That will depend on the type of certificate, what is certified and by who is granted. Many certifications refer to the inherent safety of a product, with regards to accidental electrical shock. In fact some certifications attest to the fact that the contraption will not kill you, but say nothing, or very little, as far as the performance of the product. The certificate on a washing machine says nothing to the effect that thing will wash clothes;only that is unlikely that you will get an electrical shock. 

Some other certifcations refer to the performance, but unfortunately, these are not compulsory. In the fiber optics industry even these certificates are, very often meaningless because there is little or no control on the interface between illuminator and fiber. A laboratory report will say that a illuminator delivers so many screen lumens but cannot say how many will get into the fiber, because that will depend on a number of factors totally outside their scope. 

Very noisy, slightly so or totally silent, depending on the power source and the construction.

Heat dissipation is something that has to be done by one of two means:radiation or ventilation.

If radiation is the method chosen then the housing must have the mass and surface to ensure dissipation of the heat. In ventilated systems, the air is the agent for cooling and must be evacuated and renewed. The problem is that some light sources are so hot that would need an oversized housing to dissipate all the heat build up, clearly not a very practical solution. 

Silent illuminators / light engines use normally small halogen or gas discharge lamps, devoid of mechanical ventilation and relying on radiation to cool the housing and dissipate the heat. Generally, works well only if placed outdoors or in a volume where the ambiance temperature is considerable lower than that of the housing. 

Forced air drought is used in most power illuminators / light engines and the noise can range from 20 or so dB to 70 or 80 dB. Taking into account that noise in a forced air system is relative to duct size and air speed, in addition to ventilator speed, mounting, vibration and other related aspects is easy to suspect that design can vary the amount of noise that illuminator / light engine / light source produces. This can be brought down to minimum that only be further reduced by damping with noise suppression material. 

 Generally yes, the exception being those with a massive construction, which dissipate heat by radiation or transfer.

Again,it will depend on the use of the system. Gas discharge lamps, especially those with a very small plasma area are ideally suited for use with optical systems such as lenses or reflectors. Consequently,the quantity of light aimed in the right direction can be far superior to that of a lalogen lamp.Lumen output of these lamps is, usually greater than their incandescent couterparts.Conventional means cannot be used to regulate the output of gas discharge lamps. This means that if regulation is required mechanical irises or complex high frequency oscillators have to be used.

Halogen lamps are smaller, less costly, and need simpler power supplies but give less overall light.

For lighting and side light applications, gas discharge is used universally,reserving the less powerful halogen light sources for effects and decoration.

It must be said, however,that if the correct halogen lamp, with the right projection angle is used, excellent results can be obtained with small diameter harnesses.

Since there are no standards in the industry, the term"type" is slightly confusing. With regards to power usage, the lamp light engine vary from as little as 5W to as much as a 1.000W and more. 

As far as the type of lamp, light engine are divided into two families: those using incandescent lamps, generally halogen, and the ones equipped with gas discharge lamps.

light engine can also typed by use.Some are mainly used for lighting and others to produce effects such as animations, color change or twinkles and sparkles.

It is somehow surprising that manufacturers place great emphasis in the power consumption, stating that a machine is 50,100 or 400 Watts,when in realith this have little bearing on the overall performance of the illuminator.

In the lighting industry, the performance of a lamp is measured in a number of ways,depending on the comparison standards.The accepted data regarding a lamp's virtues are,usually, efficiency and light output, although the single must important element is the burner size.

Efficiency, determinded in Lm/W,states the amount of light that a lamp produces for each unit of energy used. Is very low on incandescent lamps, where most of the energy is transformed in heat and very high in fluorescent and some types of discharge lamps, such as low-pressure sodium. Unfortunately,neither of these last lamps can be used sensibly with fiber optics.

The amount of light that a lamp makes is a useful piece of information when we try to light up a warehouse or an office table but useless when used to project and concentrate light on a given point. In this case the screen of the illuminator or the fiber common end.

The actual quantity and directionality of light reaching the screen, having little to do with the power consumption of the machine, is the only measure of performance in an illuminator.

Many lamps, specially the latest arrivals, have much improved light outputs, better beam control and precision. Paradoxically a last generation 50W-halogen lamp with dychroic reflector puts more light into a fiber than a 75W lamp with a similar construction and outdated technology.

Light engine must perform three separate tasks with a degree of efficiency. Firstly must house a lamp and its power source, transformer, ballast,igniter and wiring in a correct and safe manner.

Secondly,it must focus the light of the lamp in the most efficient way to ensure an adequate performance.

Thirdly, it must create a suitable environment to guarantee the long life of the common end,this being the union with the fiber optics. With this last task in mind, a light engine must be designed to minimize the thermal load on the screen by all possible means, filters, forced ventilation, air duction and deflectors.

An illuminator, light source or generator is a box with a lamp inside, pointing towards an opening where fiber optics are secured. Naturally, this is an over-simplification,although in reality a large number of the illuminators available in the industry are little more than this.

A side emitting light guide is viewed optimally when the contrast between the optic and background is maximized. If the light guide is placed on a white track or against a tight opaque white back the light is more apparent.

This does not mean that the optic issues more light,only that the illuminance falling on the background improves the overall luminance of the optic.

To answer this question honestly is very much like trying to determine the sex of the angles. If a side emitting light guide has a center reflecting core it would issue more light omni directionally, this is to say: if the light guide was suspended in mid-air and viewed from any angle. 

The problem with that argument is that those optics are, normally attached to a support and viewed from fixed angles. The opaque centerpiece, in this case, would impede the passage of light from behind the core and hence the optic would have less light available to the viewer. 

Side-emitting light guides are sheathed in a transparent cover and the viewer, by transparency, has the benefit of the light escaping not only from the individual fibers placed directly in front of his line of vision but also from the ones behind. 

If we take a glass tube filled with a clored liquid and light it up from one end, we could view the whole of the mass as a lit-up cylinder. If we then place a concentric opaque core, from a given dierction we would have less vision of the cylinder mass. The same would hold true with any transparent cylinder. 

To prove this argument is a practical impossibility since it would require two optics, with and without core of the same size and optical properties, placed exactily on the same spot in an illuminator. In my opinion, no matter the patents, the so-called center reflecting cores do not add more light to a guide and probably rests light to the viewer and the system as a whole.