COB OR SMD LED HIGH BAY?

9 June, 2020

Differences between a COB led high bay and an SMD?

When looking for an LED high bay, we can see LED high bays with the cheaper COB technology, a single CHIP LED concentrates all the power, so you just need to install this chip and power it, it is cheaper to implement.

So if it's cheaper, why aren't all LED high bays COB? In fact, SMD technology is more reliable in the long term, especially at high power. Let's know the main characteristics of each technology:

SMD (Surface Mounted Device) technology includes an element with a single LED diode for two connection contacts, it is a low-power element per SMD LED high bay unit composed of hundreds of these LED chips.

COB (Chip On Board) or MCOB (Multiple Chip On Board) technology includes a single element with only two contacts regardless of the number of diodes that compose it. Depending on the number of diodes, this single element can increase its power. A COB led high bayd is generally composed of a single led chip.

If we look at a COB LED high baywe can see a heat sink of smaller diameter but longer length, the heat is concentrated to a greater extent on the base of the heat sink.

LED COB technology concentrates a smaller number of higher power chips (MCOB) in a smaller space of the heatsink of the LED cover, usually a single chip (COB). This power concentration characteristic causes greater difficulties in thermal management of the LED cover. Its use is recommended for low power situations.

Generally, the temperature in the installation area of the LED high bay is higher than that at ground level.

Due to the smaller size of the COB chip, it has less contact surface to efficiently transmit heat to the whole heat sink, in many cases the operating temperature is out of the range supported by the LED, which can mean its deterioration, and therefore a drastic fall in light, which emits in a short time.

On the other hand, the use of LED SMD technology makes it possible to disperse many smaller LED power units in a larger electronic circuit (PCB), transforming the entire housing (aluminum heat sink) into an element to high thermal efficiency, in which we have a large contact area with the refrigerator, important for transmitting heat and it dissipates more effectively.

This is why at high powers, it is much more reliable to work with SMD technology, which can really guarantee us a good functioning during its lifetime.