LEDFlashlightWhitePaper-HDSSystems.pdfVIP

LED Flashlight White Paper By Henry Schneiker www.HdsS September 17, 2004, updated August 2011 Copyright 2004 - 2011 - all rights reserved A ?ashlight (headlamp, torch) designed around an LED can offer signi?cant advantages over the same ?ashlight designed around an incandescent light bulb or other light emitting device. In this paper, I will cover the luminous, electrical, thermal, optical , mechanical and interface aspects of ?ashlight design as they pertain to LEDs as well as how the human visual system adapts to different lighting conditions. Although certain aspects of this paper are somewhat technical, even the non-technical person will be able to gain a better understanding of the issues and trade-offs involved in designing an LED ?ashlight. By necessity, this paper talks about speci?c devices. However, I do not mention any manufacturers or part numbers because that information is not important to the points being discussed. As with any project, you should ?t your design to the actual parts being used - taking advantage of their capabilities and being careful of their limitations. The LED LED stands for Light Emitting Diode. A diode is a device that passes current in the forward direction while blocking it in the reverse direction. When you pass current through an LED in the forward direction, the LED emits light. The color of the emitted light depends on the material and construction of the diode. The amount of light varies roughly linearly with the amount of current passing through the LED, which provides us a convenient way to ef?ciently change the light output. LEDs are solid state devices and therefore quite reliable. Mean time to failure is often listed at over 100,000 hours of operation under speci?ed conditions. LEDs are far more reliable than the ubiquitous incandescent light that you normally ?nd in a ?ashlight. LEDs can also tolerate much higher shock and vibration loads than other common light sources including incandescent lights, ?orescent light