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White LEDs for a Brighter World

Posted by michael on from the daddy,-what's-a-light-bulb dept.

deepfry writes "CBC radio today featured an interview with Dr. Dave Irvine-Halliday, an engineering professor at the University of Calgary, who's developed a home lighting system for the developing world using a combination of white LEDs, pedal generators and rechargable batteries. This type of "pico-power" can make a huge difference in the lives of villagers in rural areas where being connected to a power grid is not an option and probably never will be. Read about the Light Up the World project and make a donation."

3 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. My experience with White LED's by Bonker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    About a year ago, I got a kitsch keychain from a vendor who was trying to sell software to my company. We didn't purchase the software, but I have held onto that keychain.

    Let me describe it. It's oval in shape, about 3cm long by about 2cm across and 1 cm thick. Inside the body of the keychain, which is clear vinyl, you can see the mechanism that makes it so neat, which is a small watch-type battery, a very small resistor, and one of the newer white LED's. The clear plastic vinyl is red, so when you squeze the thing, it's light is very slightly pink.

    Now, here's the thing that makes me keep this around. This little piece of what I would othewise call 'crap' is brighter than my 'keychain-size' Mag Light! I can easily read by or do computer maintenance with this toy. If I had five or six of them, I could reasonably light a room for however long the batteries lasted.

    White LED's are the wave of the future, IMHO. They're cheap in terms of production and electricity cost. I also understand that they're significantly easier on the environment than incandescent bulbs or flourescent tubes. Unless you overload it with current, which I understand is very difficult since many come with tiny regulators in the form of attached IC's, they don't burn out, making replacement costs plummet.

    Make my next lightbulb a white LED

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    1. Re:My experience with White LED's by dachshund · · Score: 4, Interesting
      You can buy a similar product here. I'm not sure exactly sure if the white bulb is an LED, but it's bright as hell and it's lasted me a couple of years on a single watch battery (with no signs of fading.)

      They also make an IR version, for those of you with night vision goggles. And no, I don't work for the company, but I'm really impressed with their product.

  2. Neato Stuff by mikers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I didn't take any courses from this prof, but some of my friends in school did.

    What he is doing is kindof neat... He wants to equip poor villages (in places like Nepal) with electric lighting that better utilizes the minimal generating capacity they have.

    I know you can get white LEDs as replacements for flashlights that will increase the battery life approximately 20x. For those Petzl headlamps a standard Duracell battery will give you about 6H of light with a standard bulb, but is rated at 100H with a superbright LED. And as far as I know the superbright gives you equivalent illumination - just at higher efficiency.

    When I was in Nepal a few years ago, most rural villages would have power (all from hydroelectric) but it was unpredictable and unreliable. Also the generators were small and there were limits on how many bulbs each place could have. Replacing regular bulbs with white leds would save power - and make battery backups realistic.

    Thats one way out of the dark.

    m