Jannatec, shining the light on industry safety: Focusable LED mining lamp first of its kind.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: NEWS

Hoping to shine a light on the evolution of safety equipment in the mining industry, Sudbury's Jannatec Radio Technologies will soon unveil the world's first focusable LED mining cap lamp.

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Currently in testing throughout Sudbury-area mines, this improved version of the company's widely popular Johnny Light will begin production in the second week of October.

"This innovation could translate to cost savings for companies and a safer environment for employees," says Wayne Ablitt, managing partner with Jannatec.

"We've already seen a lot of industry interest in it thus far, which tells us we're on the right track."

While most standard cap lamps feature a hotspot or strongest point of illumination at 1.2 metres, the new light can be adjusted to extend that hotspot to greater distances, such as a rock ceiling 50 feet away.

The new unit will also feature an angled hood, reflector, which will illuminates both forward and downward. This allows for the ground at one's feet to be seen as well as the path ahead.

The LED component also offers the opportunity for saving on replacement costs given its longer life, Ablitt says.

The incandescent bulb which is the current standard for cap lamps currently lasts roughly 400 hours and costs $14.10 each. This means every miner goes through five or six bulbs throughout the course of a given year.

Multiply that by the increasingly large number of miners working underground throughout Northern Ontario, and the replacement costs are significant, he says.

Conversely, the new LED lights for the cap lamp have a life of 10,000 hours, meaning that at an average of 2,000 to 2,500 hours of work per year, the average miner will find the lamp lasting up to five years.

Ablitt estimates that, for a company the size of Vale Inco, annual savings would work out to roughly $850,000.

However, this move to LED has presented a few challenges which in turn have mandated some design changes. For instance, a heat sink was needed to absorb the thermal energy projected to the rear of the unit, as opposed to ahead of the unit, which is the case with standard bulbs.

The improved Johnny Light also features a raft of changes to other elements of its core model beyond the lighting mechanism, including tweaks to the batteries and charging system.

Gone are the nickel-metal hydride batteries, replaced with lithium ferro phosphate batteries. This provides twice the life of the prior units and reduces the weight by half...