As it has been released, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) has revised its LM-80 testing standard. The testing standard as set up by the Testing Procedures Committee (TPC) of the IES in the year 2008 have now been further concretized and expanded.

 

The range of tested products is now described in a more precise way. According to the latest update, LM-80 testing includes LED packages and modules of all ranges of light radiation and wavelengths. Depending on the type of LED fixture, the testing procedure can refer to luminous flux, radiant flux, or photon flux. 

The IES furthermore confirms the application of LM80 for different types of LEDs which have emerged within the LED-industry lately. Next to well-know constant current driven DC-LEDs, the new LM80 standard now additionally applies to AC-LEDs, high-voltage DC-LEDs and pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) driven LEDs.

 

The third change of LM80 is refers to the testing period. When LM-80 was released in 2008, the IES stipulated a testing time of 6.000 hours. However, the new version of LM-80 does not specify the test duration and measurement intervals. Instead, the IES states that “…the maintenance test duration and measurement intervals shall be based on, and consistent with, the design operating life….”.This design operation life“ finally depends on the type of device under test (DUT), e.g. a component or a complete lamp. The relevant standards for each DUT is now more clearly described in the so-called “paired documents” like TM-21 which the IES has issued for a broad range of products since 2008.