Importance of Color Rendering in LED Lighting

Color rendering has been another significant improvement area for LED lighting in recent years, besides lighting efficacy. The higher the color rendering performance, the closer the objects appear to be as they should look under the sun. As a LED lighting solution provider, we enjoyed the benefits of these improvements, which helped us develop quality LED lighting solutions with our control much more accessible. Here, we can find the same subjects that different LED lights have illuminated with other CRI parameters; it's easy to see the LED light source on the left has a much higher CRI than the typical LED light source.

LED Dimmable and Tunable Fixtures

After developing our various dimmer and dynamic lighting controller, we worked on dimmable and tunable lighting fixtures to support customers with associated portfolios for different applications. Since many dimmable LED lighting fixtures are already on the market, our design focus remains on Tunable White lighting fixtures to support our Dynamic Lighting solutions. However, from daily customer communications and project experiences, we have some comments on dimmable lighting fixtures for customers' reference.

Notes with LED Dimming Applications

Dimmable projects require more attention to detail than non-dimmable applications. (Right) As shown here, the apparent difference in dimming performance with the same downlight shows that not all dimmers are alike! This simple example does not only illustrate the importance of a single product, but also the importance of a dimming solution.

Customers should note that leading and trailing-edge phase-cut methodologies are mutually exclusive with phase dimming. Since not all dimmable drivers necessarily support both types of dimming, a typical conflict is wrongly using a trailing-edge LED dimmer with a leading-edge-only LED dimmable lamp or driver.

As a result of the improper matching of the devices, strange circuit behaviors would be encountered. Therefore, customers should thoroughly test the product compatibility before installation to ensure proper understanding and expectations.

Internal LED Drivers

Standard LED light bulbs typically have the same form factor with the traditional halogen lights, such as, MR16 (GU5.3), AR111, GU10, E27, or PAR30, etc. These dimmable lamps require our phase-cut dimmers for dimming.
Customers must first note that the light bulb must support dimmable functionality when purchasing products. Otherwise, we won't achieve the desired dimming performance even after connecting the lamps with the dimmer. It's not clear about the dimming performance by simply reading the short description. Good dimming performance requires proper matching of the dimmer control and the lamps, which is the product compatibility, as we frequently mention.

When customers choose the light bulbs, they may consider the dimming depth, phase-cut compatibility, whether or not the compatibility would shorten the product’s lifespan, etc. They may also need to know the minimum number and the maximum number of bulbs per dimmer.

In our experience, a single DZ3G450DIAL can quickly dim 10 to 12 dimmable 7.5W GU10 LED lamps. Interested customers may also review our notes on things to watch on dimmable applications in the Support section.

External LED Drivers

We can classify LED bulbs mentioned above (or track lights for the same principle) as lighting fixtures with integral LED drivers. Because the drivers are intact, we cannot change a non-dimmable LED bulb to a dimmable LED bulb at the finished product level. Hence, we suggest customers check out the above details of the compatibility with unmet dimmable lamps. In other words, if you need a dimming function, you shall raise it out to the supplier early in the product selection stage.

On the other hand, for fixtures with external LED drivers, such as downlights and panel lights, we can change the function by selecting a suitable dimmable driver to replace the non-dimmable version. Customers who have already chosen their fixtures and are interested in dimming the lights can provide the relevant electrical specification of the light or the LED driver info at the minimum to us so that we comment further.

Please refer to our discussion on selecting LED dimmable drivers to match a LED downlight for customers interested in selecting dimmable drivers for LED lights to get a head start. Customers can refer to these phase dimmable driver brochures (Fixed Current Output, Selectable Constant Current Output) for more ideas. As for 1-10V dimmable fixtures, the application is relatively straightforward, and Electricians should pay attention to the wiring in the field.