Following the successful rollout of its 12V AC line of LEDs and Chip on Board packages, Lynk Labs has unveiled the Tesla TR28 - the first in its line of high performance, low cost direct line driven COBs and Modules and the US-based company's first product line targeting the European 230V lighting market.
The Tesla TR28 series is a truly direct connect AC LED package delivering up to 500lm at 6.5W in a 230V environment. As an AC LED, the TR28 requires no "driver" to interface to the AC mains.
"Drivers introduce cost, complexity and unreliability into what should be a very simple source of light" said Bob Kottritsch, Lynk's Vice President responsible for business development in Europe, who was speaking at a European symposium on LED technologies. "With AC LEDs all that goes away and we get back to a much more simple and elegant light engine concept"
Lynk Labs has been building an LED technology patent and product portfolio since 2002 with a focus on AC LED technology. Its patents cover all aspects of AC LED design and implementation from circuit to chip level design, systems, applications and power schemes.
Working closely with its strategic partner Epistar, Lynk launched an integrated AC chip – "a 12V light bulb on a piece of Gallium Nitride" as Kottritsch described it. Further collaboration with packaging partners in Taiwan lead to a broad range of 12 V AC LEDs and COBs targeted at the low voltage MR11, MR16 and AR111 lamps, track and recessed fixtures as well as linear lighting a tape – all powered by 12/24V AC transformers – simple plug compatible replacements for traditional incandescent and halogen lamps.
In a similar way, line voltage AC LEDs can replace the light engines in many lamps – GLS, GU10 and the higher power PAR lamps for example. "In Europe the focus is much more on lighting fixtures, as most lamps are made in Asia today" observed Kottritsch "but that is still a very large market with many thousands of competent and innovative companies. We believe that our driverless AC LED technology will prove very attractive to these companies as they look to implement simpler and less expensive LED solutions for their fixture designs."
