Anyone who has cross-threaded a bolt whilst attempting to forcibly pair Imperial and Metric threads, would find themselves, rather like a child attempting to drive a square peg through the proverbial round hole frustrated as to why such intrinsically similar things are so incompatible?
Within the lighting industry there has been a long-standing president for a less multifarious relationship between key components. The interchangeable lamp (bulb) to light fitting (luminaire) relationship was established thanks in some way to common sense standardisation; with the Edison screw in Europe and Bayonet fitting in the UK. The obvious requirement to replace the lamp without having to scrap the entire light fitting has its basis in the relatively ‘short-lived’ existence of the ‘light source’; candles, wicks and more recently the incandescent bulb have all played their part in defining the nature of this relationship.
The inevitable emergence of LEDs as the ‘light source of choice’, due to their energy efficiency has challenged this relationship. Given the service life promises of 50,000 hours for LEDs, the need for a standardised approach to interconnectivity would appear to have been sidestepped. The proliferation of luminaire embedded LEDs (conjoined) bears testament to this, with the impact on premature product obsolescence largely unquantified.
