Dialight Corporation announces the world's first LED, medium-intensity, red-white flashing beacon for marking broadcast and communication towers, wind turbines and other obstacles that pose a hazard to aircraft navigation.
Dialight's new red-white LED obstruction beacon is a cutting edge product designed to overcome problems affecting conventional lighting systems. Current Xenon and Incandescent technologies, are severely affected by vibration and extreme weather conditions and offer a relatively short product life that in turn leads to attendant high maintenance costs.
The new beacon offers a robust solid state design that enables the first ever 20,000 candela flashing white combined with a 2,000 candela steady or flashing red all LED obstruction light. It is designed to meet both Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) A/C 150/5345-43 and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Annex 14 July 1999 standards.
"This new beacon is a revolutionary step forward," said Andrew Wale, Dialight's vice president of marketing. "The robust nature of the LEDs combined with our advanced thermal management and optical systems offer an unparalleled mix of performance and longevity while eliminating much of the cost and risk associated with maintaining conventional strobe systems in the field."
The beacon is also designed to withstand high levels of vibration and the most severe environments. Operating temperatures range from -55 to +55 degrees C and it can withstand conditions including direct sunlight, wind blown rain, wind speeds of 200 kph, high humidity and salt fog and has the same footprint as conventional technologies, making it easier to design in existing installations and products.
The new Dialight LED dual beacon also offers the advantage of reduced light pollution. With its patent pending optical design it focuses the light selectively in the areas required and avoids spilling excess light towards the ground. A proprietary thermal management system effectively dissipates heat generated by the powerful light engine helping to insure its long life in any environment. The beacon also is designed to meet NEMA 4/IP65 standards for moisture ingress. It carries a five-year performance warranty.
Intended as a direct replacement for Xenon-strobe units as well as for new installations, the new beacon features a two-part design that simplifies installation. An external controller and photocell serve as the triggers to pulse the beacon and to switch it between day and night modes. If the synchronization signal is lost, the microprocessor-controlled unit offers a default mode, flashing 40 times per second for daytime operation and if just the red mode fails, it automatically defaults to a 2,000 cd white mode. The external controller will also permit the addition of a GPS receiver that will synchronize the flashing of all of the nearby lights for a wind farm application.
James Gulliver, Dialight Business Development Manager says: "The use of LED light technology on wind turbines is a massive innovation. The new beacon offers operators a reliable, long lasting, low maintenance product which overcomes all the problems currently associated with placing obstruction lighting on the top of wind turbines and other structures likely to experience vibration. "
Dialight's existing range of LED beacons is already in widespread use worldwide for applications including telecommunication towers, broadcasting towers and power station chimneys
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Obstruction Lights
