Designing a lighting device involves an in-depth passage in the study of materials. The considered choice must project the finished product towards perfection and reliability. Binning is one of the essential steps in this phase. But what exactly is it?
During the production process, LEDs go through many steps in series. and it's normal that over time some of the parameters adopted for their creation may be slightly out of phase, giving rise to variations involving some parameters of the finished product, such as brightness, CRI value, direct voltage and color.
What is binning?
The most careful suppliers categorize LEDs according to their characteristics in order to ensure homogeneity of performance in the finished product. This activity is called binning.
LEDs have a tendency to have similar, but not identical, characteristics. It is for this reason that in order to supply components that, together, perform well, the producers bring them together in sets called bins. This is especially true for LEDs with a specific color, which must be the same shade for all those in the same bin.
Not only color
One of the parameters to be taken into consideration is certainly the CRI, the measure of how natural the colors of the objects illuminated by the light source appear. This, together with the color temperature, is fundamental to create an excellent performance situation on the part of the lighting device and relies heavily on the binning process.
This applies to all LED colors. When it comes to white LEDs, for example, there are products on the market in Cold White, Neutral White and Warm White. The spectrum of shades, however, is much broader than that. In fact, there are countless color subgroups that put the LEDs produced on a color chart that tells us how the various color groups are distributed with respect to the curve of the black body, the Black Body Locus. This is the emission curve of a radiant black body.
Here, the qualitatively better LEDs settle in a position closer to the BBL. The responsibility of the careful supplier is to work in order to substantially reduce the number of color bins to bring its production as close as possible to the focal point of the BBL.
The other parameters considered in binning are also important: attention while choosing suppliers with particular attention and dedication in the binning process, allows manufacturers of lighting devices to offer a finished product with high quality performance and reliability.
Lumens are also an important aspect of the binning process, although this step is far less complex than the one involving color.
Quantity and quality
It goes without saying that, as in any categorization process, the larger the container, the more variations. That is why it is right to very carefully select manufacturers with a tendency to separate LEDs as much as possible within the binning process. This obviously involves a different cost than roughly sorted LEDs.
Each LED manufacturer follows parameters established by him for the selection, the light manufacturer can then select the bin of preference according to his needs, sure to choose LEDs with the same characteristics, following his own preferences on price and performance. An aspect that is often not considered with the right attention by the purchaser of the lighting device, who does not directly associate the cost of the device, simply because he does not know the selection process of the upstream components.
CCEA has always persevered in the careful choice of components and stands out for its particular dedication to this aspect. Specialized quality which, combined with the components produced internally and the careful study of the machine light structure, ensures superior performance of the light produced.