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Lighting Focus: New Lighting Technologies
LIFI plasma lamps and LEDs are changing the landscape of theatrical and broadcast
I initially saw the LIFI Solid-State Plasma lamp from Luxim Corp at Lightfair in 2008 when Luxim was showing it for projector applications. The product is now crossing over to the entertainment market through some alliances with entertainment lighting manufacturers.
Many people encountered the LIFI when SeaChanger launched its Nemo color-changing ellipsoidal with the LIFI plasma lamp at last year’s LDI tradeshow. Recently, the automated lighting manufacturer Robe introduced the Robin 300 Plasma Spot, a moving head spot luminaire that uses the LIFI technology. These are just the tip of the iceberg and I think that you will be seeing a lot more products using this pretty remarkable light engine. You will definitely be hearing a lot more about this lamp in the weeks and months to come if you haven’t already.
LIFI is a solid-state light source that is not a light emitting diode (LED) and has no electrodes like a metal halide or discharge lamp. It is a high-intensity light source that brings energy efficiency, long useful life, full spectrum light and is dimmable from 20 to 100%.
This tiny light source—the lamp itself is about the size of a Tic Tac—has a nominal power draw of 266W, yet outputs up to 17,800 lumens with a color-rendering index (CRI) of 94 (out of 100) and a rated average life of 10,000 hours. The lumen output will be reduced once the lamp is inside the lighting fixture; typically the final lumen output is at 10,000 lumens.
“The LIFI-ENT-31-02 allows fixture manufacturers to replace short- and medium-arc-length HID lamps in 400 to 575W categories,” explains Apurba Pradhan, senior technical marketing engineer with Luxim. “In this wattage category, we are engaged with several manufacturers that typically use HTI or MSD lamps.” Since heat is directly related to the wattage, the LIFI plasma lamp produces about the same heat per watt as standard discharge lamps, however since it is using less wattage per lumen it does run cooler to achieve the same lumen output. There are fins on the emitter housing to help shed the heat away from the electronics.”
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Michael S. Eddy writes about design and technology. He can be reached at mseddy2900@hotmail.com. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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