An insight into developments at Europe’s leading event in Solid State Lighting!

euroLED --- 9th – 10th June 2010 at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, UK

"This will be 7th annual LED conference, exhibition and gala dinner, and over the years euroLED has become firmly established as Europe's premier LED event. euroLED 2010 will continue to promote the LED industry, and this year it will also develop themes of lighting, intelligent energy and the influencers of the low carbon economy. This look to future reflects Birmingham Science Park Aston’s (www.bsp-a.com) focus on innovations that will drive the knowledge economy. This year’s conference will showcase current innovations and look forward to next generation products and identify future development opportunities for the industry. The conference will bring together best in class research, technical development and commerce. I would like to welcome the members of our expert panel to euroLED 2010 and thank you for your contribution to achieving this vision."

-- Dr David Hardman M.B.E, Managing Director, Birmingham Science Park Aston.

Marl were involved with the inaugural euroLED event 7 years ago and have been Premier Sponsors every year since then.

To join in the fun at euroLED 2010, please visit the official euroLED website – www.euroLED.org.uk or contact Eve Gaut, euroLED Manager at eveg@bsp-a.com or on +44 (0) 121 250 3515.

Marl can be visited at booth "LED 119". For further details about our participation, full contact details may be found on our website.

Read the full press release on the euroLED website (go to Latest News)

A chromaticity control standard “3-Step MacAdam ellipses” is implemented in mass production of white LEDs for lighting – Mass production with 1/9th of the conventional chromaticity range.

Citizen Electronics Co., Ltd (Head Office: Fujiyoshida City, Yamanashi Prefecture. President: Katsuhiko Noguchi. Paid-in capital: 1,988.55 million yen), a precision electronics manufacturer, achieves mass production of white LEDs for lighting with about one-ninth the conventional chromaticity range. Through use of "3-Step MacAdam ellipses" as a chromaticity control standard the necessary reduction in the variation in chromaticity is accomplished.

White LEDs are well-known in various fields such as for LCD TV's backlights or lighting and they require strict color control of the chromaticity range, especially in white LEDs for general lighting. Usually, the products need to be ranked and sorted according to the requirements before shipment, as the color always varies even if the products are produced in the same lot.

Since the chromaticity of a white LED is determined by a combination of many elements configuring the product such as a light-emitting device, phosphor, and encapsulation resin, a complicated process control is also needed to control those elements. Citizen Electronics Co., Ltd developed Surface Mount LED chips in 1983, and since then we have brought out a wide variety of products as a leading manufacturer of LED packages. Using basic studies and innovations of Citizen's accumulated high-precision processing technology and manufacturing technology has allowed them to finally achieve mass production with the chromaticity standard of about a ninth of the conventional chromaticity range ("3-Step MacAdam ellipses") by controlling the deviation from specific chromaticity coordinates and "elaborating" the products.

This will enable Citizen to stably produce and offer a white LED that has the least variation in chromaticity while keeping the production cost low by discontinuing the "sorting" process before shipment. It is believed that at the destination sites it will be possible to use separate LED colors with high accuracy and that will help to produce quality lighting equipment. Citizen Electronics Co., Ltd will start color control using "3-Step MacAdam ellipses" at the mass production level, taking the initiative in the lighting industry.

Marl International Limited are sole distributors of Citizen LEDs in the UK.

View the full Citizen LEDs range on our website.
Download the full press release (PDF) from the Citizen website.
Contact the Marl Optosource team for further information.

New low-watt Citizen LED light engines from Marl enable the creation of replacements for fluorescent strip lights – offering well over 25% better efficiency and at least four times longer lifetimes. An array of five of the chips matches the light output of a 1.2W fluorescent tube.

The announcement means LED lighting is now the low energy lighting of choice – a position held by fluorescent technologies for some time. "With the announcement of the latest generation of Citizen devices LED lighting is more efficient and longer lasting than any other lighting technology, and can match the light output of all but the most specialist lights," commented Marl Managing Director Adrian Rawlinson. "It is also more robust than fluorescent, and eliminates the risk of broken glass tubes coated with poisonous phosphor based chemicals."

The highly flexible chip-style packaging for these Citizen devices lends itself to the creation of a host of innovative lighting effects. They can be mounted to form circles, squares or other shapes as well as in linear arrays. Like all LED lighting, the new Citizen CL-824 series delivers directional illumination in a downward cone over a 120° arc. This eliminates wasted light.

Available in the UK from Marl, Citizen CL-824 series LEDs are ultra-compact high efficiency devices in a robust chip-type packaging. A linear array with certain chips can deliver a final efficiency of 74 lumens per Watt – compared with around 56 lumens per Watt from a typical fluorescent fitting. Rated life for the LED chips is 40,000 hours, compared to 10,000 hours for a standard fluorescent tube.

A new catalogue has been launched enabling easy browsing of the extensive range of Citizen LED light engines available from Marl Optosource. To download, please visit:
http://www.leds.co.uk/pdfs/citizencatalogue-issue1.pdf (PDF)

View the full Citizen range at Marl Optosource
Contact the Marl Optosource sales team

Lord Young visited Marl International earlier this month, in interest of our successful training and Apprenticeships programme. Marl designs, manufactures and supplies energy efficient, high performance, innovative LED devices to the industry.

Lord Young said: "It is encouraging to see a successful company taking advantage of the demand for energy efficient, low carbon products. Marl International has a clear commitment to ensuring there is an abundance of high level skills in this sector for years to come, and should be an example to all."

"The success of Marl International can lead the way for other businesses in West Cumbria to make a contribution to the UK's short and long term energy, environmental and economic policy goals, transforming its own economy in the process."

David Ford, Commercial Director at Marl International, said: "Today's investment in apprentices is tomorrow's prosperity. We're always appreciative of Government ministers visiting to experience life at the coal face."

Marl International also offers opportunities to graduates to take up work in design and manufacturing, design and development, general engineering, product engineering and sales and marketing. The company currently has an apprentice training in finance and accountancy.

About the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is building a dynamic and competitive UK economy by: creating the conditions for business success; promoting innovation, enterprise and science; and giving everyone the skills and opportunities to succeed. To achieve this it will foster world-class universities and promote an open global economy. BIS - Investing in our future. For more information, please contact BIS press office on: 020 7215 5951.

Following a successful trial introduction in September last year, Marl has finalised agreements to distribute the Lumotech Lumoluce range of LED architectural lighting products for commercial and domestic applications. Manufactured in the Netherlands, Lumoluce LED lighting solutions are attracting a fast-growing following due to their remarkable colour consistency and exceptional energy efficiency.

The Lumoluce range is characterised by outstanding performance and quality at a competitive price point, and is fully assembled and manufactured at Heerhugowaard in the Netherlands utilising high quality LED light sources and LEDs. Unique features of the range include sub-binning, where each colour supplied is tested and hand-sorted into a further nine sub-bins to provide an exact colour match across each individual LED supplied to a customer. Lumoluce also designs and manufactures its own drivers to maximise the performance and efficiency of its LED lights. As a result, it achieves power factors of better than 0.9 and very low harmonics. Lumoluce LEDs are widely used in major airports, supermarkets for food illumination as well as restaurants and offices throughout Europe. Its focus on delivering premium performance and quality at competitive pricing is leading to year on year growth in annual turnover of over 50% for Lumoluce.

Adrian Rawlinson, Managing Director of Marl International, commented, "Lumoluce shares Marl’s culture of achieving high levels of quality and performance by keeping control of the design, assembly and manufacturing processes. We believe that there will be strong market demand for this product range from customers who appreciate a consistent and high quality product at an affordable price."

Peter Snoeck, Sales Director of Lumoluce, added, "Marl has excellent relationships with our key target customers in the UK, and helps these customers make the most of our very special product characteristics. The fact that they have their own manufacturing operation too helps them appreciate how our products are set apart."

Marl will offer the full Lumoluce series, which is a modular system based on aluminium construction with a 2.3W LED module, driver and connectors. These assemblies deliver the same light output as a 25W – 35W halogen bulb but use 90% less power – and even save 35% of energy costs of standard energy saving lamps. The Lumoluce range includes an extensive selection of fittings in different shapes and sizes, with different configurations of LED lamps, to meet every conceivable lighting requirement and application.

About Lumoluce

Lumoluce was founded in 2006 by Lumotech as a specialist subsidiary to exploit the growing demand for energy efficient light sources such as LED lighting. Lumoluce designs and manufactures high quality LED fixtures, LED strips, LED boards, and LED drivers as well as plug-in replacements for less efficient lighting technologies. The success of Lumoluce is based on a strong technical foundation: its immense knowhow of the electronics and other related techniques required to create effective, efficient and long-lasting LED lighting solutions. Lumoluce products are therefore conceived, created and manufactured under one roof at its Heerhugowaard headquarters in the Netherlands, from initial sketches to finished end product. Lumotech is a manufacturer of semi-finished products and was founded in 1978. For more information, please see the Marl LUMOluce product pages