Japan City Light Industry Develops Low-Power LED Headlamps

City Light Industry has developed a low-power LED headlamp for automobiles. Nissan Motor Co. has already equipped the light on all models of the electric vehicle "LEAF" (Chinese name: Leaf). The number of LEDs has been reduced to two, achieving a power consumption and twice the lifetime of the original HID (high-intensity discharge lamp) 1/2, and reducing the cost by reducing the number of parts.

A white light emitting LED is used as a headlamp (low beam) light source that is used at a high frequency and is illuminated downward. In addition to increasing the output power of LEDs, a reflective (mirror type) structure using two reflective plates to control light is also adopted, eliminating the previously required convex lenses for LED headlamps and improving light utilization efficiency. Using precise thermal analysis, thermal paths from the chip to the heat sink are designed.

This will reduce the number of LEDs required to achieve the same brightness by at least three to two. While ensuring the luminous flux of 550lm, it achieved the world's first power-saving performance of only 23W per side when the low beam light was turned on. Since the halogen lamp is 55W and the HID is 45W, the power consumption of the LED lamp is about 40% and 1/2, respectively. The lower the power consumption, the longer the EV's cruising range.

With a service life of up to 5000 hours, it is 2 times that of HID. The color temperature is 5500K, close to natural light, good visibility. Unlike HID, turning on the lights does not take time. The weight is 30% lighter than the original headlamp with 3 LEDs. In addition, because it can be made thinner, it leaves a higher degree of freedom in design. "LEAF" has improved the shape of the headlights so that the rearview mirror does not obstruct the oncoming wind, successfully reducing wind noise and air resistance.

City Light Industries set up a new LED headlight unit production line with an annual production capacity of 500,000 units at Isehara Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and has started mass production. In the future, the company will continue to promote the development of high-beam headlights (upward-illuminated headlights) and low-beam LED light source integrated units, as well as the development of low-beam lights using only one LED, and further promote the use of automotive headlamps. LEDization