US 7,267,461 B2 · Directly viewable luminaire

Abstract

A luminaire comprising a housing having thermally separate compartments for an electronics portion and a lighting portion. These thermally separate compartments can provide thermal isolation between the electronics portion and the lighting portion. The lighting portion comprises a plurality of light-emitting elements and further includes an optical device comprising two linear diffuser elements and can be used to further improve the light emission characteristics of the light-emitting elements thereby providing a directly viewable luminaire wherein the illumination produced by point light sources appears uniform along the length of the luminaire. A power supply for supply of energy to the light-emitting elements and a controller for controlling application of energy from a power source to the light-emitting elements is provided in the electronics portion and can be thermally separated within the electronics portion.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A luminaire comprising:

(a) a housing defining a first internal compartment containing one or more light-emitting elements mounted on a planar support connected to the housing, the housing further defining a second internal compartment containing electronic driver means coupled to the one or more light-emitting elements for providing controlled electrical energy to the one or more light-emitting elements, the first and second internal compartments being thermally isolated from one another;
and
(b) an optical means coupled to the housing for manipulating light emitted by the one or more light-emitting elements, said optical means comprising first and second diffuser elements positioned coaxially in a spaced apart configuration, said first and second diffuser elements being curved diffuser elements and said second diffuser element configured to diffuse the light subsequent to the first diffuser element.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Directly viewable luminaire

Life of this patent

Directly viewable luminaire

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims10