The Future of LED Lighting Part II

The rate at which LED technology is growing is surprising even the harshest skeptics.  This evolution can be seen in advances such as incandescent technology being phased out, terminology (watts to lumens) being changed, and government tax breaks being offered.  It’s versatile in its use – from commercial to residential applications and everything in between.  What started out as a niche-oriented technology is now becoming widespread throughout the globe.

According to the U.S. Energy Department, there are about 971 million 60-watt light bulbs in use in the United States alone.  Part of the reason of the phasing out of incandescent bulbs is so that consumers will use the more efficient LED technology and encourage energy savings for our growing population.  Green initiatives are becoming more important now than ever and LED technology is already a leader in green solutions.  CFLs still remain a viable option; however, when compared to LED technology, CFLs contain mercury, have shorter life spans and give off a blue-green light.  Because of those reasons, and others, many lighting experts expect for LED bulbs to become the eventual replacement for incandescent lighting. 

Already major chain retailers are carrying LED bulbs in place of incandescent technology; the most common being a 60-watt-equivalent LED bulb.  Futuristic niche-uses of this technology still remain as well.  The U.S. military is using LED applications in UV-LED canteen water treatment devices, sterilization of field surgical equipment and LED flashlights for night-vision goggles.  The automotive industry is also moving toward using LED light bulbs in vehicles.  Next generation televisions are also being outfitted with LED technology to improve resolution, color and brightness.  With an increase in usage of this technology across the board, it opens up the door for entrepreneurs to utilize this technology and make it their own – including upgrades and customization to computers, photography and mobile phones.  Universities such as UC Davis and University at Albany-SUNY have also implemented solid-state lighting programs, indicating a shift in educating and arming graduates for the future of lighting technology. 


New Tek Partners offers a range of products to supplement your green initiatives and keep you ahead of the technological curve.  LED lighting’s energy efficiency, high brightness and technological superiority over other light sources made it an ideal choice for consumers.  LED tube lights, screw-in bulbs, strip lights, street lamps, wall packs and several other products constitute the range of LED technology offered by New Tek Partners.  Next time you are looking ahead of the curve at technology, choose New Tek Partners to provide you with the lighting that is the wave of the future.

New Tek Partners is an LED technology based company and our mission is to develop and produce high quality LED lighting products and provide alternative lighting solutions to our clients.  Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions about how we can help you reduce your electric costs, as well as reduce your effect on the environment.  Also connect with us on our Facebook Page.

Indoor Gardening with LED Lights

Do you have a green thumb, yet can’t find the time to get outdoors?  Do you live in a place where the whether isn’t conducive to gardening?  LED lighting is everywhere these days and it was only a matter of time until alternative applications were found for this up and coming technology.  Gardeners are now hopping on the trend by using LED lighting to grow and maintain indoor plants.  It’s the perfect application for those who like to maintain a small spice or vegetable garden or even for those who garden on a bigger scale. 

Like incandescent bulbs you use in your home, traditional indoor growing lamps burn out periodically and can get really hot; i.e., they are highly inefficient.  Gardening is a skill that requires the use of reliable tools, and lighting is no exception.  LED lights are a reliable solution that can last up to 50,000 hours, are cool to the touch and are recyclable.  These lights are perfect for indoor growing applications because they can remain close to the plants without overheating the soil or stunting a plants’ growth.

The low voltage operation of LED lights also reduces the risk of accidental fires or electric shocks in wet environments.  You can even customize your lighting configuration, so you don’t have to use light reflectors.  LED lights come in small and maneuverable sizes, so you can install them anywhere you want – in corners, above or below a plant, or you could eve use multiple lights circling the plant, which is beneficial for long or cascading plants.  Some plants you grow might require different colors of lighting.  LED lights, such as those provided by New Tek Partners, come in a variety of colors best suited for your indoor plants’ needs.  These lighting solutions provide targeted light, which is not only softer on the human eye, but also the best light for indoor growing needs.
 
Whether you want to use a simple screw-in bulb to maintain a small hobby spice rack or bigger flood lights and tube lights, New Tek Partners has a variety of LED solutions in all shapes, sizes and lumen efficiencies to equip your gardening layout.  New Tek Partners lighting solutions are flexible to fit your growing needs; whether you need color lights, small maneuverable lights, or tube lighting to keep rows of plants growing.  Next time you decide to garden, think of how LED lighting can benefit your growing plan all year round.

LED Lighting Tips and Tricks

Part of the reason the LED technology is becoming so popular is because of its versatile nature.  With incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lighting, most consumers feel like they know the typical behaviors: you can set them on a dimmable switch, you know when they burn out because they “pop”, they give off large amounts of heat and they are typically inexpensive.  Consumers should get to know LED lighting the same way and realize that they have features that go beyond benefitting the “green” community and lowering your electric bill.

• LED’s give instant light and are dimmable.  Notice that when turning on a fluorescent bulb, or CFL, that there’s a slight hesitation and flicker before the light achieves its full brightness.  LED’s reach their full brightness potential as soon as the switch is flicked and maintain a steady light which does not flicker.  Today’s LED bulbs can also be hooked up to a dimmable switch to provide mood lighting throughout your home or office.  Unlike incandescent bulbs, which burn out and pop when their life is over, LED’s simply become dimmer over time.

• LED bulbs do not contribute to heat buildup in your home.  This is especially important for consumers who are living in the South and recently experienced one of the hottest summers on record.  During some of these humid and muggy nights, you’ll find that the incandescent lights in your home are contributing to the heat buildup and are actually causing you to run your air conditioning at lower than normal temperatures.  Incandescent bulbs generally have a low lighting coverage area, thus requiring more of them to be used.  LED bulbs, however, produce an ideal amount of light over a wide area and remain cool to the touch.  High power LEDs in particular are designed with heat sinks, which keep operating temperatures low.

• Choose your LED bulbs wisely.  You should always look at the package when purchasing any lighting solution.  Soon, all new LED packages with contain the new unit of measurement: lumens, making it easier to compare to old-fashioned lighting solutions and see the benefits of LED lighting more clearly.  You should also be sure to choose LED bulbs that are “UL Listed” or “UL Classified”, and not “UL Compliant”.  “UL Compliant” bulbs have not been tested or approved by the Underwriters Laboratory to show that the bulbs have passed stringent tests.

New Tek Partners offers LED lights that you can tailor for your home or office needs.  In addition to high quality screw-in LED bulbs, they manufacture “UL Classified” Fluorescent Retrofit Conversion Kits using LED Green technology.  All of these products carry a minimum 3 year warranty to prove just how long lasting they are.  The above tips can be applied to New Tek Partners lighting solutions because they provide a wide variety of high quality products, which meet and exceed the industry standard.

What questions do you have about switching to LED lighting?

New Tek Partners is an LED technology based company and our mission is to develop and produce high quality LED lighting products and provide alternative lighting solutions to our clients.  Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions about how we can help you reduce your electric costs, as well as reduce your effect on the environment.  Also connect with us on our Facebook Page.

LED Lighting Prevents Mercury Emissions

There are many reasons to switch from incandescent lighting to LED lighting: lowering your energy bill, less maintenance, more lighting coverage with less expense.  Recently documented use of LED’s by hospitals in the UK has led people to notice another health-related benefit of LED bulbs: lack of mercury emissions.  LED bulbs do offer many other health benefits as well, such as reducing eye strain, headaches and irritability; however, a readily quantifiable benefit is that LED bulbs have 0% mercury emissions because no mercury is used in the manufacturing of the bulbs. 

Even competitors to LED technology, such as Compact Fluorescent Lamps, have to be disposed of in the proper manner to prevent from poisoning the environment and negatively impacting your health.
Mercury itself is a well known neuro-toxicant that slows neurological developments and impacts your cardiovascular system.  A CFL, for example, contains 4-5mg of mercury.  Most pundits will argue that a miniscule amount such as that will not harm anyone.  Realize though, that over a billion CFL’s are disposed of every year.  When you add it all up, mercury emissions do become a problem.  

Incandescent bulbs contain an even higher amount of mercury and are more widely used than CFL’s.   Factor in that CFL bulbs and incandescent bulbs last less than half as long as LED bulbs and you have an ongoing disposal and mercury emission issue.  With LED bulbs, there is no special disposal procedure and no worry of lingering after effects on the environment from transport and use.

In a world where environmental safety and greenhouse effects are a priority, it is essential that you equip your home or business with the latest in energy-saving technology.  New Tek Partners offers industry standard mercury-free lights for safe use in your home or business.  Our focus is on providing technologically advanced and environmentally safe products that make for a more sustainable Earth.

We have various products, sizes, configurations, lumens and color temperatures to equip your home or office with.  If you are looking to provide your family with safely disposable, high quality lights, turn to New Tek Partners to provide you with all of your lighting needs.

Where in your home or office will you start making the switch to LED lighting?

New Tek Partners is an LED technology based company and our mission is to develop and produce high quality LED lighting products and provide alternative lighting solutions to our clients.  Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions about how we can help you reduce your electric costs, as well as reduce your effect on the environment.

LED Lighting is Most Cost Effective Lighting Solution

Consumers commonly hear one main argument against LED bulbs: they are too expensive.  However, factor in that LED bulbs last up to 6 times longer, use as little as 1/30th the wattage of incandescent bulbs or CFL’s, and can offer a large dent in your electricity bill, and buying LED bulbs becomes more cost effective than purchasing new incandescent bulbs.  Although the cost of current LED products are higher than that of incandescent or CFL bulbs, the savings are recovered in the long run because your LED bulb will last longer, use less energy and ultimately result in less trips to the store for more bulbs.

As LED bulb usage picks up steam, new LED products are hitting the shelves at lower prices.  Certain new LED products will be priced for less than $15 and represent a new move to not only be superior to incandescent and CFL technology in terms of quality, but also in terms of cost effectiveness at the check-out counter.  As incandescent bulbs are phased out and LEDs take the forefront in the lighting battle, prices will continue to lower on LED products.  By 2015, LED lighting should hold around 30% of the commercial lighting market alone.  The upcoming change to packaging by the Federal Trade Commission will also make buying LED bulbs as simple as incandescent and CFL products.  No more need to calculate across lighting products; you will be able to directly see the energy efficient savings that purchasing LED products provides.

The trend in lighting is moving towards more widespread use of LEDs for residential as well as commercial use.  As LED bulb prices continue to go down, this trend is going to grow.  New Tek Partners is an LED provider who can help you save during the phasing out of incandescent bulbs.  They carry cost effective LED lighting solutions for residential homes and commercial use, such as screw-in bulbs, flood/wall packs, street lighting and tube lighting.  New Tek Partner’s LED GREEN technology provides a state of the art and cost effective product to this trending market.

Schools Save With LED Lighting

A positive learning environment is extremely important to your child’s education.  Most would not think of lighting being a factor in the learning environment; it not only effects how your child learns, it also affects the type of education that their school can provide.  Not only can children benefit from a stable, well lit learning environment; schools can afford to provide a higher quality education if they are energy conscious.  Reduced energy bills can free up need cash for other pressing and important requirements like buying new books, computers or upgrading teaching infrastructure. 

Close to 40 schools in Austin are saving $480,000 annually ($12,000 per school) after energy saving retrofits.  The Twin Falls school district revamped the energy systems of 11 schools and achieved savings of US $3.5 million per annum that works out to almost $319,000 per school. The US Green Building Council estimated that on an average a green school would be able to save at least $100,000 per annum. Translated into education equivalent terms – these green schools would save enough money to “hire two new teachers, buy 200 new computers, or purchase 5,000 new textbooks.” They further estimate that over the next ten years green schools could save $20 billion in energy bills alone. With over 95,000 public elementary and secondary schools and 29,000 plus private schools in the United States - the target seems to be well within reach.

So how can schools potentially reach these savings?  Lighting and heating are the two most important heads of energy consumption in a school, with lighting being the single biggest source of energy consumption.  As much as 50% of the electricity bills of a school are from lighting alone; however, despite this, lighting is also the area where it is easiest to reduce electricity bills.  Replacing incandescent and fluorescent lights with LED bulbs can increase energy efficiency by up to 9 times.  This means LED’s can achieve the same levels of illumination while using up to 90% less electricity.  Schools can also reduce their electricity bill by using lower wattage bulbs and de-lamping – which means placing lights strategically so not as not to lessen the lighting coverage.  De-lamping is also effective since LED’s provide better light levels through producing directional light.
 
New Tek Partners offers an alternative to the strobe-like effect of fluorescent lights in the LEDGREEN LED light tube.  Casting a calm, natural light, this LED light tube eliminates the inconvenient and potentially harmful flickering.  Computer desk lamps, bathroom lights and other bulbs of varying shapes and sizes are found throughout schools.  New Tek Partners provides a multitude of LED bulbs that can be used for such applications.  Next time you are in your child’s school, take notice of the lighting and think how it can affect their education.

What is an LED Light?

With the current hot topic in energy consumption being LED lights and their energy efficiency benefits, some consumers might find that they are not completely familiar with what an LED is.  It is important for consumers to not only know that LED lights can save them money on utility bills and help the environment, but how the technology behind the lights allows them to do it.
 
LED is the acronym for “Light Emitting Diode”; a semiconductor device that produces light.  LEDs have evolved from small indicator lights to now being used for indoor and outdoor lighting solutions.  The LED consists of a plastic housing containing a cathode and anode, which are separated by a crystal of semiconductor material.  The anode and cathode work together to carry the current when voltage is applied.  The LED bulb is a collection of these LEDs, which need to be combined to increase the light output per bulb to a level suitable for personal use in a home or office environment. 

All the LEDs within a bulb have the same voltage and current requirements, creating a uniform device.  Besides this LED cluster, an LED bulb has other non-moving parts: Driver Electronics act as the “brain” of the bulbs and convert voltage; a Heat Sink acts as a thermal manager, keeping the bulb cool – unlike common incandescent lights: Optics diffuse the directional light, which creates a direct swath of bright light that doesn’t appear yellow, dull or directionless, like incandescent lights.  This technical superiority is what makes LED lights the perfection replacement for old incandescent lighting. 
New Tek Partners is a company that provides LED lighting solutions to everyone; from a new consumer looking to try a bulb in their home to an LED veteran looking to branch out and get creative.  Replacements for old screw-in incandescent bulbs, LED tubes, flood/wall packs and many other varieties of LED lights are available.  For those just getting into LED lighting, it would be best to take advantage of New Tek’s free Lighting Audit to see how much LED bulbs can help in your quest to save money.

Where in your home or office can you replace incandescent lighting with LED's?

Phasing Out of Incandescent Bulbs: Part 2

With the recent move of U.S. manufacturers towards a phase out of incandescent bulbs soon beginning to take effect, many consumers will be left without a complete understanding of why this is happening and what other lighting options will be available.  This move away from incandescent technology is due to manufacturers complying with the Energy Bill, or federal Security Act of 2007, which mandates that household bulbs between 40 and 100 watts use 27% less energy by 2014.  Compact fluorescent light bulbs, otherwise known as CFL’s, are an alternate lighting solution; however, they are plagued with concerns of mercury contamination, flickering lights, safe recycling and incompatibility with dimmer circuits. 

This leaves LED lights poised to be the future of lighting.  Even so, some consumers may finding themselves asking, “Why is incandescent lighting not good enough?”  With incandescent bulbs, there is only a 10% performance ceiling, meaning that the incandescent bulb uses less that 10% of the electrical energy it uses to generate light and wastes the remaining 90% as heat.  This means that a good chunk of what you’re paying for on your electrical bill in terms of lighting is just wasted heat; not to mention that your air conditioning element has to pump this heat out, adding even more cost to your energy bill. 

Incandescent bulbs also have a short life span.  The high temperature that an incandescent light bulb works at means that the filament will expire quickly and cause consumers to frequently replace their lights.  This high heat operating temperature also carries a burn risk.  To put it in perspective, if you purchase a 6 watt LED bulb, it will produce as much light as a 50 watt incandescent bulb; this means a savings of 88% in energy bill lighting expenses, cutting several tons of mercury emissions from coal fired electrical plans, and saving millions of tons of carbon emissions.

Fortunately, New Tek Partners offers LED lighting solutions to counteract the negatives of owning incandescent bulbs.  Their LED bulbs offer up to 50,000 hours of energy efficient lighting.  New Tek Partners LED bulbs also give off virtually no heat, meaning no wasted energy or risk of accidental burns.  LED technology also does not utilize the wasteful filament that so often burns out in incandescent bulbs and causes frequent change outs.  In fact, New Tek Partners is so confident in their LED technology that they offer a 3 year warranty on all of their products.
 
When you make the switch to LED lighting, consider New Tek Partners to be your leader in LED technology.

Benefits of LED Lighting in Your Home

In order to get a feel for how your home can benefit from LED lighting, start small.  Try swapping a regular bulb on your porch and enjoying a nice evening outside to really see the difference in brightness.  Next, try switching out an incandescent bulb in a ceiling fan, accent light, or lamp.  Chances are you’ll first notice a change in your environment and then your electric bill.  A regular 40 Watt bulb, for example, burns through a lot more energy than it needs to produce the light you use.  A large percentage of the energy that goes into a 40 Watt bulb is wasted as heat; making them poor tools when it comes to conserving electricity and saving money.  LED bulbs, generate very little heat when they glow, instead transferring most of their energy directly into light.

LED light bulbs bring a white light into a room. Unlike the yellow light we're so used to seeing from incandescent bulbs, the white light cast by LEDs is closer to the color temperature of daylight.  The white light of LEDs is easier on your eyes and also provides the added benefit of lifting your mood in the summer and winter time.  There are many uses for LED lights in your home.  Use an LED light bulb in a task or reading light, and you'll have a bright, white light to work by.  LEDs not only produce light more efficiently, they have a tiny mirror that reflects light in one direction.  A directed light means less wasted light.  LEDs don’t waste light on areas you don’t need illuminated, which is why they are perfect lights for tasks.  Ceiling cans (or recessed lighting) have become one of the most common styles of lighting for homes in the U.S.  They are typically installed in groups simply for symmetry.  Ceiling cans are an ideal place for LED light bulbs.

New Tek Partners’ versatile LED lights can be used for your in-home needs.  Their line of screw-in LED bulbs is best suited for your home usage and can provide you with 50% - 90% energy savings.  They also utilize the highest grade components and are designed to last 50,000+ hours.  What this means to homeowners is less changing of bulbs, less energy wasted, and an increase in money saved.  Next time you walk around your home, take notice of your lighting environment and consider how New Tek Partners can help you with all of your in-home lighting needs.

Which room in your home will you start changing to LED lighting?

LED Lighting: Positively Impacting Your Child’s Education

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of your child’s education is the quality of teaching.  But what about the environment your child learns in?  It is just as important as a good school or a good teacher.  Incandescent lighting is known to produce chalkboard glare and flickering strobe-like effects, which negatively impact your child’s ability to learn.  Children with learning disabilities, especially autism spectrum disorder (ASD), can be even more affected by these lighting issues.  For children with ASD, controlling the learning environment and keeping it consistent is important to promoting their development.

Those with ASD are prone to visual and auditory sensitivities which cause them to be hyper-reactive to environmental cues, such as lighting and sound.  Perceiving fluorescent lighting cycles as having a strobe-like effect can also trigger an increase in seizure activity from children with ASD.  Both for children with ASD and without, focus is an important factor in learning retention.  Incandescent lighting, with its harsh glare, can cause headaches and even migraines.  This adverse effect can lead to agitation; especially in those with ASD, who can often have a lack of skill in interacting with others and who are sensitive to environmental triggers which detract from managing learning disabilities. 

New Tek Partners offers an alternative to the strobe-like effect of fluorescent lights in the LED GREEN light tube.  Casting a calm, natural light, this LED light tube eliminates the inconvenient and potentially harmful flickering.  Conventional fluorescent lights utilize a ballast to create the voltage and current necessary to start and illuminate the light.  The “humming” sound so often associated with fluorescent lights is caused by this ballast.  Fortunately, New Tek Partner’s LED GREEN light tube has no need for ballasts, thus eliminating noise interference and keeping the environment in your children’s classroom free of noisy lighting.  When exploring your child’s classroom for the first time, be sure to notice the lighting and consider what effects it can have on your children’s health and learning ability.

Listen to a teacher explain the benefit LED lighting has had in her classroom:

LED Lighting – Outdoor Lighting Solutions

When considering energy saving solutions, most consumers first consider options inside their home.  Replacing standard incandescent lights with LED tube lights, track lights, bulbs and other decorative lights might be the first energy saving solutions that a consumer considers.  However, outside of the home is of equal importance.  Numerous consumers choose to install high-powered flood lights, or street lighting, around their home for additional night-time security.  As with LED bulb and tube lighting, outdoor LED lights use much less energy and have longer-lasting life than traditional incandescent outdoor lights; they do this while still providing powerful and ample illumination. 

By using LED flood/street lights in addition to indoor LED lighting, consumers will not only cut down on their energy bill, but also won’t find themselves crawling to the top of a precarious ladder outside their homes multiple times a year to change out the lights around their home; on average one LED light is equivalent to five, or even six, standard incandescent lights.  LED bulbs also emit a much brighter and whiter light and can cover a larger area than typical incandescent lights.  Rather than installing a high number of flood/street lights around their home, consumers can simply use fewer numbers of LED lights and cover just as much area, or more.

New Tek Partners carries a variety of LED flood lights; all of which are free of ultraviolet and infrared beams.  Many shapes and sizes of LED street lights are also available from New Tek Partners.  All are equipped with a 5 year free replacement warranty; guaranteeing that there is never a lapse in the safety and energy savings of your home.  In addition to the clear, white LED flood lights, New Tek Partners also carries multi-colored flood lights for your entertainment or decoration purposes.  New Tek Partners’ LED Street Lights are an ideal replacement for high pressure sodium lamps.  While your children are outside playing at dusk, add to their safety and enjoyment by getting rid of the flickering or buzzing lamps that so often are found to be unreliable and unsafe.

Next time you are outside, keep in mind how many lights surround your home and how New Tek Partners can assist you with all of your outdoor lighting solutions. 
View the difference between an LED Street Light and High Pressure Sodium Lamp here:



How many outside lights could you change to LED's to save energy and cut down on your electric bill?

The Advantages of Going LED GREEN

The first image that comes to mind when thinking of fluorescent lighting is one of a dimly lit hallway with endless rows of humming, flickering tube lights.  Is this what you use to light your home or business?  New Tek Partners offers a viable alternative to the inevitable strobe-like effect of fluorescent lights: The LED GREEN LED light tube.  You can use this solid state lighting product to replace conventional fluorescent light, while utilizing your existing fixtures.  It is available in 2’, 4’, 5’, 6’, 8’ UL Classified Retrofit Conversion Kits.  This robust alternative to wasteful tube lighting boasts up to 75% reduction in power consumed and achieves 93.7 lm/watt; an efficiency greater than that of fluorescent lights. 

The last thing you want to do when at work is constantly change out the numerous tube lights around the office.  The LED GREEN LED light tube gives up to 50,000 hours of typical use, a number that dwarfs the average 10,000 hour lifespan of a conventional fluorescent light.  Eventually, when it comes time to dispose of your LED light tube, you can dispose of them worry-free because they contain no dangerous chemicals, mercury or phosphorus powders.  Conventional fluorescent lights have ballasts, which are used to create the voltage and current necessary to start and illuminate the fluorescent light.  Ballasts also create that annoying “humming” sound that you so often hear.  After a period of time, these ballasts need to be replaced.  New Tek’s LED GREEN LED light tube eliminates this noise interference and ballast replacement issue because they have no need for ballasts, keeping your schedule free of lighting maintenance. 

Another advantage to an LED light tube is the soft, yet bright, lighting they provide.  Get out from under the harsh, unpleasant glare of fluorescents lights and make it easier on your eyes with LED tube lighting.  New Tek’s LED GREEN LED light tube is available in a variety of temperatures to provide your home or office with optimal, glare free lighting.  Next time you shield your eyes against the strain of fluorescent lights, consider New Tek’s LED GREEN LED light tube, an energy saving alternative to your lighting needs.

Where could you use an energy saving alternative to your current lighting?