LightNOW

Position Title: Electronics Engineer Lighting Products
Reports To: Engineering Manager
Department Name: Emergency Products
Subordinates: None
Classification: Exempt
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Position Summary
As a Design Engineer you will be driving innovative product design and responsible for the architecture and development of both LED and Emergency LED Drivers. In this role you will support new business development from concept investigation and design analysis to successful production release in a high volume manufacturing environment. Responsibilities include – design analysis, modeling & simulation, schematic/BOM creation, PCB layout, DFM, prototype development, test & validation, qualification, and Safety/Reliability certifications. Collaborates with engineers, technicians, production teams, program and functional management to estimate, track and schedule the design and manufacture of LED Driver products.

Tasks
* Collaborate with marketing and Engineering Management to develop detailed specifications that cover critical requirements
* Determine topology, magnetic requirements, and a block diagram outlining the functionality and technical requirements to meet product specifications.
* Understand compliance requirements (EMI, safety, etc.) and identify impacts to design
* Complete electrical design, schematic, BOM, magnetics, and PCB layout prerequisites.
* Create or supervise PCB designs; procure PCBs when complete.
* Partner with physical design
o Package constraints with mechanical concept and mounting features
o Determine PCB size constraints (X, Y, & Z) and mounting hole locations.
o Thermal design with heatsink and airflow requirements
o Review completed physical design and procure hardware when complete
* Coordinate purchase of components and create AVLs for new parts
* Direct the assembly and test of prototype magnetics and PCBs; integrate into physical design
* Define and direct characterization of completed prototype
* Incorporate required changes into design documentation
* Coordinate the construction of preproduction units with updated documentation
* Complete compliance requirements and testing (internal & external)
* Release final documents and test requirements
* Assist with production problems and update documentation as required.

Skills and Attributes
* A thorough understanding SMPS (switch mode power supply) topologies used in LED driver applications.
* Adept at high frequency magnetic design; transformers, inductors, and EMI filter components
* Experienced with the use of standard lab equipment; scopes, meters, spectrum analyzers, etc.
* Proficient in test and measurement techniques for and SMPS
* Troubleshooting abilities to locate problems and identify solutions of new designs and in production product.
* Functional understanding of heat flow and thermal design
* Communication abilities to understand and explain problems, findings, and resolutions
* Experience with regulatory agencies (i.e. UL, CSA, IEC, VDE, FCC, etc.)
* Proficient in PC applications; Excel, Word, Outlook, AutoCAD, and Altium Designer (PCBs)

Experience and Education
* Bachelor’s Degree
* Minimum 6 years’ experience in the engineering field of LED electronics

Physical Requirements
* Occasional lifting and carrying up to 25 lbs.
* Sitting for long periods of time
* Office environment
* Ability to drive to production facility for meetings, etc.

*Visit our website at www.iotaengineering.com
*Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis.

Have you registered for LEDucation 8 yet? This event will take place in New York City on March 18 and 19, 2014 in a new two-day expanded event at the Sheraton NY Times Square hotel.

The annual educational expo hosted by the Designers Lighting Forum of New York and is one of the industry’s longest-running events dedicated solely to LED Technology. It continues to gain a regular following each year and attracts record crowds of with an attendance of over 3,000 in 2013. All sessions are eligible for Continuing Education Units (CEU) and are scheduled in four different sessions each day for the total cost of $25 for access to all sessions on both days and the Trade Show Expo.

This special exposition is available for attendees to view the latest LED luminaires, controls and energy efficient designs and advancements from over 200+ leading LED manufacturers.

Click here to learn more and to register. I’ll be attending this year, so I hope to see you there!

LightVault 8 is Kim Lighting’s next generation of vandal-resistant outdoor in-grade spot, wall wash and narrow flood luminaires.

These luminaires, constructed with solid brass housings, emit up to 2,500 lumens from an LED light engine backed by thermal management enabling a life rating of 100,000 hours.

Flat lens, half shield, eyeball, rock guard and directional marker style housings available, as are optional hex louver, prism lens and spread lens filters.

Bluetooth connectivity enables remote aiming and dimming using a Bluetooth-enabled iOS or Android device, which allows the luminaire to remain completely sealed.

Royal Philips is piloting with retailers an intelligent lighting system that provides a personalized shopping experience. The system uses intelligent LED in-store lighting to communicate location-based information to shoppers via a smartphone app which they can opt to download. The lighting communicates with the app to send special offers and information to the shopper, relevant to their location in the store.

Philips’ connected retail lighting system will benefit shoppers by giving them greater personal control of their shopping experience. Retailers will benefit by building customer loyalty and sales by providing targeted information and discount coupons at their precise position in the store, when shoppers need it most and are most receptive. Retailers will also benefit from Philips’ energy efficient LED lighting which provides improved lighting levels and lower electricity bills.

The system works by using lighting fixtures that form a dense network that not only provide high quality light but also acts as a positioning grid. Each fixture is identifiable and able to communicate its position to an app on a shopper’s smart device. This enables the shopper to get information related to his position in the store as they move around the store and location-based services to be triggered. Communication with the smartphone is by Visual Light Communications.

If a shopper plans to make a Mexican meal for dinner, the app on their smart phone can serve as a “personal shopper.” It can point him or her to the aisle where they would find a jar of guacamole, or, if they preferred to make it fresh, plot a route through the aisles to the avocados, tomatoes, onions, chilies and limes. As the shopper approaches various products, the app could also introduce new brands available in the store or make suggestions for alternate recipes.

The Next Generation Luminaires Design Competition (NGLDC) recently announced the outdoor category winners for the 2013 competition.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Illuminating Engineering Society and the International Association of Lighting Designers, the NGLDC was created to recognize and promote excellence in commercial LED lighting products.

In 2012, the competition began evaluating indoor and outdoor products separately. The outdoor competition includes ten categories: roadway, walkway, streetscape, parking lot, canopy, parking garage, façade, landscape, decorative and wall-mounted area lighting.

In 2013, NGLDC evaluated 68 outdoor product entries from 41 manufacturers and recognized 26 as winners, meaning they met the competition’s performance criteria and the judges considered them worthy of specification. The judges evaluated the entries based on characteristics such as lighting quality, appearance, serviceability, efficacy and value.

Compared to previous years, the results show a marked improvement in overall performance, with efficacies continuing to climb. A record six winners from five different manufacturers were designated as Best in Class, meaning they stood out significantly above the other products:

• Juno Lighting Group for its PL2 Series bollard
• LED Roadway Lighting for its NXT-S local residential roadway luminaire
• Juno Lighting Group for its Finia building perimeter wallpack
• Cooper Lighting by Eaton for its McGraw-Edison Top Tier parking and area luminaire
• Cree for its CPY250 canopy luminaire
• Louis Poulsen Lighting for its LP ICON LED pedestrian walkway luminaire

NGLDC-recognized products provide a higher degree of confidence that they will provide desired performance in their intended applications, reducing risk in specifying LED technology and promoting use of quality products.

See all of the winners here.

I just received notification from NCQLP that my LC certification has been renewed.

Proud to be LC!

The IES is seeking experts to present at the 2014 Annual Conference located in Pittsburgh, PA. Individual presenters, groups and panels are all encouraged to submit topics that fit within the list of tracks: Art & Design; Science & Research; Education & Practice. Sessions will typically be 45 minutes in length with 15 minutes for Q&A.

To submit a presentation, click here.

LIGHTFAIR will return to New York City in 2015 after its east-coast event took place in Philadelphia in 2013 and 2011 while the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center underwent major renovations. The 26th annual LIGHTFAIR International event will be staged at the Javits May 3-7, 2015. The 2015 location decision resulted from the unanimous vote of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) and the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD). LIGHTFAIR will occupy exhibit halls on level three and level one.

Focal Point’s Nivo is a luminous and frameless 2×2 LED luminaire with surprising dimension. Whether flush with ceiling tiles or extended up to 7” into the room, Nivo uses the ceiling as a canvas to infuse texture, pattern and rhythm with light. Combine different diffuser depths, try a creative layout, or add bold dimension in any space. Square LED panels fill the Nivo housing, backlighting the frosted diffuser. LEDs are spaced to maximize the beauty of the lens without source image.

Learn more about Nivo here.

Republication of Postings from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solid-State Lighting Program

by Jim Brodrick, U.S. Department of Energy

Next to energy efficiency, long life is probably the most publicized of solid-state lighting’s (SSL) potential advantages, and plays a key role in any cost-benefit analysis. But understanding how LED lighting products fail, and communicating it effectively, aren’t easy matters — and are further complicated by the cost and impracticality of traditional life testing. The problem is laid out in a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SSL Technology Fact Sheet, Lifetime and Reliability, which summarizes what’s known about the topic, including typical causes of failure for LED lighting products, the difference between lifetime and reliability, and currently available methods for measuring and reporting a product’s lifetime.

Many folks are collaborating to better understand the issue of SSL lifetime — including an industry working group known as the LED Systems Reliability Consortium (LSRC), which is meeting this week at DOE’s 11th annual SSL R&D Workshop, in Tampa, FL. A spinoff of an earlier DOE working group that developed the report LED Luminaire Lifetime: Recommendations for Testing and Reporting, the LSRC recently completed a new study utilizing a highly accelerated life-test method — called the “hammer test” — intended to produce failures in SSL luminaires in a reasonable test period, with the goal of providing insight into potential failure modes. Entitled Hammer Testing Findings for Solid-State Lighting Luminaires, the new report was prepared for the LSRC by RTI International and is just the first step in the LSRC’s ongoing work on this important topic, which is helping to forge a common understanding and may influence future standards.

All lighting products eventually reach the end of their useful life. For conventional, lamp-based lighting systems, this most often occurs when the lamp burns out, which is why lifetime focus has traditionally been confined to the lamp itself. But LED lighting isn’t only lamp-based, and performance is affected by a host of system components, the failure of any of which — not just the LEDs, but also the electronics, thermal manage­ment, optics, wires, connectors, and seals — can lead to failure of the entire product. In addition to catastrophic failure (i.e., total burnout), there’s also the type of failure that can occur when the light produced is unacceptable in quantity (lumen maintenance) or quality, due to degradation or shift in luminous flux, luminous intensity distribution, color temperature, color rendering, or efficacy.

Among the components that can cause failure in an LED lighting system, most of the attention has focused on the LED packages, which rarely fail catastrophically. Of the various other failure causes, lumen depreciation has received the most attention and is often used as a proxy for LED lamp or luminaire lifetime ratings, even though — for the reasons just stated — it’s not an accurate proxy. The most widely used criterion for lumen maintenance failure is when a product reaches “L70″ — that is, when its light output has dropped to 70 percent of what it was when the product was new. Because failures among a set of installed products don’t all occur at once, lumen maintenance ratings are usually based on the time at which 50 percent of a sampling of products have reached L70 — a point denoted as “L70-B50.”

But depending on the application, L70 may be too much — or too little — lumen depreciation. And there are other ways to convey lumen maintenance performance, such as identifying the expected lumen maintenance at a fixed time interval (e.g., 25,000 hours) — which may allow for more-effective comparisons between products, especially when the calculated L70 value exceeds the intended product-use cycle or the anticipated lifetime of another system component.

In the recent hammer test, commercial indoor SSL luminaires were subjected to extreme environmental stressors, including temperature cycling, temperature and humidity soak, and high-temperature bake, with power cycled to provide electrical stress as well. All of the luminaires survived more than 100 cycles of temperature shock (-50º C to 125º C), and nearly half survived more than 300 cycles. The failures that were observed typically occurred in the driver circuit, with board-level failures being most common. The 611 LEDs in these luminaires endured nearly 1 million LED-hours of cumulative exposure to the hammer test, with only four failures — two of which were attributed to solder-joint fatigue, and the other two to board-level corrosion.

The findings reinforce the belief that LEDs in lighting systems are highly reliable, even under extreme conditions, and indicate that other luminaire components are more likely to fail first. While the results suggest that SSL luminaires will have a low probability of random failure in the field during normal use, additional work is needed to determine actual wear-out mechanisms, quantify failure modes, and determine acceleration factors, in order to provide estimates of lifetime and reliability in normal operation.

Users may eventually be able to determine the best balance between lifetime, reliability, serviceability, warranty, sustainability, and cost for the lighting application in question. Typically, long life comes at a cost, but its advantages may not be realized if the expected use cycle is less than the lifetime. For example, a building scheduled to be renovated in the next 15 years may not benefit from lighting products with a 30-year lifetime. Instead, it may be better to use a less-expensive product that has a shorter useful life but higher reliability. On the other hand, shorter-lived products generate more waste and compromise sustainability goals.

As the technology matures, the dependence of LED package performance on other components will continue to require that discussions about lifetime be focused at the luminaire level, as lamp performance in different luminaires can vary. Innovative luminaire designs and control strategies — such as variable drive products that maintain lumen output — will further complicate lifetime measurement and reporting. As with many other performance attributes, LEDs have the potential to surpass conventional lighting for longevity — as shown by the negligible changes observed in lumen maintenance and color in the L Prize®-winning product after 25,000 hours of testing. But choosing the right product requires some understanding of expected failure mechanisms, lifetime, reliability, and serviceability, as well as asking the right application-specific questions.