IDC’s Bright Innovation Leads to Lowest Energy Sign Lights

IDC has enabled our client, TMP (Traffic Management Products), to produce one of the lowest energy road sign lights ever developed.

TMP challenged IDC to design a new range of these, which would use the lowest amount of energy possible. Most current sign lights use fluorescent tubes which work by flood-ing the sign area with light; causing inefficiency, with light illuminating the ground or area outside the sign, as well as dazzling drivers and passers-by. In some cases competitors had already modernised their fluorescent tube models by retrofitting the existing housing with LED gear trays (LED bulb assembly kits) to save power.

IDC’s first action was to understand the pros and cons of current road signs and began a comprehensive research programme to analyse competitor products and their light patterns. The research identified that even with the more energy efficient LED lights, uneven and misdirected light accounted for a significant proportion of energy used. To optimize the light energy, IDC used theoretical optical design and extensive testing to create a highly efficient lighting array.

The final product used refined illumination to ensure maximum brightness with light density and spread targeted at the sign to be illuminated, thereby consuming the minimum amount of energy.

The team developed a solution based around specialist high efficiency LEDs, coupled with highly focused lenses which were able to direct light to the exact points or spread on the sign face as required. Interestingly, initial tests with less than half the number of LEDs used in competitor models gave better results, due to the pinpoint accuracy and low light wastage of the new de-sign. IDC was able to fine-tune LED position and spread to suit a range of sign sizes and shapes whilst retaining optimal power consumption.

When developing the housing for the new light, TMP was keen to move away from the crude and bulky look of current road signs and IDC was tasked with improving aesthetics to streamline the appearance. IDC designed contemporary housings to fit around the LED pattern and to work in parallel with the lens optimisation. The key design challenge for this was to ensure that light direction and spread was not restricted; and allow easy and repeatable installation. The final housing was designed to look attractive in both urban and rural street environments as well as being robust, weather proof and vandal resistant.

TMP has just launched the new range of sign lights, known as Apollo, which achieve the highest brightness and uniformity standards, as well as the lowest energy consumption of all sign lights in their class.