it was dangerous, so it sat as I decided what to do with it.
In 2005, as LEDs became viable for lighting, I pondered using them to replace the halogen source, but they delivered so little light, the end product was useless as a desk lamp, so it sat some more. One idea was to insert a Lamina BL3000 LED into the head, but the driver was huge, the light output too little, and the heat still an issue.
Then, in early 2006, while at Visa Lighting, Don Brandt (an engineer working with me at Visa, formerly from Emteq, now working at Cree I believe) were talking through ways of applying the latest mid-power LEDs using a simple PCB. We decided to give it a shot and built a board populated by a vendor with 8 Nichia LEDs. The inspiration struck to power these LEDs with two Xitanium drivers, which at the time were un-potted prototypes, so cutting them out of their housing to be installed in clear tubes to show their interiors off was easy enough. Two push-button switches activated the drivers for a high-low effect, and a heat sink was made up of a machined aluminum block installed in the head where the original halogen lamp and reflector once lived. More details and images of this can be found on the Lumenique archives for the Ratchet fixture.
The fixture itself is made of welded steel structure with a brass head and fiberglass tension springs. The head can be raised an lowered with a ratcheting action, staying level at any height. In the end, I left this fixture with the owner of the Oldenburg Group (owner of Visa Lighting) as a parting gift as I moved on to focus on Lumenique and SSL exclusively.
