Tech Primer
According to the investigation records, many mining accidents are caused directly by electric sparks generated by mining lamps. The emergence of LED mining lamps greatly reduces the possibility of gas explosion caused by the burst of lamp bulbs or the electric spark occurring when replacing lamps.
LED mining lamps are composed of a storage battery, LED Driver, and LED cluster. The battery may be lead-acid, Nickel or Lithium based. Li-ion based systems are typically the best solution currently due to advantages of energy density, weight saving and very low self discharge rate. Li-ion recharging requires active monitoring and control over the charging process of battery to prevent insufficient charging, overcharging or even explosion when charging.
The LED cluster is made up of two parts: main lamp and sub lamp. The main lamp is built with high power LED (1W or 3w) working as the main lighting source. The sub lamp is used in the event that the main lamp fails. It is a high brightness LED (0.5W or higher) that is connected directly between the battery voltage and ground with a necessary current limit resistor or LED driver, controlled by an on/off switch, as shown in the block diagram. The parameters of LED products from different manufacturers, such as optical property, electrical property, thermal property, radiation safety and lifetime, are usually not consistent, so they should be considered carefully in the selection of components for mining applications. For example a general mining lamp needs to reach a luminous flux of over 30lm.
The advance of technology have brought us the LED mining lamps featured with multiple functions such as gas detection, miner locating, voice communication and even attendance recording, in addition to working as a light source.
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