Osram Licht AG of Germany is launching XLS (eXchangable LED Signal), standardized LED light sources for automotive signal light applications. The company says that combining standardized light sources and LED technology will radically alter the automotive signal lamp sector. Osram claims that its launch of LY5 and LW5 in yellow and white means that for the first time users (Tier1/OEMs) can equip vehicles with standardized exchangeable LED signal light sources in all signal applications.
“For the first time, a uniform platform with four different light sources can cover all the important signal applications in vehicles. This allows simple replacements, reduces complexity and overall costs for car manufacturers and leads to faster development processes thanks to adapted standards,” said Hans-Joachim Schwabe, CEO Specialty Lighting at Osram. According to Osram, the LED-based signal lamps are scheduled to appear on the roads beginning in the fall of 2018.
The company notes that over the past several years, LED technology in vehicles has brought many benefits in designs and has led to improved energy efficiency. As a result, Osram says that however, the industry has created a baffling array of vehicle-specific solutions.
To solve this issue, Osram has developed a standardized LED light source for signal light applications. The company says that with the XLS product family Osram is introducing a signal light portfolio that delivers all the innovative benefits of LED technology while providing the proven benefits of traditional lamps such as standardization and exchangeability.
A single platform for all LED signal light sources
Osram’s UN/ECE (R128) standardized lamps will be available in four types for different signal applications in white (LW5, L1), yellow (LY5), and red (LR5). The yellow LY5 lamp with 280 lumen output and a life of up to 4,000 hours is for turn indicators.
LW5 is a white signal lamp for reversing and daytime running lights (DRL) with 350 lumen output and a life of up to 5,000 hours. The two other members of the XLS product family that Osram is currently planning include a red brake, rear and fog light (LR5), which provides up to 4,000 hours of light with a luminous flux of 120 lumen, and a white high-precision fog light (L1) with up to 350 lumen output and a life of up to 5,000 hours.
All of these LED-based automotive signals among the Osram XLS products feature protection against electrostatic discharge, overvoltages, and polarity reversal and comply with all standard requirements for modern vehicle electronics. Osram leverages the company’s chip-on-board technology for its XLS light sources, allowing the LED chips to be spaced very close to one another with conventional optics.
Exchangeable Light Sources Setting New Standards
The company asserts that the XLS product family delivers a wide range of benefits for consumers, headlight manufacturers and car manufacturers. Additionally, a standardized platform for LED signal lamps reduces the number of brand and model-specific solutions for vehicle models. Osram also says that integrating the heat sink and electronics in the light source eliminates the costs for their design and makes it unnecessary to get approval for each individual solution.
Overall, Osram says that such standardization and integration considerably reduces overall costs for car makers in the supply chain and quality control. Moreover, the company also notes that the reuse of design modules and the same platforms cuts down on the time, effort and costs of development. And the standardized XLS product family enables design cycles to be shorter and complexity to be reduced,
A standardized solution also benefits car workshops and car owners, allowing the direct replacement of light sources in the event of a fault, which translates to lower repair costs and greater road safety because finding a standard light source solution reduces the time between when someone knows they need a repair and the time when they get the part to do the repair themselves.
Osram plans to produce the XLS Series of the lamps in the automotive plant in Herbrechtingen, Germany, and the company says that customers of XLS products benefit from the numerous years of experience that the plant has in manufacturing car lamps.
The first Osram XLS products are scheduled to appear on the roads from the fall of 2018.
