Frequently Asked Questions
What is an LED Light Engine?
An LED Light Engine is essentially the “guts” of an LED luminaire and it is comprised of three primary components: LED Driver, LED Module, and Heat Sink. In the Brillia brand of products, Permlight supplies complete light engines or the components of the light engine. For a formal definition, see our Industry Terminologysection.
What manufacturer’s LEDs are used in your light engines?
All Brillia LED light engines and LED modules use only the top industry brands of LEDs available. Most of the standard Brillia LED Light engines use Nichia® brand LEDs, but we have components that feature LEDs from other manufacturers such as Cree®, Philips Lumileds®, and Seoul Semiconductor®. We can incorporate any desired LED into our products.
What color temperatures (CCT) and bins are used in your components?
Brillia products come in five standard color temperatures ranging from warm white to cool white. The specific CCT values are 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, 4000K, and 5000K. While these are the standard offerings, we can obtain any color temperature desired outside of these ranges.
Almost all of Brillia LED light engines and modules utilize LEDs that are in the ANSI bins. Utilizing such bins ensures tighter binning ranges for color consistency, and allows manufacturers to obtain ENERGY STAR® qualification.
How do I purchase Brillia LED Light Engines and components?
Brillia LED Light Engines and components are only sold direct through Permlight. For information on how to contact us to buy products, see contact Permlight sales section of this site.
Does Permlight manufacturer LED Luminaires?
No. Permlight indeed manufactured a line of LED luminaires under the Enbyten brand name during a period from 2004 through 2008, however we existed the luminaire manufacturing business to focus solely on LED light engines in October 2008. We now only provide LED light engines and components to industry leading luminaire manufacturers and are not making any complete luminaires.
For support on any of the Enbryten brand of products (product number typically starts with ENBXX) that were manufactured by Permlight, please contact Permlight.
There are Permlight or Brillia labeled components in my luminaire, and I need support or have questions. Do I contact Permlight directly?
First you should contact the manufacturer of the luminaire. The luminaire manufacturer is actually the seller of the completed product and usually has resources or components to support any of your questions. If you have contacted the manufacturer and was not able to get sufficient assistance, please contact Permlight.
Are your products dimmable?
LEDs are inherently dimmable. However, the LED driver (power supply) must itself be dimmable in order for the LEDs to be dimmed. Some of the Brillia drivers are indeed dimmable, while other models are not. Be sure to see the datasheet of the engine or LED driver to determine which products are dimmable and with what type of dimmer. For more information on compatibility with various devices, see Dimming Compatibilitysection of this site.
Why use LED Light Engines and not just retrofit lamps (light bulbs)?
The most critical element in LED performance is proper thermal design. A proper heat sink ensures the LEDs are efficient, bright, and long-lasting. Thus, a proper LED lighting system must be configured to ensure that the LEDs have proper heat dissipation to perform optimally. This can much more easily be accomplished with a luminaire when it is designed for LEDs at the very beginning. Such design requires the use of LED light engines. Retrofit lamps are typically useful in products that are already installed, but the lamps are not thermally integrated into the luminaire as a system. Retrofit lamps in general do not perform as well as luminaire systems containing LED light engines due to the lack of real estate for heat sinking in a retrofit lamp. A properly designed system has the entire luminaire housing to potentially incorporate into the thermal design whereas the lamps only have the minimal space of the lamp housing. Thus, performance can usually be greatly optimized utilizing a LED light engine in the fixture design versus incorporating a retrofit LED lamp.