A few years ago, the LED lighting industries – from LED Control Gears and LED Modules manufacturers to LED Lighting System integrators – began heavily investing in new high-power LED fixtures to replace traditional 2kW HID headlight. It became apparent early on that this new high-power LED lighting system would require a unique solution capable of supplying proper power to these new LED Modules. The solution had to be robust to survive the harsh environmental conditions and provide a method to distribute power to reduce the number of devices needed per fixture. In addition, the fixtures required a solution that allowed for remote programmability and interoperability protocols.
Although the original intent was to replace existing high-power fixtures widely deployed in the large indoor/outdoor sport venues, it was clear there was a rapidly emerging LED lighting segment related to high-mast lighting encompassing lighting applications such as airports, hangars, seaports, and other similar environments. The potential business expectations were consistent yet, the technical requirements and content were extremely challenging, including the overall financial investment required. Energized by these challenges, Enedo began designing a new power source capable of meeting the demands of this new market.
Thanks to our tacit knowledge and experience to deep dive into the increasingly demanding technical requirements, Enedo was able to develop the new high-power LED drivers and successfully pass severe qualification tests edging the market pace. The result was a new 1.5kW+ LED driver with three independent channels that is programmable and interoperable through DALI-2 and DMX-RDM protocols. This product was the start for our DLD Platform, 2x channels (link) and 3x Channels (link) All drivers operate over the worldwide input voltage range 100 – 400VAC, with an extremely adaptable output voltage range and output current. Of equal importance, the new driver provides a high-quality output current level in terms of ripple and noise content, demanded by high-definition slow motion TV shooting and, moreover, by human health prescriptions.
In the last three years the Enedo Business Development team has been able to weave a strong communication and partnership net that allowed us to successfully explore the high-mast LED lighting segments. That still expanding process made it possible to develop a variety of DLD standard platform tailored solutions to serve increasingly complex and powerful LED luminaries designs.
Retrospectively, the key factors we believe most contributed to the success of the DLD platform have been:
– Company foresight and courage to bet most of its resources on an emerging, unknown niche market. In the past 2 years, high-power stadium and high mast large area LED lighting have become the main focus of major worldwide companies involved on LED Lighting.
– Smart and responsive project development capabilities. Enedo proven design flexibility can quickly accommodate any technical requirement in this fast-moving LED lighting segment.
– Unique and versatile technical features and value versus existing competitors commoditized solutions. Such features include fully independent multi-channel 500W+ per channel solutions, operability over any nominal distributed voltage range (lower: 100 – 305 and upper: 200 – 440 V), extremely high efficiency and lower weight (thanks to the non-isolated I-to-O topology), higher input surge immunity, extended and accurate output current dimming, lower current ripple / flickering level, capable to operate at very high environment temperature (up to 55 °C) still ensuring longer life time, extremely robust package IP66/67 and IK08 rated including its built in junction box, all contained in a compact form factor and remote installation capability.
– The capability to offer a stand-alone LED driver adaptable to many variations of LED fixtures allowing flexibility and optimization to system integrators allowing a tangible installations’ total cost of ownership optimization.
The success of the DLD Series design brought a range of benefits to the Enedo company, such as:
– Worldwide Enedo brand and name recognition in the high-power LED lighting industry alongside the most well-known LED Driver manufacturers
– The opportunity to explore quickly growing new market segments such as Horticultural LED lighting, an area for which activity is progressing both in EU and USA collecting encouraging feedback about DLD series design in
– Continue to innovate and enrich the high-power LED driver line card and product plan to support high power high mast LED lighting integrators: the DALI-2 evolution into the D4i communication protocol to enhance and facilitate LED driver interoperability, higher output currents and available output total power, higher input voltage operability up to 528V input, preference for Bluetooth communication and control mash.
– Create potentially long-lasting business relationships through DLD customizations enlarging high power LED lighting market presence.
Massimo Petritoli
Technical manager