The development of electrical power well over a century ago revolutionized artificial lighting. It was then that the flame was replaced as the main source of artificial light in favor of electrically powered lighting. Since that time, the history of electric lighting has been one of continuous development punctuated by a series of major innovations.
The most commonly used lamps are Incandescent lamps, The halogen incandescent lamp, Gas discharge lighting, Low-pressure sodium lamps, High-pressure sodium lamps, Fluorescent lamps, High-pressure mercury lamps, Metal halide lamps, Ceramic metal halide lamps.
Among different luminaries, Fluorescent lamps have been widely used in various residential, commercial and industrial sectors. Fluorescent lamps are used broadly in the commercial, hospitality and retail market as down light. These fluorescent lamps are driven by a ballast, which generates a high voltage applying across the two ends of the lamp to ignite it and stabilizes the current flowing through the lamp. The fluorescent lamp has poor electrical efficiency, provides a relatively poor quality of light and lasts only 10,000 hours after which is must be disposed of through proper channels due to the mercury content.
The most recent evolution in lighting is solid state lighting based on light emitting diode (LED) technology. The light generation principle is similar to what happens in gas discharge lamps, but now the discharge happens in a solid state material: orbit changing electrons cause atoms to get ‘excited’ that subsequently fall back to their natural state thereby releasing its surplus energy in the form of radiation. The advancement in microelectronics technology have led light-emitting-diode (LED) technology to generate lighting and special purpose lighting applications.
Due to the reason that fluorescent lamp are not as energy-efficient as LED lamps today and pollution caused due to leakage of mercury from wasted fluorescent lamp, the idea of replacing the fluorescent lamp with LED is getting more and more popular. However the main concern for replacing fluorescent lamp with LED lamp is the considerable labor costs involved in the installation, because people need to open the light fixture to disassemble the existing ballast, either it be an electronic one, or a magnetic one. Another concern involved in the replacement of fluorescent lighting with LED is the lack of recycle scheme of ballast. Therefore in view of above constraints, it would be advantageous to have LED retrofit lamp that can directly replace the existing fluorescent lamp.