Glossary

Class 2

Term Abbreviation Definition
Alternating Current (AC) An electric current that reverses its direction at regular intervals.
Ampere (A) Unit of electric current. Equivalent to a steady current produced by one volt applied across a resistance of one ohm.
 Class 2   for wiring installations that must be met in order to pass inspection so it's important to keep these requirements in mind. Class 2 circuits are both power and voltage limited, making them inherently safer than Class 1 circuits. This in turn means less stringent wiring requirements and therefore easier and cheaper installation. Class 2 circuits are limited to 60VDC and 5A or 100W, whichever is lower. This means the limit is 60W at 12VDC or 100W at 24VDC. A Class 2 driver must be used in order for the circuit to be considered Class 2. Class 2 drivers undergo specific testing to ensure that the driver offers sufficient protection for the connected circuit. Environmental Lights offers a wide variety of Class 2 low voltage LED drivers.
Closet Rated   Products that are Closet-Rated Certified have passed an evaluation that ensures the product meets UL’s standards UL 2108, 67.1.9 and 60.4. These LED products are UL Listed and suitable for installation in the storage area of a clothes closet.
Color Rendering Index (CRI) Color Rendering Index is a measure of how well a light source is able to show the colors of an illuminated object. 100 is the best, and 0 is the worst. 80+ is referred to as high CRI.
Color Temperature (CCT) The degree of warmness or coolness of a light, measured in Kelvin (K). Warm White is typically 2,700K and below, Neutral to Cool is around 3,500-4,000K, and Daylight White is around 6,500K.
Diffuser   Diffusers are milky covers that are inserted into the channel above the LEDs. They protect the LEDs, give the fixture a finished look, and eliminate hot spots (brighter areas, which appear as dots) caused by the spacing of LEDs on a strip.
Direct Current (DC) An electric current flowing in one direction only.
Foot-candle (fc) The unit of measure for the density of light as it reaches a surface. One lumen per square foot. 1 foot-candle = 10.8 lux.
Halogen light   A white light produced by an incandescent filament lamp placed in a quartz capsule containing halogen. Halogens are an improvement on the incandescent light Thomas Edison commercialized over a century ago, but they still generate much more waste heat than light energy. To conserve energy, use LED lighting.
Light Emitting Diode (LED)

A type of solid-state lighting in which light is generated by passing a current through a pn (positive-negative) junction in a semiconductor.

Lumen (lm) The quantity of luminous flux emitted within a unit solid angle (one steradian) by a point source with one candela intensity in all directions.
Luminous Efficacy   The light output of a source divided by the input power consumed by that source, in lumens per watt.
Lux (lx) The unit of measure for the density of light as it reaches a surface. One lumen per square meter. 1 lux = 0.093 foot-candles.
Maximum Overall Length (MOL) The distance from one end of the lamp to the other, usually in inches.
National Sanitation Foundation and American National Standards Institute 2: Food Equipment (NSF/ANSI 2) NSF/ANSI Standard 2 establishes minimum food protection and sanitation requirements for the materials, design, fabrication, construction and performance of food handling and processing equipment (such as bakery, cafeteria, kitchen and pantry units) and other food handling and processing equipment (such as tables and components, counters, hoods, shelves and sinks).
 Phosphor   Chemical compound used to coat the inside of fluorescent, compact fluorescent and some metal-halide and mercury bulbs. Phosphors glow when excited by electrons.
Rated Lamp Life   The point at which half the lamps in a statistically-significant sample of tested lamps fails.
Red-Green-Blue (RGB) Product with three colors in each LED node. These three colors can be combined and controlled to create all other light colors.
RGB ColorPlus (RGBW) This LED strip has RGB LEDs with white or amber LEDs, for ultimate color mixing.
Tunable White (TW)

Also referred to as white adjustable or color tunable, this type of LED lighting gives users the freedom to tune the CCT of the light for their specific need. Our tunable white products enable users to adjust the temperature from 2,400K to 6,500K. Retail applications for this lighting include dressing rooms and makeup counters where users can tune the lights to view products in a variety of lighting situations. 

Underwriters Laboratories (UL) UL is the abbreviation for Underwriters Laboratories, an organization that is a world leader in product safety testing and certification. UL is one of several companies approved to perform safety testing by the U.S. federal agency Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
UL Listed   If a product is UL Listed, Underwriters Laboratories has tested representative samples of the product and determined that it meets specific, defined safety requirements. These requirements are often based on UL's published and nationally recognized standards for safety. Environmental Lights offers a wide range of UL Listed LED lighting products.
Volts (V) The MKS (meter-kilogram-second) unit of electrical potential difference and electromotive force equal to the difference in potential between two points in a wire carrying a constant current of one ampere when the power dissipated between the points is equal to one watt.
Watt-Equivalents   The number of watts an incandescent lamp would consume to produce a like amount of light generated by a compact fluorescent or other lamp-type. Example: a 10 Watt compact fluorescent typically produces the light of a 60 watt incandescent, or 60 Watt-equivalents. That’s why LEDs save about 75%-90% power to generate the same amount of light as incandescents, including halogens.
Watts (W) The metric unit of power equal to the work done at the rate of one joule per second or to the power produced by a current of one ampere across a potential difference of one volt.