Tips on Technology By: Bill Michiling

Before we get into today’s column, I would like to mention that this week is the big week in the Big Apple, New York that is. Macworld is being held at the Javits convention center in New York City. This appears to be one of the largest ever.

It has been said that there are hundreds more exhibitors as well as loads of new products. I guess Apple’s 203 million profit helped a little bit too! The Apple iMac has been a very big success as well as the Powerbooks.

I know some of you probably use that other platform and may not be that interested in Apple, but I must say the “Apple ranks” are growing….

Ok, last week we talked about a source of light that can last up to 100,000 hours. If you missed it you can see it on line at: (http://www.mespn.com/techarticles/), of course you can also see it in the Wednesday July 14th, 1999 edition of the Saipan Tribune.

I also mentioned that this week we would discuss about lighting and radios that need no batteries. It sounds like the perfect way to have an emergency light and radio.

I wonder how many of you remember wind up alarm clocks? I think they are still around, but may be scarce because batter operated clocks are taking over. Well it is interesting that a wind up mechanism similar to that used in wind up clocks is now available in lights and radios. A;most seems like we are going back in time. As it turns out the wind up mechanism is pretty high tech after all. A single winding on the radio can provide 30-60 minutes of playing. A single winding on the light can provide 1-3 minutes of light.

This sounds like a wonderful and inexpensive way to have light and monitor the radio during emergencies. The only downside is the initial cost. These wind up radios and light cost considerably more that their battery only operated counterparts. It like anything, you need to look at the value of something not only the cost. Think of the savings on batteries! Also I would guess the lifetime of these devices is very long, another plus.

The most important thing I can think of is that a radio or light like these would always be ready to use, storage should be no problem, so it would indeed be good for those unforeseen emergencies. If you would like to see some of the wind up radios and lights, you can find them at: (http://www.mespn.com/specialty/)

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The LED light is what is making the long life lighting source a reality. LEDs come in many styles, sizes and voltages. There are LEDs that are grouped together to provide brighter light. There are LED lighting systems that can be powered by batteries. Lately there are lighting groups that are be made available to replace standard
110 volt AC incandescent lights. Remember LEDs use 5% – 10% of the power that incandescent lights use.

There are specialty LEDs that can be used to replace EXIT sign lights. Just think in some hotels there are literally hundreds of EXIT signs. According to OSHA they need to be on 24 hours a day. This can create a huge maintenance problem for the hotel. I have been told that some of the larger hotels have a person assigned to take care of just the EXIT signs.

These EXIT signs usually have two 20 watt special sized incandescent lights in them. They seem to burn out very often. So lets compare these standard EXIT sign lights with a LED equivalent, I guess we really don’t have to mention about maintenance as we already pointed that out. So lets see how the power stacks up.

The regular lights in the EXIT sign are usually a total of 40 watts. Lets say the hotel has 200 of them. This means 8 kilowatts per hour. In a years time total consumption could be 70,080 kilowatts. At $.16 per kilowatt that comes out to $11,212 per year. This is just the power cost for the EXIT signs!

Lets compare with LEDs. A EXIT sign with LEDs instead of regular incandescent lights could use a total of 1 – 2 watts. Lets go on the high side and use 2 watts. For that same 200 EXIT signs now with LEDs the power consumption would be 400 watts per hour. In a years time total consumption could be 3,504 kilowatts. At $.16 per kilowatt that comes out to $560 per year. This means a saving of $10,652 could be had per year. Remember this is just the power savings. I did not mention the cost of the incandescent lights. The LED lights have a life of 100,000 or about 11 years!!

In summary over $100,000 saving could be realized over the life of the LED EXIT sign retrofit. Remember this is just the EXIT signs!!

I guess the bottom line is LEDs can save you big money in the long run…..

If you would like to see some LEDs in action Marianas Electronics should have some on display soon.