Testing Technologies

DEKOR® designs and manufactures LED lighting products that are supposed to last for 5, 10 or up to 30 years when you consider the powder-coated finish.  So how can we assure both ourselves and our customers that those lighting and railing products are going to last?  That they will perform as expected?  That they will withstand corrosion and that our powder coat finishes will keep their beauty and integrity over time?

Through testing and analysis.  Rigorous in-house testing allows us to both monitor and prove the performance of our products and have confidence in the long warranties that are so integral to the DEKOR® brand.  We expand our testing capability and technologies every year.  Currently, we can perform the following in-house:

  • Light output testing
  • Light performance characteristics testing
  • Environmental Simulation Testing

All of our testing equipment is calibrated on a monthly basis making sure what we read is precise and accurate.

Light Fixture Performance Testing and Measurement

For 2016 and beyond we have purchased state-of-the-art Integrating Spheres and Light meters / sensors so we can guarantee:

  • Our stated light output in lumens is met, out to 3 decimal places, and
  • Our color light spectrum is consistent day in, day out.

Prior to this purchase we were dependent on outside laboratories to provide us with this important information for our larger products.  Now we are totally self-sufficient:  our new 2.5 meter Integrating Sphere allows us to not only test current products (in production) but also products in R&D.

This new equipment allows us to measure over 37 facets of our lights including CRI (Color Rendering Index).  CRI is critical: we want a red apple to look like a red apple, not purple or blue which is what happens with lower end led lights.

We also measure and determine if we are meeting our 3200K standard, the warm white light characteristic of DEKOR products.

Environmental Simulation Testing

DEKOR® has invested in dedicated environmental simulation and analysis equipment for salt-spray and thermal testing. These specialized testing chambers allow us to simulate adverse weather and environmental conditions in a compressed time period. Metal corrodes when exposed to chemicals or moisture; salt accelerates this process. We can simulate the damage caused by rain, dew, and salt water to our products by salt fog/salt spray testing in our test chamber with a corrosive saline fog. We can also test how our products stand up to humidity and temperature extremes over time with our environmental testing chamber. We can simulate the temperature/humidity extremes our products may be exposed to but at an accelerated rate. We can even simulate freeze-thaw cycles.
In summary, we perform the following environmental simulation tests on our products periodically:
  • Salt spray testing to ASTM B117
  • Resistance to humidity to ASTM D2247-68
  • Freeze/thaw thermal cycling to ASTM D6944-09e1 or MIL-STD-810D