<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Elmie:
Just wondering, what is the life span of the luxeon star rated at?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
White, blue, blue-green, green LS:
At 8,000 hours, the output will degrade up to 20%.
At 80,000 hours, this loss (from new value) is at 30%.
For red & amber LS, it looks like a 20% loss at around 5,000 to 7,000 hours, and a 36% loss at around 85,000 to 90,000 hours.
A common figure given for 5mm LEDs like Nichia is a 50% degradation at 100,000 hours.
These figures assume the LS is driven at 350mA (white, green, blue-green, blue) or 385mA (amber, red).
Degradation will probably be much less pronounced at lower values - even taking 50mA off will probably cut the total intensity loss to 10%-15% or so over 70,000+ hours; though I have no direct evidence to support this theory.