PART 1 –

What is LED binning and why is it important?
This is a process of analysing and ascertaining certain properties of an individual LED and batching it together with identical/almost identical LEDs; analysed characteristics include colour temperature, CRI, Flux and voltage.  This process is carried out for quality assurance through maintaining continuity of colour, constant minimum light output and allowing the luminaire manufacturer to ensure their driver circuit can drive the LEDs within their operating specification.

How it affects light quality & performance
If a luminaire manufacturer accepts a wide bin range they will generally pay a lower price for their LEDs, usually resulting in a cheaper final product.  A lower price may sound appealing to the end customer, however this is likely to have serious implications on the quality and consistency of the product.  A wide bin range will also result in differences in colour that may be visible from fixture to fixture and from production run to production run.  More importantly, it is very likely that colour differences will be seen in single products containing multiple LEDs.  In products containing multiple LEDs there is a significant risk of LEDs suffering electrical over stress, resulting in premature failure.