23. February 2010 by Brent.

I was updating our business plan, What a thrill….My least favorite thing, next to hitting my head on a doorway.

Anyways, one of the points of consideration of any business that sells a product is having it in a retail store. Why don’t you see light therapy devices at stores when you go shopping? They could put it between the “I have everything” and “Interesting things no one understands”. You might have seen the pet rock there 20 years ago.

Can a sales person explain it to you in under 5 minutes, so you would spend hundreds of dollars on it? Pretty hard sell.

There was a high tech store that had a light therapy device, I won’t mention the name but it starts with a “B” and has water and rock in the name.  Anyways, I went in, picked up the device with I think 14-16 lights that were pretty, and asked the sales person what does it do and how does it do it.  They told me it is supposed to reduce pain. I said “Really”, How? And they smiled at me and said “I don’t know” but that’s what I’ve been told. We have a return policy if you don’t like it.

Last time I went in, it’s not there anymore. Might be in some, but I haven’t seen it. Only online, or in magazines.

So, will it ever be on the shelf? Yes. There will be a point, just like GPS’s, where the knowledge of the technology is all around, and people know what it is. Then the volume of purchases will increase, and the price will go down. It’s how everything works if it’s a good product. Computers, MP3 players, etc.

How long will it be? Of course, as I do our business plan, I hope it’s soon.
Light therapy is a great thing!

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

2. February 2010 by Brent.

We recently went to China to review some of our manufacturing processes. You ever sat on a plane for 12 hours? I’m 7’ tall. This is the first memory of the trip. Airplanes just aren’t designed for people.I imagined that there would be beautiful ornate buildings, and a lot of culture. Well, to my surprise, the area we were in (Shenzhen) which is primarily a manufacturing mecca, was just a lot of concrete.

Have you ever seen how LED’s are made? Little keebler elves?

They start with small chips of material (usually from Japan) on a little plastic sheet. The chips are cut from a wafer, and one 2”      diameter wafer cans thousands of these chips. And they look through a microscope and scrape this chip into the tip of the LED element on a row of 20 at a time. This chip decides what type of light output, quality, and angle the LED will have. They do this manually for thousands of LED’s. Rooms full of people. The can do automated, but the machinery only makes sense for LED’s in the Tens of Millions. Makes my eyes hurt to watch, but then again I’m old.

Next, they put the stamped, 20 LEDs with the chips, into this machine which adds a little gold filament to bridge between the two elements. 

Are you asleep yet?

Epoxy is then poured into moulds, and the 20 LEDs are put into the mould. They use a manual version of it (but there are automated machines).

Lastly the LED’s are run through a sorter that analyzes every LED for various parameters, such as current, forward voltage, Candela output (brightness), etc.

Then it’s shipped to us, and we build light therapy products, or whatever.

A lot goes into the quality and performance of the LED’s as not all LED’s are created equal. They are all different since and quality wafers, epoxies, gold, etc. We tested hundreds of different manufactures and products, to come to the one that hit the output we needed.

There are a lot of lower output Light therapy systems on the market today, that don’t do much but blink pretty colors. I’m sure I’ll catch flack from that, but….

China’s a nice place to visit with some great food, but there’s no place like home. That’s it. No political or astounding cultural statements. Just LED’s.

By the way, why on earth do we use LED’s for light therapy? Maybe a next topic.

Brent

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 3 Comments »

19. January 2010 by Brent.

Does blinking lights make light therapy work better? Hmm…. Does a strobe light make you dance better because they can’t see 3 quarters of your fancy dancing moves?

I kind of get a kick out of this question.

Whenever a light is blinking, that means it’s off for some amount of time.
That means you’re not getting light therapy for the time it’s off. They usually blink on and off evenly. You’re only getting half the light energy. Kind of like filling your coffee mug with dripping water rather than pouring. Which would you rather do?

I haven’t seen any studies indicating blinking is better than non-blinking.
Only three reasons I can see to blink:

1. Looks pretty and makes you think it really is doing something special.
Put on your leisure suit, get out the old Bee Gee album, and hit your Light therapy blink button. yowza yowza yowza

2. Blinking or pulsing may cause cells to be more stimulated. Like getting slapped. That’ll wake you up. Again, you would have to say that the blinking is more beneficial than twice as much energy, because to reiterate, “THE BLINK MEANS THE LIGHT IS OFF”. No Light = No Light Therapy. Just simulate the blinking by putting your light in behind a fan and save yourself the extra blinking money.

3. Most logical and real reason: LED’s get hot. Heat reduces their lifespan, and reduces the amount of light you actually get. Most electrical engineers make the light blink to cool them. In fact most LED’s are actually blinking, but it’s so fast you can’t see it. If you have a video camera with a variable shutter speed, you can speed the shutter speed up and can usually detect the blinking.

Anyways, I don’t know why but all this talk about blinking is making my eyes tired. Stare deep into the blinking lights. Your getting
sleepy…..sleepy…zzzz

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

15. January 2010 by Brent.

I did a blog check for light therapy, and didn’t find much. I found lots of marketing blogs, most on SAD lights, but not a lot of good independent (if there is such a thing) info. So either blogs are out, or light therapy is ripe for a good blog. So we’ll give it a go. It really surprises me since we are seeing light therapy products everywhere now that no one has either jumped on it, or continued it long enough to be “THE” one.

Maybe because I know what Light Therapy is, it jumps out at me, but 6 years ago, I had never heard of it. I remember when I first heard about twitter. Then 2 days later I had heard the word 20 times. Isn’t that how things work. It takes 3 key times to see or hear something before our brains even know that we were introduced. For me it’s like a slap in the face usually saying “your old Brent, catch up with the times. I’m the last to know.

 Everyone of course remembers where they were when they first heard Kennedy was assassinated, or where they were when 911 occurred. No one knows what they were doing when they heard about light therapy. Something I bet everyone remembers is their first botox injection, ouch. I haven’t had one, but probably need one. Doesn’t everyone secretly imagine getting plastic surgery or botox? I might admit something like that if this wasn’t for public consumption.

So back to the point. Hopefully we can start some useful information exchange regarding all things about light therapy. To me it’s not about a product, it’s about people getting the concept. Light what? Light therapy. Oh is that the sun tan booth? Is that something to make me lighter? Is it fact, fiction, or fad?

Well that’s enough blathering for the first one. I’ll post another soon, to really start getting things going. Feel free to tell me to go away. I get that daily. Although I have bad hearing, or listening maybe. Suggestions welcome.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

13. January 2010 by Brent.

Welcome to the new blog of LED Technologies, LLC!  We’re excited to be able to bring you information about our technology and our DPL System.  If you would like to order a system please go to www.ledtechnologies.com.  For questions or comments this is the place.  Thanks for reading!

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »