Black Tank, an LED technology and product development company, announced the award of patent US 10,021,751 titled Lighting System And Method For PWM Adjustable Current Control.
The company calls this technique “Hybrid Driver Technology™” (HDT) – real-time, independent control of both electrical current and PWM duty cycle. “Typically onboard processors in advanced LED fixtures only control PWM duty cycle digitally. HDT essentially adds another knob to transparently control the analog LED drive current simultaneously with the traditional digital control scheme” says Mike Johnson, VP of Engineering.
HDT enables a variety of groundbreaking features including enhanced resolution for master dimmer control, higher output levels when implementing dynamic CCT manipulation and the ability to adjust the overall fixture wattage (for LEEDs compliance).
A key feature of note is the new Ludicrous Mode™ which provides for up to a 4x increase in light output. “Typically tunable white or color mixing fixtures only use a small percentage of their total heat sink potential – we can drive any single or set of LEDs in a tunable white or color mixing fixture at any color/CCT at the full fixture wattage without sacrificing lifetime”, said Mr. Johnson.
The benefits are numerous but include reducing the number of fixtures required in an installation and virtually eliminating the need for Lighting Designers to select a color/CCT during specification.
This new patented driver technology is integrated into Black Tank’s GEN2 platform. “The GEN2 platform has been under development since we started Black Tank”, said Mr. Johnson, “it is essentially the culmination of years of our ideas, customer input and expert electronic hardware and firmware development – all in a single package”.
This new technology, along with Black Tank’s patented thermal management system, are currently being used in the new OrigamX™ LED fixture family (www.origamx.com) and will be integrated into future collaborative products with Rosco Laboratories; a long time development partner of Black Tank. “The GEN2 platform can also be rapidly repackaged to support OEMs who require advanced control features”, says Mr. Johnson.
For more information, please visit: www.theblacktank.com
