LED Drivers: Handle With Care

The “Product Safety” column in the September issue of LD+A, by Wilger Testing’s Jerry Plank, raised a number of important issues concerning LED drivers. Plank writes that “lessons can be learned from the unjacketed metal halide debacle in the 1980s.” Specifically, safety requirements must keep pace with new technologies so that a clear path or protocol exists to test new product technologies and reduce the likelihood of confusion. According to Plank, a clear example of safety standards not addressing the state-of-the-art in LED products is the handling of LED drivers.

The current safety standards used by Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories’ for electronic LED drivers today lead to confusion in the field. The confusion surrounds what type of driver should be used to prevent fires and/or electrical shock hazards, partly by not describing in layman’s terms what can and cannot be used in an LED luminaire.

Read the full article here.

22 Oct