Watt, Voltage and Ampere. All kinds of terms you have to deal with when it comes to light and energy. Because there is a lot of talk about wattage within lighting, we would like to briefly explain what this stands for. We also look at whether wattage or voltage really says something about the intensity or power of a LED worklights.
Wattage, Ampere and Voltage, what are the differences and what do these terms mean?
When it comes to a work lamp, we can imagine that you will notice some aspects. For example, you often see in the title how many volts a lamp supports or what power the lamp provides expressed in 'Wattage'. Therefore, we will briefly explain both concepts.
Watt (W)
As in many cases, Watt is also named after a person. This person is the Scottish engineer James Watt. Watt' or 'Wattage' is the unit of measurement for the electrical power of, in your case, the worklight. This is different from, say, horsepower, which is also a unit of power. Horsepower is a rather old way of measuring power. Also, horsepower is not adapted to electronic devices. Wattage (W) therefore refers to the power of your LED worklight. However, this does not necessarily mean that the worklight enjoys a higher light output. Matters such as reflector technology and lens use also play a major role.
Examples where wattage is used:
- A LED worklight has a power of 48W. This is the power of all the LEDs combined.
- Your combi-microwave oven has a power setting of 900 W. This enables the oven to heat your food at a power level of 900 W.
As a general rule, you can use the following formula to express one Watt; 1W = 1V * 1A | 1v= 1 volt, 1A = 1 ampere. Of course, just as with centimetres, there are larger and smaller units. The table below provides an overview. However, this applies to a lesser extent to lighting.
| Larger/smaller units | ||
|---|---|---|
| factor | Name | symbol |
| 10−6 | microwatt | μW |
| 10−3 | Milliwatt | mW |
| 1 | watt | W |
| 103 | kilowatt | kW |
| 106 | megawatt | MW |
| 109 | gigawatt | GW |
| 1012 | terawatt | TW |
| 1015 | petawatt | PW |
Ampere (A)
As with Wattage, Ampere is also named after a scholar. As you can probably guess from the name, the inventor of the unit of measurement Ampère is the French gentleman: André-Marie Ampère. André was one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism and Ampère still plays a major role today. A definition of this unit of measurement is:
The ampere is the unit of current, just as the meter is the unit of length. The definition of the ampere is based on a special physical phenomenon: there is a magnetic field around a live wire. The stronger the current, the stronger the magnetic field. Two parallel electric wires therefore attract each other magnetically. If two cables of the same type are connected to the same power source, and they attract each other with the right force, then one ampere flows through each of these cables (Essent, s.d.).
Voltage (V)
The voltage is the voltage that runs through the vehicle. In vehicles, this is mainly a 12 volt or a 24 volt voltage. The volt is defined as the potential difference across a conductor when a current of 1 ampere converts a power of 1 watt into heat. The unit is also equal to 1 joule per coulomb. With TRALERT® you do not have to worry about the voltage within your vehicle. Our lights are mainly multivoltage equipped, which means that they support both 12v and 24v without light loss.
Is the stated power directly equivalent to the power of the worklight?
No, not directly. It is of course true that the more watts, the more power the lamp contains. However, as mentioned before, there are more factors that influence the light intensity and the light range. For example, a worklight can have a lower average wattage per LED, but be equipped with a powerful reflector lens. An example of this is the TRSW12275FB within our range. This lamp has a low wattage and an average number of lumens. However, by means of an RFT lens, this worklight offers a more powerful, better-distributed light beam than other models with more Watts. Our advice is not to be blinded by Watts or Lumens. Lamps and light are there to be compared and the best place to do that is in our showroom. This room has been specially set up to demonstrate precisely these differences.
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