Mixing colors - why more diodes?

Almost every device besides shining bright or dark should also shine in colors. Yes I know I am brilliant. So we have those with LED source having diodes of different colors, for example RGB, RGBW, RGBA, where mixing the color is based on the proper addition of the individual diodes to each other. For example, to get the color cyan i.e. light blue we need to mix G and B i.e. green and blue.

There are also devices on the market that have a discharge bulb or, already rare, an ordinary incandescent bulb, where color filter discs (including a smooth CMY mixing system) are responsible for the colors. For a long time, the use of an LED source in single-point heads, e.g. spot, has been an everyday occurrence, and in such we usually encounter the aforementioned CMY disc system or, less frequently, a system of LEDs with different colors.

I know that almost all of you already know this, but I outlined the topic to tell you that these systems are far from perfect or even average. Here the question arises why? The answer can be found in the physics textbook, which says that the color spectrum is infinite, and the variety of shades with your head you can't comprehend. So reproducing the full range and transferring it to devices is quite a challenge.

Color mixing mode - RGB and RGBW/A

Here we can ask ourselves, how could color mixing systems be improved? This question has also been asked by Elation for many years, and we will rely on documents from the aforementioned company to analyze what more LEDs in LED chips give us.

Going from the beginning, it takes more than three RGB LEDs to get more shades of color, you probably know that, right? Elation knows that. That's why they spent years developing the right LED color mixing system. The chart below elegantly shows what the spectrum looks like using only three primary colors in an LED chip.

As we can see from the chart, you can see strongly saturated primary colors, but the spectrum of hues in between is quite poor. A partial solution to this problem was the addition of a white (W) and an amber (A) diode to the chip, which already gives us a lot of room for improvement, and theater or TV producers already have a suitable tool for the job.

But Elation concludes that, after all, we want better and stronger, and that's what we pay the technology smarts for. Besides, white and amber allowed dynamic white and better control of warmer tones to come into play. But what about the rest?

Which diodes will be next?

And so the most hard heads in the company were put to the great challenge. They even tested and combined on burger Tuesdays and ice cream Wednesdays (LED Wednesdays :D. Wednesday's LED day is a perfect dry spell and let's establish that the day they developed the final technology was Wednesday. Dominik don't delete it for me - OK).

And so the RGBWLC color-mixing system was created (I suspect this is not the final number of letters), and with this the question arose in many, why the heck? And the chart below answers that question.

In developing the technology to broaden the color spectrum, the two main concerns proved to be smooth dimming across the color width and consistency between units.

Attempts to solve it, as it happens, presented further problems. One such problem is the aforementioned dimming. Even with just one LED source, it was not easy to make it look smooth and natural. What about with 5 emitters or more. As we learn from Elation's learning page:

'Solving these problems required a combination of engineering factors - careful selection of optimized LEDs, batch control of those LEDs, ideal lens/diffusion selection, innovative electronics and intuitive calibration software that brought it all together.'

Of course, much credit also goes to LED manufacturers who pioneered the new emitters.

Okay, but what do the following letters mean?

LIME or lime is responsible for the letter "L". Lime helps fill out the entire spectrum and benefits especially in film and television work, where precision is important. Here it is worth adding that there is a similar emitter, which is MINT, or mint, but it works better in LED wash panels than in spot fixtures.

Under the letter "C" there is nothing but CYAN. You will ask, but why if it is blue ? And to get ultra-precise control of color temperature.

These two additional LEDs combined with the RGBW create a wide, perfectly balanced color gamut with great overall brightness ideal for front-of-camera work. What does this prove? If only the fact that slowly more and more manufacturers are opting for this type of solution, adding diodes such as LIME, MINT to their chips.

As you know, I also have my wits about me and develop technology various know how, so I bent my head on this topic and have a proposal. I think the solution to all problems will be to develop a chip with RGBWLCSP LEDs, where "S" is the shade of porkchop and "P" is "piniondz". That is, what is most important with us in the industry. As you can see from the simulation, the addition of new emitters fills in the gaps in the spectrum.

I will not rebuke Elation this time for not coming up with such an obvious connection, because, after all, no one is perfect, and everything can be improved.