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Typical Questions about Color-Tec LED Instruments

  1. What is the difference between LED instruments and traditional color instruments? Traditional color instruments are supplied with tungsten or xenon white light sources. They are filtered or corrected light bulbs that are burning out as you use the instrument and are temperature sensitive, therefore they require constant recalibration every day as you use them. LED's become more stable as you use them and are data corrected for temperature changes. They are rugged, low cost and highly dependable, yet offer all of the precision and colorimetric output of traditional color instruments.
  2. What is the best aperture to measure my samples? We offer 3mm, 10mm and 25mm portable instrument aperture options. We most commonly sell the 10mm aperture instrument for standard applications, the 3mm for small targets and the 25mm for non-uniform or large surfaces. 
  3. How complicated is the training? Most of the accounts we sell find our LED instruments and software intuitive to operate. We do 90% of our support by phone, over the web and with email.
  4. What does the portable display/Screen look like. The screen is a standard video display similar to a cell phone.
  5. Can we attach a printer or store the reading to download it? The instrument holds up to 1000 measurements and comes with a USB interface. You can upload standards from our ColorSoft-QCW software and download the data stored on the instrument. If associated with a color standard, the data downloaded can be associated with the standard. You can print all results from the PC.
  6. Can we store color standards in memory to recall it later? You can store one or multiple standards in the instrument memory and select them on the instrument by name or by number. We also have an "Auto Select" feature that allows automatic colorimetric selection. This works well when your standards are significantly apart in color space.
  7. How easy to calibrate? You can calibrate either on the instrument in portable mode or via the software when driven by a PC using ColorSoftÒ . The user is guided to measure a black and white calibration standard supplied with the instrument.  Some applications only need a white calibration.  In the software we also supply a full diagnostic package.
  8. Do you offer ISO traceable calibration standards? In color it is the white calibration standard that must be traceable and can be certified. We supply traceable internationally accepted Vinyl transfer standards with the instrument and offer as an option Certified Ceramic Calibration Standards.
  9. Does it read color under various lighting conditions? Our LED color instruments measure the absolute spectrophotometric response relative to each type of LED illumination. The data is converted to the RGB response and then weighted by internationally published CIE illuminant data. On the instrument we supply daylight (D65), F10 cool white Fluorescent, A Tungsten illuminant math. The on board logic calculates the X,Y,Z for each of the illuminant weightings which is then converted to color difference output (Hunter L,a,b or CIELAB or LCh or CMC) which is calculated both on the instrument or in the PC software. In ColorSoftÒ we offer many additional illuminant weightings.
  10. What angle of observation does it read? The 3mm and 10mm instruments LED light sources illuminate 45 degrees circumferential to the sample, the reflected light is at the 0 angle, this is referred to as 45/0 geometry. The 25mm the LED light sources are arranged so that the light returning from the sample is diffuse to the sensor. 
  11. What is the repeatability of LED color instruments? The repeatability specification is expressed as delta E (the square root of the sum of the squares of the color difference). A delta E of 1.0 is defined as a "just noticeable color difference as judged by a panel of normal Observers." Our specification for short-term repeatability is 0.1 standard deviation CIELAB as measured 20 times on a standard grey sample. This means that the instrument is an order of magnitude more precise than a human eye is.