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Lighting co's that dont employ electronics engineers?..why not?

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T

treez

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Hi
In UK today, there are huge numbers of lighting companies, all of which call themselves “lighting designers and manufacturers”

For example, there’s………………………

Acdclighting.co.uk
https://londonlighting.co.uk/
https://www.endon.co.uk/
https://www.keslighting.co.uk/
https://www.darlighting.co.uk/
https://www.whitecroftlighting.com/

…and literally 100’s and 100’s more.
None of them seem to employ any electronics engineers.
When you look on linkedin, none of these companies seem to have any electronics engineers.
So who designs the ballasts and the LED drivers?
Is all their stock from China?

Is it true that Germany doesn’t do it like this, and that’s how Osram survives.? Also, Netherlands doesn’t do it like this, and that’s how Phillips lighting survives? Ditto the USA with GE Lighting? What about France, and all other countries?
 
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It's because none of them are lighting manufacturers, they are all luminaire manufacturers. All they care about is stock shifting or using existing lighting modules in custom enclosures. I doubt any of them have any knowledge of electronics and probably little technical knowledge of lighting generally.

Most of the true light source manufacturers have development labs in their respective regions but outsource manufacturing to Asia.

Brian.
 

Is it true that Germany doesn’t do it like this, and that’s how Osram survives.? Also, Netherlands doesn’t do it like this, and that’s how Phillips lighting survives?

I don't think so. My Osram luminaires don't have Osram drivers. My Philips luminaires don't have Philips drivers.
 

It's because none of them are lighting manufacturers, they are all luminaire manufacturers. All they care about is stock shifting or using existing lighting modules in custom enclosures.
Thanks, I am probably predictable in asking, ..then why don’t they bother to employ a lighting power supply designer?, then they could have the perfect custom solution for each luminaire, and have it in house, instead of having to buy it in from an external source.

I don't think so. My Osram luminaires don't have Osram drivers. My Philips luminaires don't have Philips drivers.
Thanks, but then I wonder how Osram and Philips survives?

Basically we seem to be saying here that all these companies use (probably) Chinese LED drivers(?)
So how much cheaper is it to get the LED driver designed in China? Half the price of getting a UK power supply designer to do it in UK?…….a tenth of the cost?...a twentieth of the cost?
Is the cost going up or down as time goes on?

Why do British local authorities often insist on buying lamps from “British” companies who do design and manufacture “in house”?......i mean , surely they should get with the times and just tolerate the fact that bringing it in from China is the way it works now?…….

Then the horrible realisation that even a “British designer and manufacturer” might actually be just full of “stooge” engineers, who are pretending to design stuff, when secretly its all being brought in by the back door from China.

There seems to be this inescapable truth that buying LED drivers in from China is THE way forward….yet there is this horrible realisation that doing it like this ultimately leads to disaster, where we end up with a country where no one knows how to evaluate any LED driver design, and ultimately we will end up getting ripped off by the Chinese when buying their led drivers, because when we totally loose our capability to design them, the Chinese will ratchet up the price and really make us pay…..but then, if this were a known fact, then why are the UK politicians doing nothing about this?
Ditto all this in all other countries.
 

Thanks, I am probably predictable in asking, ..then why don’t they bother to employ a lighting power supply designer?, then they could have the perfect custom solution for each luminaire, and have it in house, instead of having to buy it in from an external source.
I think you grossly misunderstand these companies claims. When you say 'Engineer' you think of someone capable of designing a lighting system, when they say 'Engineer' they mean someone capable of screwing a bulb in.

The reason local authorities in the UK, and I suspect other countries too, want to deal with 'home' companies is for political reasons and nothing to do with the technology. They don't care where the product comes from but they don't want to deal directly with the manufacturer. By using a 'middle man' they isolate themselves from the problems of import regulations and the warranty on the devices. The onus is put on the distributor who they can deal with directly without time zone or language problems.

Brian.
 

Thanks, i tend to agree, but i believe that many local authorites dont trust a lighting company to be very knowledgeable (and capable) about lighting if they dont actually design and build the entitre system, including the drivers, themselves.
The thing is, a British company can simply pretend to design their own drivers, whilst secretly just buying them in from China.

In the UK, its getting to the stage where its just not cost effective to do in-house led driver design for most applications.....so it should be accepted that drivers will be imported from China, and no pretence should be needed.

The thing is, instead of having 100's of different lighting companies all creaming off a middle man markup, why doesnt the government simply set up a single lighting company and tell it that it will only pay say 20% more than it was purchased from China.......in other words, save money........i cant understand why the government dont do this, when you consider how penny pinching they are over parking fees and speed cams etc.

The thing is, when this is done, the "company" would find out that they cant properly evaluate chinese led drivers, because they dont have any in-house led driver designers...and the reason that there are no in-house led driver designers available, is precisely because all the led drivers are now imported from China.

So why dont the government realise that we are heading for this disaster, and start tariffing Chinese goods, so that we can start making them ourselves?...and solve this problem which will destroy the UK more than it already has been....ditto this to all other countries.
**broken link removed**
 

When a government controls the country's manufacturing and distribution and decides who runs it and is employed by it, we call it 'communism'. Free choice is removed from the consumer and competition disappears, taking innovation with it.

Think of it, you want your house to have nice lighting - so you go to 'lighting store 0234' and on the shelf is 'lighting product 6543' (at a fixed price of course). You don't really want a cold white narrow beam spotlight in your living room but the alternative is candles. Designing your own is a punishable offense, working outside government instructions is a crime against the hard working people in the lighting company, cheating them out of the jobs, so you go to jail.

From your previous postings it appears you work for a lighting company that designs it's own products. Do you also have a mining department and foundry to extract and process metals, a chemical plant to make the semiconductor materials and plastics for your components and afterwards, a delivery department that takes finished products to customers and install them? I guess not, it takes a collaborative effort to do all those things and more investment than a single company could afford. That's why parts or whole products are made in different places by different companies. Where those companies are is largely due to the availability of natural resources and manpower. The UK simply doesn't have all the necessary natural resources, they have to be bought in from other countries. It makes more sense to use the resources near to where they are found and produce final products there than to ship raw materials around the World for processing in less accessible places.

Brian.
 

Thanks, thats interesting.
My acquaintance has spotted a lighting product which essentially isnt sold anywhere in UK.
We wish to buy in loads of them from China and sell them in UK.
We are finding that it will actually be cheaper to buy in the whole product from China and simply ship it to the customer direct...
....ie, do no final assembly whatsoever in UK.
We are wondering about problems with this?
ie, should we do the "final assembly" in UK for engineering reasons?
 

The only problem is with the shipping schedules, you probably need to keep some stock available for immediate dispatch or else your customer may face long and uncertain delivery times. You obviously have to monitor for quality control as well.

My neighbor imports 'generic' aerosol products (unmarked, pressurized Al cans for cosmetics) in bulk then adds the branding at a packaging factory in the UK. It lets them ship at short notice and avoids counterfit versions of their own branding, even though the contents are the same as probably hundreds of other brands. It may be a technique you could follow.

Brian.
 

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