Light Power

[**DONOTDELETE**]

What is the difference between Lumens and the rating for LED lighting?

 

[Quickbeam]

Which "rating" for LED lighting? There is no standard. It would be nice if there was!

 

[RonM]

I'd guess he's looking for the difference between lumens and mcd. I'll leave the answer to those in the know.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

To Quickbeam
I'm not sure but I think that regular lighting is measured in lumens and I wanted to know the difference between lumens and the mcd rating number on LED's.

 

[Quickbeam]

Wow.... That's a bit of a tough question.

Basically, Lumens and Candela are a measurement of Luminous Flux (the power of light weighted toward the sensitivity of the human eye). It's the WAY that they're measured that makes the difference.

The mathematics and the concepts can be very difficult to understand and even my grasp of them is very tenuous.

I'll refer you to these pages for a very scientific explanation. Unfortunately, there really isn't an easy explanation......

Suffice to say they are related, and measure the same thing (power of light), but are different and can only be directly compared under very specific mathematical circumstances. (which happens to be: 1 isotropic lumen per steradian = 1 candela, I think!)

Sorry. That the best I can do.

Would anyone else like to give it a shot?

 

[lambda]

In simple terms, Lumens is the amount of light produced (sum total of all light if collected at every angle) and mcd (LED specs) relates to the brightness of the focused spot of light.

Does that make any sense?