Lights

Pendant lighting is a method of hanging lights. Pendant lights usually hang from the ceiling. This can be achieved using a rope or a chain. In some cases, the lights are hung using more than one rope or chain. They can be three ropes. This types of lights are known as pendant lights because they hand like necklace pendants. More than often, pendant lights are confused with chandeliers. The difference between pendant lights and chandeliers is that chandeliers include several bulbs on a single fixture. On the other hand, pendant lights feature a single light on a fixture. Here, we look at the basics of pendant lights.

How to use pendant lights in your home

There are numerous ways of using this type of light in your home. Some of these ways include:

1. General lighting

Pendant lights can get applied as general lighting. Here, they are used to provide light in an entire room. There is no limit to which room you can have pendant lights installed. You can go as far as to use the lights as porch lights or other outdoor applications.

2. Hallway lighting

You can also use pendant lights in specific areas of the house, like hallways and stairways. Here, the lights can light up the narrow spaces. You can also use them to highlight your photos and paintings installed on the hallways.

3. Decorative lighting

Pendant lights also have an appealing quality to them. Therefore, you can use them for decorative purposes like lighting up or highlighting a fountain.

4. Styles of pendant lighting

This type of lighting’s basic style or principle is that it hangs from the ceiling and features a single bulb on a fixture. However, pendant lights come in a wide range of styles. The styles can be categorized into the following;

5. Shapes

Pendant lighting can be categorized depending on the shape. The lights come in a wide array of shapes that you can choose from according to your taste. The most common shapes are rectangles, domes, and globes.

6. Materials

Pendant lighting can also be categorized based on the material. The most common materials for pendant lights are glass, plastic, and paper. The material used to make the pendant lights affect its qualities. These qualities include its durability, ambiance, and aesthetic appeal. Glass pendants are the most popular option.

Advantages of pendant lighting

Below are the primary benefits of this form of lighting;

1. They can act as spotlights

Pendant lighting can be applied as spotlighting. This is because they project light on a single spot. Therefore, you can use the lights to emphasize a single element like a painting, sculpture, or household decoration.

2. They do not consume floor space

Since they hang from the ceiling, they do not consume any floor space. This means that you do not have to worry about walking into the lights or breaking them.

3. They are attractive

These lights, especially glass pendant lights, have quite the aesthetic appeal.

Conclusion

Pendant lighting can be applied at home, in the office, or a business structure. Small businesses and offices use these lights to provide lighting and transform the mood of their facilities.

A power cord is an electrical cable used to connect appliances to the main power supply temporarily. Different power cords are designed to handle various applications like LED Power Cord Pack for neon lights. Regardless of their applications, below is a guide to selecting a power cord 

Factors to consider when selecting a power cord

Below are some of the main elements you ought to consider when selecting the best power cord;

1. Ease of use

Perhaps an essential element to consider when shopping for a power cord pack is how easy it is to use. Most of these cords come with an instruction manual. The instruction can either be in the form of a video or a book. It guides how to apply the device and connect it with appliances. However, the best power cord packs do not require any form of assistance. This means that you will not need to hire a professional to assist with the mastery of its use or have a hard time going through the manual.

2. Quality

Another significant factor to consider when shopping for a power cord pack is quality. You want to go for a high-quality product that you will not worry about replacing after a short while. The best power cord should be a good electricity conductor. It should also be lightweight and made from the best materials possible. These features will influence its functionality, safety, and life span. These power cords are applied in electrical situations means you have to be keen when choosing them because low-quality products can be hazardous. Additionally, choosing a high-quality product will help eliminate issues like overheating, resulting in dangerous conditions.

3. Usability

You also need to bear in mind the application of the power cord. Each cord is designed for a particular purpose. For instance, if you are looking to use the power cord for LED neon lights, then the best choice would be specifically designed for this purpose. Note, different power cords are applied for various applications because they differ in length, voltage acceptability, and quality. However, there are a few universal power cords that can be used for a variety of applications.

When choosing the best power cord for a particular application, you can also use the color as a determining element. If you are looking to use the power cord in a place with high traffic, then a brightly colored one would be the best choice. This color will help prevent accidents like tripping by making the cord easy to see. Another advantage of highly-colored power cords is that they do not get lost in tangled cords in areas like work sites.

4. Price

Like with any other product or service, price is also an essential factor to consider. There are so many power cord options on the market. High-quality products often feature higher prices. However, you can always find a product at your price range if you shop extensively.

Conclusion

Other less significant factors to consider when choosing a power cord pack include the length and thickness. Thinner products often suffer from issues like overheating. However, very thick ones are also not the best option. Regarding the length, you should consider one ideal for the application of the cord.

Firefly LED Lighting is excited to participate in the 2012 Modern Home Tour, Austin this Saturday, February 4th.

Firefly LED will showcase a full-residential retrofit application of our best-of-market, custom LED lighting solution at the Harkrider House, 1 of 16 modern designs featured on the tour. Additionally, Firefly will begin marketing its lighting solutions directly to consumers by way of a newly minted relationship with TreeHouse™, the smart building, better living home improvement store and sponsor of the Modern Home Tour.

Be on the lookout for Team Firefly on the tour. The Firefly Team will be on hand at both the Harkrider House and the Specht Harpman House showcasing Firefly’s lighting installation and to answer questions and survey tour attendees.

Steve will be out and about and intends visit every design on the tour:

“Residential, commercial and institutional lighting is the biggest opportunity to customize an interior experience, reduce carbon footprint, save money and create jobs. In the case of Firefly LED Lighting we’ve created products that will last 20 years or more. Our LED products’ modular retrofit design have varying lens and color temperatures; experiencing the architects’ designs and the space, first hand, gets our wheels turning to create new plug-and-play applications without having to develop new technology from scratch. Saturday is a real collaboration. It’s high time we get the message out and put a dent in the universe.”

Don’t hesitate to say hello.

Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door and will get you into not only the 16 properties on the tour but also access to the Modern Home Tour After Party and Architect Panel at TreeHouse from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

LED Lighting

LEDs save energy and last longer, reducing energy and maintenance costs and paying for themselves within a year. LEDs reduce annual lighting costs for a family of four by $500, or for a medium-large U.S. city by $500,000.

Incandescent light bulbs pass an electric current through a metal filament, heating it to the point where it glows. This is inexpensive to produce and provides great usage flexibility (reduce the current to reduce the light), but expensive to operate as so much energy is lost to heat. Fluorescent lamps pass electricity through mercury vapor, emitting ultraviolet light which is then absorbed by phosphor, causing it to glow. Though this uses less energy, it presents the environmental hazard of mercury poisoning for broken and discarded lamps, and is far less flexible in its usability.

LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes) are semiconductors, using a phenomenon called electroluminescence to produce light. Though LEDs are small, only a tiny amount of energy is needed to produce the effect, so LED lamps combine dozens or hundreds of LEDs in one casing to produce general-use lighting. This process produces the dimming flexibility of incandescent lights with the energy-saving capabilities of fluorescents, but with a longer life and no environmental hazards.

Save upfront money, reduce long term costs

LEDs provide an environmentally sound, recyclable, reusable, low energy lighting solution to another lighting. They are mercury-free, and since they use less energy, they reduce power plant loads and pollution. Converting the entire State of Texas to Firefly LEDs will save 1,744 Gigawatt-hours of energy and 1.25 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the course of a year, a 100 watt bulb used, for 4 hours a day will produce 200 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Multiply that by every light in the home, and the pollution adds up quickly. Every person, who converts his home to Firefly LEDs, saves 2 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. If the entire country converted to LEDs, it would save over 650 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year. The country wouldn’t need to build a new power plant for another 22 years.

While fluorescent lights have similar energy-saving properties, they produce a major environmental concern. Due to fluorescents working by passing electricity through mercury vapor, they contain mercury, lead, and other toxic compounds, that can pollute our water and our air if not disposed of properly—which most aren’t.

LED lights are lead and mercury free, making them completely safe to use and dispose of eliminating any concerns for toxic air or water pollution. They are also completely recyclable. When they do finally fade, you can replace the LEDs and drivers and reuse the retrofit heat sink, saving precious landfill space.

So, although LEDs can come in any color, it’s clear that they are the “green” choice

LED lighting systems use up to 90% less electricity than standard lighting products. It is the most cost effective and energy efficient lighting on the market.

The benefits of LEDs are:

• High Efficiency: These products direct the light in a very specific way, ensuring there is no wasted light onto ceilings and walls where it is not required.

• Extremely Vibration Resistant and Robust: LEDs are a solid state device which means the light component is encapsulated within a resin substance. Because of this, they can withstand extreme vibration when they are in use, unlike filament lamps that when heated, become extremely vulnerable to damage if shaken.
• Long Lamp Life: Due to the inherent nature of LED lighting products, they have a lamp life of around 50,000 hours. This is 20 times the life span of an incandescent lamp, 12 times the life span of a halogen lamp and 3 times the life span of fluorescent lamp.
• Low Power Consumption: LED’s are a very energy efficient lighting option because they utilize the input power more efficiently to generate light rather than light created by heat. This allows LED lighting products to produce a much higher lumen output per watt.
• Low Maintenance and Lamp Replacement: As LED lighting products have a long life span there is little need to replace them as often, therefore saving on maintenance costs.
• Reduced Carbon Footprint: LED Lights consume up to 90% less power than other lighting methods. This has a significantly positive effect on carbon emissions, helping to make a more sustainable future for generations to come.
• Low Heat Generation: Standard lighting products generate a substantial heat, usually around 200 degrees C, making it a dangerous option when used around flammable materials, which is why fires caused by halogen down lights in homes are not uncommon. LED lights generate very little heat; therefore the risk of fire is virtually nonexistent. In fact, you can comfortably hold your hand on an LED fitting, even after it has been running for several hours. Try doing that with a halogen lamp even after 1 minute!!!
• Environmentally Safe: LED lights contain no harmful substances such as Mercury, which is found in all fluorescent lamp products, therefore making it the safer option for your family and our environment.

The easiest Rubik’s Cube solution is available here in many languages. Learn it in an hour to impress your friends.

LED, (light emitting diode), lighting has been recognized as a high efficiency, long lasting light source with incredible visual impact. Initially associated with electronic gadgets, circuit boards, and flashlights, LED solid state lighting technology has  been applied to the commercial lighting industry with some very promising results.

Because of LED lighting’s visual impact, high-efficiency performance and long-lasting attributes, LED lighting has successfully replaced conventional lighting technology in several commercial lighting applications with significant savings in energy costs.

These commercial LED lighting applications, include:

• LAX Gateway at Los Angeles International Airport have replaced metal halide with an LED system, where they anticipate 75% less energy consumption, but demonstrate a dramatic visual effect, (as shown on left.)

• Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas replaced metal halide with an LED system, cutting annual energy costs from $18,000 to $1,900.

• The British Airways London Eye replaced fluorescent with an LED system, eliminating former maintenance costs and requirements while gaining the ability to produce color light and programmable effects, (shown here on right.) 

• Bostonian shoe stores in the US replaced fluorescent with an LED system, mitigating the need for frequent and costly lamp replacement, while also gaining the ability to easily adjust from “warm” to “cool” white light in its display shelves.

LED lighting clearly offers an eco-friendly alternative to energy-wasting conventional lighting. Because of this efficiency it is predicted that in the next 20 years LED lighting will replace almost all of conventional commercial lighting systems .

The advantages of LED solid state lighting technology continue to prevail: 

• LEDs produce more light per watt than incandescent bulbs; this is useful in battery powered or energy-saving devices. LEDs can emit light of an intended color without the use of color filters that traditional lighting methods require. The color of the light simply depends on the composition and condition of the semiconducting material used, and can be infrared, visible, or ultraviolet. This is a much more efficient method to produce color lighting effects and can lower initial costs.

• The solid package of the LED can be designed to focus its light. Incandescent and fluorescent sources often require an external reflector to collect light and direct it in a usable manner.

• When used in applications where dimming is required, LEDs do not change their color tint as the current passing through them is lowered, unlike incandescent lamps, which turn yellow.

• LEDs are ideal for use in applications that are subject to frequent on-off cycling, unlike fluorescent lamps that burn out more quickly when cycled frequently, or HID lamps that require a long time before restarting.

• LEDs, being solid state components, are difficult to damage with external shock. Fluorescent and incandescent bulbs are easily broken if dropped on the ground.

• LEDs can have a relatively long useful life. One report estimates 35,000 to 50,000 hours of useful life, though time to complete failure may be longer. Fluorescent tubes typically are rated at about 30,000 hours, and incandescent light bulbs at 1,000–2,000 hours.

• LEDs mostly fail by dimming over time, rather than the abrupt burn-out of incandescent bulbs.

• LEDs light up very quickly. A typical red indicator LED will achieve full brightness in microseconds; Philips Lumileds technical datasheet DS23 for the Luxeon Star states “less than 100ns.” LEDs used in communications devices can have even faster response times.

• LEDs can be very small and are easily populated onto printed circuit boards.

• LEDs do not contain mercury, unlike compact fluorescent lamps.