LED Lighting Standardization
Everyone who uses a light source is interested in how long they will last. For most traditional lighting products, the manufacturers provide information on “rated life.” Rated life tells the user how long the products will last. For conventional lighting products, (incandescent, fluorescent or high intensity discharge lamps), the rated life often refers to the lamp life. The general definition of rated life is, “The period for which an appliance, equipment, or machine is stated to last by its manufacturer under specified conditions of use.” Life of a lamp can also be expressed as the average rated life, also referred to in the industry as B50, which indicates the hours it takes to when 50 percent of the lamp sample in a test group fail during a life test. While B50 is the most common expression of lamp life, more stringent lamp rated life characteristics such as B10 and B3 are used in different applications. B10 and B3 correspond to the hours it takes when 10 percent or 3 percent of t...