A new flicker of concern fuels the TLA topic

I’d be comfortable saying lighting flicker is an irritating phenomenon that has been experienced by 99.999% of the population with access to electric lighting. We’re not talking about the comfortable, meditative flicker of a candle flame; this is intermittent flashing or strobing — sometimes imperceptible to the naked eye. However, the brain still receives the signal that the light fluctuates and before long, you’re feeling nauseated or experiencing headaches or eye strain that you can’t quite explain. For some people, the effects are much more intense and may even go so far as to become a trigger for seizures.

More from LEDs Magazine on flicker:

• Understand a new flicker metric and its application to AC-LED light engines
• IEEE PAR1789 makes recommendations on safe levels of flicker in LED-based lighting
• Good intentions yield flicker standard with questions that remain
• Proper driver design eliminates LED light strobe flicker

One of our most popular articles is a feature by Lutron LED engineering leader Ethan Biery that summarizes the attempts to establish good test and quality control metrics for characterizing events known as “temporal lighting artifacts” — aka flicker. Ethan delivers solid background on types of flicker and the conditions that create the TLA. Although this article was published two years ago, it continues to attract site visitors, so we know that flicker is an issue that still resonates with people.

Still, we want to keep you informed about other resources through PennWell’s LED & Lighting Network as well — which may help us to develop new content that updates you on product engineering topics like this. There is an excellent series on the Lux partner website called “Two-minute explainers,” which recently drilled down a more recently identified kind of random flicker, and you should check it out. Applications editor and independent lighting consultant John Bullock guides us through a brief explanation on how newer integrated circuit (IC) designs may experience a perfect storm of conditions that delivers flicker that is extremely difficult to test for. We’ll certainly keep an eye on this topic.