Electronics and Power Supply

Many industry standard power supplies come at the expense of reduced quality, reliability and efficiency in the effort to produce an all-in-one supply at the lowest cost. LRL’s standard power supply is designed to optimize the power required, resulting in maximized efficiency, power factor and load/line regulation. LRL’s power supply has a 20-year design life with high Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) components, something that is not typical in the industry standard power supplies often used in LED fixtures.

The goal in designing the Satellite Series was to manufacture a fixture that is completely free from maintenance for 20 years. To achieve this, the Chief Technical Officer, Dr. Jack Josefowicz (whose previous work in the aerospace industry includes designing electronics for satellites – a product that must function maintenance-free for 20 years), ensured that the practices used in satellite design were carried over to the design of the Satellite™ LED roadway luminaire. He thus forbade the use of low-reliability components that cause driver failure such as opto-couplers, commercial-grade electrolytic capacitors, and potentiometers that have rated life spans of 5-6 years.

LED Roadway Lighting utilizes only aerospace and automotive grade components in their fixtures. An example of the superior design is that the capacitors used in the Satellite driver have a rated lifespan of 110 000 hours (22 years in the life of a roadway luminaire) at 85C/185F, whereas typical commercial drivers have electrolytic capacitors that are expected to fail at 28 000 hours (6.5 years) at 85C/185F.