LED Datasheets

How to Read LED Datasheets: the Parts Optical Engineers Care About for Illumination/Lighting Design

Simple breakdown of LED Datasheet terms important for LED lighting design.

To schedule a free consultation to discuss 🗣️👩‍💻👨‍💻🧑‍💻 what we can do in a contract to optimize YOUR non-imaging 💡 optical system,

click here!

0:01 | Part 1

• color: warm white, cool white, neutral white

• color temperature aka CCT aka K aka Kelvin

• flux values aka lumens

2:52  Part 2

• Why don’t you get lumens at 85° for all vendors?

• test current and forward voltage

• efficiency in lumens/Watt

5:45 | Part 3

• cautions about sorting LEDs by efficiency

• CRI (color rendering index) 🌈

• metamerism 🧡❤️♥️/♥️♥️♥️

8:33 | Part 4

• more on CRI 🌈and when it’s important for machine vision

• maximum current ⚡️rating and how NOT to use it

11:27 | Part 5

•Viewing Angle – is it what you assumed it is⁉️⁉️  Probably not! Plus —

•Beam Angle 📐

•FWHM

•Lambertian Distributions

•flux 🚿

•forward voltage ⚡️

•forward current

•maximum temperature 🤒

21:02 | Part 6

•Binning! 🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣

•Flux and chromaticity 🌈 bins, and

•Do white LEDs emit UV light? 🤔

30:30 | Part 7

•Do you know LEDs warm up 🔥when they’re on?

•Do you know what happens 🙀when they warm up?

40:05 | Part 8 

•Why size matters 🐘

•Most important data for optical engineers that’s not on the datasheet! 😲 — ray files !