The Development And Deployment Of The Led Strobe Light

By Author: Sunil Punjabi
Total Articles: 2554
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In the days before the development and widespread usage of the led strobe light the beacons used by emergency vehicles was an electric/mechanical device set in a transparent dome with an electric motor driving the reflector rotating around a halogen lamp. These were obviously heavy on current and had to be replaced fairly often. These domes were often colored, yellow or amber being notice of something working and caution being required, red being emergency or stop and green being the opposite (although in some states green is used on a fire chiefs vehicle). Blue is almost exclusively for law enforcement.

The strobe is a flashing light that goes on and off at regular intervals. In school room experiments a strobe is often directed at spinning disk and the timing of the flash adjusted apparently "stopping" the disk. But an incandescent bulb does not last very long if it is constantly switched on and off which is the reason the rotating reflector was necessary in the light beacons. This of course requires a motor which uses power and that as well as the wasted heat generated by halogen lamps is very power hungry. ...
... This is where the led strobe light comes in.

LEDs are semi-conductors whose production of light is not from resistance to current but rather a quality of electrons passing through the diode in the direction of the current. (If you tried wiring a diode the other way the current wouldn’t flow and no light would shine.) LEDs have undergone a lot of development in recent years and this is where the led strobe light has been such a success.

LEDs do not produce wasteful heat. For this reason they use a fraction of the electrical power required to run an incandescent strobe with a rotating beam. In addition LEDs can be made to switch off and on constantly without suffering any degradation. They have been made bright enough these days to be visibly lighting up in direct sunlight. In addition they have a very long life. They can be found to be still burning after 25,000 hours and 100,000 hours is not unlikely. Thus the led strobe light has become the sought after emergency beacon of choice for all modern day emergency vehicles.

A led strobe light does not have to rotate in order to be effective. It is bright enough to give warning in both forward and toward the rear. And its flashing pattern can be changed at will, flashing on and off from many times a second to just a few flashes a minute. With the control of the electronics such a pattern is easily programmable. It is generally found that faster flashes, say 3 or 4 times a second will denote a greater emergency that slower flashes.

So the led strobe light for a services or engineering vehicle will be amber in colour and will flash on for a second and then off for 2 for example, which automatically demands attention and caution but the almost leisurely pace is not an indication of any emergency. This is not true of a rapidly flashing red led strobe light which demands instant attention and urgency. This of course is an ambulance or other emergency vehicle in motion and it would be best to move over and let them pass.

If you see a blue, or a blue and red led strobe light rapidly flashing in your rear view you will have the sinking feeling of having been busted for some driving offense, nevertheless you will be inclined to slow down and move over to allow the law enforcement vehicle to pass or to pull you up. The led strobe light is a truly successful application in the use of electronics and it is successfully employed in all emergency vehicles.

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