3. How consistent are the LEDs?

When LEDs are manufactured the most challenging part is producing consistent and precise white color. Binning is the process of sorting the white LEDs into groups of similar white colors. The regulation of this process is outlined by the ANSI standards for tolerances of white color variations to fit within a color temperature group, or bin. Some LED manufacturers have adapted a more stringent process of sorting called micro-bins which allows for much smaller white color variations.

WAC Lighting uses LEDs that exceed the ANSI binning standards, giving  WAC Lightingfixtures optimal color matching.

Binning Explained– When white LEDs are created, whether they be on the warm or cool end of the spectrum, there are always slight inconsistencies with regards to specific color temperatures.

1. The arced black line in the graph above represents the white color spectrum.
2. These long intersecting lines represent the range, from one end of the line to the other, of variation in color for each corresponding color temperature.
3. In order to keep the range of each temperature as close to the same color as possible, ANSI created tolerance zones. Only the LEDs that fall into this range are used for that particular color temperature, these are referred to as "bins".
4. As you can see this bin still has plainly visible variations throughout. ANSI tolerance zones are adjacent to account for the challenges around manufacturing LED chips consistently.
5. Once divided into smaller bins, the differences in color are much less, allowing for minimal variation when two or more LEDs are used together.

Although there is a cost associated with consistency, various LED chip manufacturers now make smaller bins available. Micro-bin sizes vary between chip manufacturers and while micro-bins allow for better consistency by batch, there is commonly a color variation between batches.