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Why is the casing of LED lamps quite warm when LED’s are meant to be cool?

Low heat generation is a common misconception about LED’s. Any electrical component consuming energy produces heat in some form.

With LED’s the heat is generated at the base of the LED chip (the LED “junction”) & is directed backwards from the light emitting surface. This is why the lenses of LED lamps are significantly cooler than those of halogen or HID solutions which direct the majority of their heat forwards.

The temperature of the LED junction is absolutely critical to achieve the optimum lifetime of the LED. Poor LED thermal management will result in dramatic reductions of LED lifetime. Effective cooling of the LED chips is required & achieved by careful design of the metal heatsink (the lamp casing). As heat is dissipated through the casing, the case naturally heats up.