Let there be light (cit.) 1/2
(part 1 out of 2)
Since the early years of ZINOX making LED showerhead we have investigated the matter of how a LED system should be, what would be the best options available from the market and what would make a reliable, dependable shower head.
Here are a few considerations derived from that experience.
Once you get to the bone of it, the options reduce to as little as two:
water-powered LED systems
AC-powered LED systems
Everyone loves the idea behind the first one, at first. Then they buy one of those € 15 hand showers with LED that looks so cool and they actually are as cool as they look on the online catalogue.
They are colourful, and sometimes equipped with a thermal sensor that is supposed to change the led colour according to water temperature.
The system is rather simple: there's a rotor and a stator and a very small circuit board with the LED system and a (very) few other things on it, typically fully sealed, just "potted in" in order to make sure water doesn't get in the way and spoil the fun.
Long story short, it looks roughly like a computer fan, with the part that moves (the rotor) getting moved by the water flow and the part that stays (the stator) containing a three-phase wiring with a three way rectifier (six diodes connected accordingly) to which the colour LED system is connected.
Such a system is quite a smart one if we consider it from a theoretical point of view: it's so simple.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the practical point of view it often proves to lack in dependability.
More often then not, in fact, either the thermal sensor or the water-turbine or both do stop working, due to intrinsic limitation in construction, limestone damaging the rotor, and whatnot. And with no way to fix it.
Still, ZINOX widely experimented on these systems, trying to go upscale on the quality of the technology they can offer albeit without totally eliminating the flaws. And there was another issue, often reported by customers: noise.
A large, ceiling-mounted, recessed rain-shower with such a system inside will often hum quite distinctively and noticeably. Not the most pleasant of feelings, according to many customers of us. This was a big no-go, for some of them.
One another blind spot of this technology is that, when used in small device - such as a hand shower - the light it sheds may be enough, mostly because the whole thing is perceived as just a nice gadget, but on large, expensive, high-quality, high-end rain-shower on the ceiling, light is more often then not just not enough and not vivid enough due to the nature of how much power can be driven into the LED, which often limits the type of LED that can be installed to the low-intensity light diodes.
Thus, we at ZINOX gave up using this technology, no matter who "cool" it may look at first glance.
It still is the system of choice when a key element in the choice of a shower, for your customers, is price and one can thus afford to compromise on the other criteria of light intensity and dependability.
Price is indeed a matter of perception, thus when aiming at creating a 170 € shower column with six body jet, rain, waterfall, hand shower and bottom water outlet with also LED functions, one will use plastic cartridges for the body jets, the rain and the waterfall (they will work fine as long as your water system has a high-efficiency limestone filter upstream of the shower room and one's expectations aren't too high), connectors and behind-the-hood system will be as standardised as possible to leverage large procurement and LED will of course be water-powered to strip down costs and features.
After all, if it fails, it will cost less to just replace it rather than fix it, for both the sales agent and the end user.
Let's talk more about this.
Next issue we'll address the technical whereabouts of the other solution: AC-powered LED systems.
Take care.