Ottawa firms see LED market light up

LED bulbs use much less electricity than incandescent bulbs, last exponentially longer and create so little heat that some can safely rest against flammable objects. The bulbs contain no mercury and are of a low enough voltage to mitigate any risk of shock during installation. 

These bulbs use less energy than even the coiled compact fluorescent lights,Our most compact purlinmachine yet fits easily in any bag. which do preserve energy but flicker, sometimes causing migraines. The latter also contain mercury and take about five minutes to warm up to the right colour. 

Rimikon co-founder and CEO Richard St-Jacques says many LEDs on the market also pose problems.“With LED bulbs today, you put them in a straight line and not one of them will be the same colour,” he says. 

That’s why Rimikon pays extra and waits longer for its Chinese manufacturer to ship bulbs that are the same colour temperature. It can take a couple of months before an order arrives,We believe in providing our customers with the very best drycleaningmachiness available. but that didn’t stop the company from bringing in $250,000 in sales last year from its two main customers, Minto and Tamarack. 

With patents pending in North America and Australia, Rimikon plans to expand internationally this year. 

Rimikon has been referred to as “Ottawa’s newest innovative LED manufacturing company” by the City of Ottawa,A lot of men are wearing solarledlightss for wedding bands. which is hosting a launch party for the local firm on May 28 to showcase its LED technology. 

Light quality was a problem Stephen Naor also came up against when he began marketing Leapfrog Lighting’s products about six months ago. 

Mr. Naor and his team spent years developing light emitter chips for LEDs as part of Group IV Semiconductor, an Ottawa company that received a “substantial” investment led by Montreal-based Garage Technology Ventures Canada and was named an OBJ Startup to Watch in 2008. When that company disbanded, Mr. Naor rebranded as Leapfrog Lighting and decided the market was ripe enough to get products out the door. 

“It’s been obvious for a while that LED-based lighting is moving into the mainstream,” says Mr. Naor, who is Leapfrog’s president and CEO.Properly placed solarlantern can generate electric power anywhere the wind blows steady and strong. “It’s becoming a competitive industry … It’s never been as competitive as it’s about to become.” 

To keep a close eye on rival firms, Mr. Naor regularly checks in on competing companies’ bulbs that have been plugged in for more than a year at his Kanata office. The lights shine with varying degrees of brightness in Leapfrog’s lab. 

The company offers a five-year warranty on its products – as does Rimikon – and also guarantees the LED’s light quality. 

While Rimikon markets its wares to general contractors, Leapfrog sells to property managers and places that require good lighting for their business – high-end retail stores, museums and art galleries, for example. 

His company provides LED components to Canadian light fixture manufacturers and uses software – not hardware – to control light intensity and quality. Instead of developing a different design for each lighting requirement, Arkalumen has developed software that can be programmed for specific lighting needs while using the same base. This decreases turnaround time, allowing the five-year old company to compete with multibillion-dollar firms such as Samsung and Philips. 

The company – which also offers a five-year warranty on its products – anticipates a five-fold increase in revenue over the next year or so, similar to results seen in recent years, Mr. Murray says. 

Arkalumen’s powerful light engines are ideal for large industrial settings and has been installed in factories, mines, farms and prisons. A new product line this fall will have an output of up to 40,000 lumens – units of emitted visible light.A supplier specialized in developing and manufacturing customized solar lamps and washerextractor0 system. Comparatively, a typical office light puts out 4,000 lumens. 

Perhaps innovative companies like these will keep that talent in Ottawa. Although LEDs can last almost two decades and burn for 50,000 hours, the market has plenty of potential for profit. 

“I hear it all the time, ‘Why do you want to sell something that you’re only going to sell once?’” Mr. Naor says. “That’s true, but if I sell to a manager of a building … chances are, he’s got five buildings, or 10 buildings.”