WHAT ARE LUMENS IN LED LIGHTING?

"They have already switched off the light, I am the only one left", so the Dik Dik sang on Mogol's text reinterpreting the 1967 song by Procol Harum: in fact, however, is it so romantic to be at home without light? We bought lots of light bulbs with maximum vassaggio, done a lot of tests, but in fact, our house continues to be a little dark. In short, there is something that does not work.

1.     How to illuminate, units of measurement and technologies

2.     Watts and Lux

3.     Lumens

4.     Calculation and use of lumens and room types

5.     The led, this stranger

6.     Show me what led you have and I'll tell you which Kelvin and Cri you use

7.     I finally found the light

How to illuminate, units of measurement and technologies

But what and how can it be illuminated? First, we need to understand the type of light source. This is the basis. So, unless you want to illuminate your home like in Kubrick's film, Barry Lyndon, where everything was taken up by the brilliant director with natural light sources, we would have at our disposal three types of measurement units and different source technologies artificial.

Watt and Lux

Let's start with the units of measurement that are lux, watts and finally the lumen. What are? The watt is the unit of measurement of the power of the lamp, in essence, it identifies its consumption, in short, if you have a high electricity bill you owe it to the vat but not always what consumes so much is equally bright. There are Lux’s, the lux unit of measurement is the minimum unit of measurement per square meter used as a criterion for lighting the room. The romantic writer is portrayed astonishing parchments in the light of a candle, but today the writer, to compose his poems measures the "lux coefficient" which is a brightness coefficient.

Lumen

For environments where particularly clear visibility is required, the lux corresponds to 300, while for environments where it is possible to relax it will be around 100. The brightness of the room will be expressed by the following calculation, lux x MQ. The result of this calculation is called lumen (lm).

Calculation and use of lumens and room types

So admitting that the study of our romantic writer is 50sqm and in view of the fact that to write we must see well, the lux will have to be 300 so the lumen will be 300x50mq. In short, without you losing your hair for the calculations, the light bulbs for most cases have conversion tables Watt/lux/ lumen.  Subsequently, the calculation of lumens is followed by technological choice.

The led, this stranger

In fact, I could decide to buy several candlesticks, and aside from the cost of candles and the smell of wax, I could still reach the desired lumen. But "which protest?" Maybe I should have a romantic encounter I would certainly look good but I will usually orientate myself to a more modern and technological and above all less expensive choice, the light bulb. What does the market offer me? There's a lot of talk about energy-saving lamps. Today the LED light is the recommended one to light up your home so that a LED with a few watts reaches a power expressed in lumens for half of a halogen of maximum duration. But there are different types.

Show me what led you have and I'll tell you which Kelvin and Cri you use

Which one to choose? You will certainly have to choose the shade of light that goes from hot to cold, without going into detail and having to take a degree on the subject, you need to consider the CRI. It is obviously not the direction of the cricket but an acronym that stands for Color Rendering Index, that is, depending on whether this index is towards the 100, which represents the maximum value, the more the colors become sharp, the lower and the more the colors are less clear but the vision it's more relaxing. Indicatively the value that represents normal values is attested on the 80. The last value is what you will find on the packaging of the bulbs, the variant k. The Kelvin unit of measure, suffice it to say that between 3000 and 5000 more or less you get a neutral light, around 6500k you have a light in solar style, the cold light is just over 5300 kelvins.

I finally found the light

In short, lumens, lux, watts, light bulbs, Kelvin, Cri. Let us arm ourselves and illuminate our homes, we will create a more pleasant and comfortable place to stay.