Andy1845c

What does "Flux" refer to in leds? As in "Piranha SuperFlux" or "High Flux".

I've been nosing around the net for over an hour looking for a good led to use for my home brew traffic advisor, but so far all I can say is there are way too many to choose from

Hero999

The light output?

It sounds like marketing hype to me.

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Sceadwian

Flux is a buzz word, it means absolutly nothing. Just pick an LED with a high MCD rateing, contrary to previous statement's MCD's are generally representative of the brightness of an LED, although position and distance do matter in the MCD measurement which can vary from company to company. Considering the competion out there for LED's if you have a list of LED's from a single company the highest MCD rateing is going to be compareable to the true brightness of a top of the line brightness LED from another company. The brightness measurement standard within a company should be the same for it's entire product line as long as it's not disreputable.

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RODALCO

The flux doesn't mean a thing, just marketting hype.

LED's light output is expressed in MCD or mili candela.
The higher the number the more light output.
Bear in mind that a very narrow beam may have relatively high light output within 6°to 15° of the centre, so check on the data sheet for the viewing angle details of the LED.

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Hero999

You can have flux in solder or lines of magnetic flux, but light flux? I agree this certainly is marketing hype.

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Papabravo

Flux is a buzzword? I don't think so. Check out the wikipedia article on the candela, the unit of luminous intensity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candela

Notice in the table the definition of a lumen, the unit of "luminous flux". I would also recommend the article on flux which is some quantity that flows through a unit area per unit time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux

Just because a word is used in a product name does not make the word part of the hype. If you're going to answer questions here, those answers should have some basis in fact and avoid ignorant ramblings.

Nigel Goodwin

Does Wikipedia mention "flux capacitor"?

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Sceadwian

PapaBravo, flux is just a buzzword in the usage of (SuperFlux) If you look the word up in the dictionary in the case of electronics or physics it would be a word used to describe power, which is why it's mentioned in the wikipedia entry. It's just a 'fancy' way of saying 'High Power' Superflux just sounds cooler, so it is 100% buzz.

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Hero999

Funnily enough it does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux#See_also

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Papabravo

It does and it tells the story of its occurrence in the series of Back to the Future movies. The article makes it pretty clear that is a fictional concept.

Papabravo

Hype or not I guess you're entitled to your opinion.

fingaz

It certainly seems like sales hype to me. . .

And isn't it annoying that different LED manufacturers use different methods to measure the luminous intensity of their LED's? We have a standard way of measuring voltage, capacitors, resisitors, transistor gain etc. etc. Can you imagine if we didn't? (well, it's 150k ohm if you solder it on a tuesday before 3pm, after that, it goes down to 120k) Well, maybe not THAT bad, but you get the idea. . .

Just think there should be a standard way of measuring. . .

Oh well, that's my moaning done for the day

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Sceadwian

People in the RF community have been saying the same thing for years. It's not that simple. When you get into propagation effects, like RF radiation or light emiting, the entire nature of the beast changes. It's like going from 9 volts to 9kv's The same rules don't apply. Different materials act in differnet manners under different cirucmstances, and there is no way to properly predict a users circumstances under anything except the user putting the device to work and debugging it. Everyone wants their device to be the best, of course they're going to place their device in the best light it can be placed in.

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Hero999

I think it's more to do with the manufacturers wanting to make their product look the best. They'll inven a new way of measuring intensity and a more complex way of explaining things to confuse people it's better.

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Sceadwian

If you wish to measure something there is only one way of doing it. Power vs distance. To achieve a greater measure of power over a distance, you need to focus your output. LED's achieve this by their output methods.

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