led lighting close to capacitive or inductive ?

Kataeb

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led lighting has a power factor less then one .
does these devices behave more like capacitive-resistive loads or like inductive-resistive loads ? as seen from the main ac supply side !
thank you
 
"Power Factor" can only be applied to loads on AC supplies.

LED's are DC devices, they are diodes after all.

So the power factor discussion must be aimed at the method of power conversion from AC (either 110Vac or 230Vac), down to the low-voltage DC used by the LEDs.

There are various ways of doing this, the most modern and common way is "switched-mode regulation", and there's also "transformer/rectifier/smoothing" regulation.

Each and every method will exhibit different power-factor characteristics.

I'm no expert in this field, but it's obvious to me that power-factor considerations have nothing to do with the LED load.
 
it is a bit more complicated as the current is 0 until the diode is conducting, so it looks inductive, however it is not as on the end of the sinus the current stops before the voltage so then it looks capacitive.
 
it is a bit more complicated as the current is 0 until the diode is conducting, so it looks inductive, however it is not as on the end of the sinus the current stops before the voltage so then it looks capacitive.

There will always be a current drawn by an AC supply for any device that is rectifying/smoothing/regulating the DC current through a single or multiple LED, even if the LED is off.

If you put an LED onto a 120/240V ac supply (you would obviously need a current limiting resistor (and I would put a reverse polarity blocking diode, since LEDs don't like a high reverse emf)), then the load would have no reluctance, or ability to store potential, so would be neither capacitive or inductive, it would be "neutral".

So, it is the method of power conversion that will determine capacitive or inductive loading on the supply, not the ultimate load it is driving.
 
As pointed out, if power factor is the subject, then it must be relating to the AC input, not the LEDs themselves. There must always be a power supply and that power supply will be some form of rectifier and transformer combination. That will always therefore have a power factor of less than 1.0, but how much depends entirely on the design and varies quite a bit. On top of that, there will be both displacement PF and distortion PF because it will always be a non-linear load on the AC side. Some more responsible mfrs opt for providing PFC (power factor correction) in their design to minimize the impact on the supply side, but the cheaper the supplier, the less likely that will be the case. Efforts to mandate PFC in power supply designs have been thwarted by the flood of cheap products sold via on-line retailers from areas of the world without these regulations to the general populace that has no clue about such matters. Bottom line, if it's a concern, investigate it and if a supplier claims ignorance, assume it's a scam. They ALL know about it.
 

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