Custom LED Lighting Design
Companies of various sizes employ electrical engineers, who they rely on heavily for their engineering needs. Although extremely educated, many electrical design engineers lack familiarity with numerous aspects of the custom LED lighting industry. The reason is obviously that the industry is in its infancy, and continues to evolve at a high-speed pace. Lunar Accents Design Corporation employs a team of professionals who are dedicated strictly to new technologies offered by the custom LED lighting industry. We can provide a level of engineering service incomparable to most competition. Our team strives to stay ahead of an evolving industry, and possess the knowledge and resources necessary to employ the newest lighting technologies in real-world lighting applications. Throughout the engineering process, Lunar Accents Design Corporation addresses many essential aspects of custom LED boards. This process contributes to a proficient design routine and ensures the completed product operates according to specification.
LED Circuits Design
Lunar Accents Design Corporation offers circuit design on various platforms. Our design engineers specialize in the various aspects of LED related circuitry. Our engineering team can develop and incorporate LED circuitry on system or component levels. Many LED lighting applications require custom designed control, driver circuitry, or LED boards. Reprogrammable control circuitry offers the flexibility to perform numerous product revisions while eliminating expensive hardware revisions. To achieve this capability, the circuitry may incorporate a PIC microcontroller or similar device. The microcontroller allows engineers to manipulate software anytime product revisions become necessary. Control circuitry may range in function, and can perform a preprogrammed routine or rely on sensory inputs for instruction. While control circuitry takes responsibility for logic related tasks, the LED driver circuitry supplies LEDs with the proper voltages and currents. Depending on the specifics of an application, the engineer may incorporate any of the various topologies commonly employed in LED driver circuitry. Among these include the buck, boost, buck-boost, and charge pumps.
The boost, buck-boost, and charge pumps can actually generate an output voltage higher than the original source voltage. Efficiency will generally vary between 60% and 90%. Buck, boost, and charge pumps topologies are generally more complex, and can increase material costs significantly in most LED circuits. Other LED applications may utilize pulse driving, pulse width modulation (PWM), or constant current sources. The constant current source regulates LED current, which can normally vary due to the input voltage as well as changes in LED forward voltage. This is beneficial as temperature varies, or when LED forward voltages deviate among various lots. The constant current source is about as efficient as a standard voltage regular circuit. Pulse driving permits LEDs to operate at peak current levels, while maintaining a minimal duty cycle. Pulse width modulation employed in dimming circuitry prevents color matching issues commonly associated with lower LED drive currents.
Interfacing Custom LED Lighting Solutions
Custom LED lighting applications most often contain external components, in addition to LED lights, associated electronics, and the LED boards on which the LED circuits are mounted. An external component refers to any item with an indirect association to the custom LED design, but with a mechanical, electrical, or optical correlation. From the mechanical aspect, a pre-designed housing unit or mounting bracket includes examples of external components with an indirect association to the design. Third-party power supplies are the most common form of external electrical component. In the case of an external optical component, a pre-designed transparent casing may play the role in application interfacing. In all three cases, third party components play a critical role in the overall product functionality. Successful application interfacing results from a design that complements all external mechanical, electrical, and optical components.
LED Boards Layout
The foundation of all electronic devices is the printed circuit board on which the electronic components are mounted. Almost all modern electronic devices contain some type of printed circuit board. Several popular acronyms for printed circuit board include the PCB or PC board. PCB manufacturing is extremely diverse, and allows for a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and compositions. PCBs commonly known as "Flex" feature a flexible material capable of forming numerous angles and shapes. All PCBs offer at least three very important primary functions characterized by physical, electrical, and thermal. LED lighting designs rely heavily on these functions of LED boards.
Strategically Selecting Light Emitting Diodes
The custom LED lighting design industry has matured into a vast league of optical semiconductor manufactures. Selecting the most appropriate component for LED circuits can be a daunting and time-consuming task, even for the most experienced of engineers. Many designers and engineers resort to sorting through endless catalog pages and websites in search of the perfect light emitting diode for their LED boards. Sub-categorizing LEDs by six key characteristics can optimize component selection and search results. This process combined with our optoelectronic component database, provides a very powerful tool designed to aid during the development of custom LED products and LED circuits.
LED Schematic Capture
Schematic capture provides a symbolic blue print depicting each electronic component or system, and the wire traces or relationships that will interconnect these components in the LED circuits. Lunar Accents Design will generate a schematic during the process of circuit design, prior to the design of custom LED boards. Computer software generates the schematic and produces an electronic file in PDF format. By special request, we will transmit the schematic file to the client. The schematic also remains in our file archives for future reference. Each schematic reflects all corresponding LEDs, control circuitry, and drive circuitry. Industry standard schematic symbol represent all LEDs and external electronic components. For complex LED lighting systems, a series of schematics will depict system operation on numerous levels. For example, the system level schematic shows relationships between overall systems. The components may include the power supply, control circuit, and driver circuit. Each component of this system level schematic will correspond with numerous component level schematics. For example, the driver level schematic may include discrete components such as LEDs, resistors, and FETs (field effect transistors). LED applications incorporating programmable microcontrollers will typically correspond with a special firmware flowchart. This flowchart depicts each specific operation installed within the firmware routine, as well as any relationships to sensory input devices. To maintain a higher level of organization and consistency, we assign an official project name and revision to all schematic files. Our standard revision code utilizes an alphabetical format starting with A.
Prototype LED Products
The prototype offers engineers with technical feedback for the first time. Decision-making based on mathematical formulas and experience has allowed the custom lighting project to advance to this point. However, unknown variables can lead to potential complications apparent only after testing of the LED circuits. If revisions are necessary, they are typically minor, if not cosmetic in nature. In many cases, producing a second prototype is highly recommended. Prototyping LED boards saves valuable time and money later on, during the manufacturing phase.
Volume LED Product Production
Lunar Accents offers in-house mass production for clients who prefer the benefits of a local relationship, and the convenience of a domestically based company. Our professional assemblers and technicians have undergone additional training relating to LED circuits and specific assembly procedures. At Lunar Accents Design Corporation, we are extremely proud to offer premium in-house services at only a fraction of the cost. We can offer extremely competitive rates for both surface mount and through-hole component assembly. In many cases involving turnkey projects, we are actually able to compete with overseas low-cost manufactures. In addition to circuit board assembly, we also perform final assembly and packaging for many of our clients. Our capabilities include low volume assembly by hand, as well as automated high volume production. In addition, we can perform a variety of wire and cable related production tasks. If you would like to receive a formal quotation for assembly-labor, please do no hesitate to contact a member of our sales department. We appreciate the opportunity to quote any LED or non-LED related assembly project.