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LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

How to save energy through both societal and individual actions.

Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby lasseter » Sat 18 Jan 2014, 01:34:24

Some here are complaining about their led lights failing after a short time. I guess they are talking about mains voltage led lights. I have been using 12 vold led systems for some years now and have had no dramas to speak of and I wonder if it is the leds themselves that are failing or the electronic circuits that convert the mains voltage to what the leds need to operate.

Probably doesn't matter to most readers since they are grid dependent and have no choice but to buy the type they do.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Sat 18 Jan 2014, 02:51:32

KaiserJeep wrote:...
Some fixtures have little or no ventilation:
Image
I guess gubmints will eventually get around to setting standards for LED friendly fixtures.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 18 Jan 2014, 04:29:41

The globe fixture above has plenty of glass to conduct heat away, and enough air inside to have convection inside the globe.

Convection, conduction, and radiation are the ways heat is dissipated. You can use any of them, the important thing is to keep the electronics cool for reliability.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 18 Jan 2014, 09:29:12

Tanada wrote:Picked up two 75W/1100 lumen equivalent bulbs yesterday for overnight (security) lighting now that we are getting into the dark season of the year. These are Utilitech Pro brand rated at 3000K color frequency for 25,000 hours of useful life. They were the new brand on sale at Lowes and are shaped to fit a standard incandescent socket fixture/cover.

They consume 16 Watts of power in use and give off a bright white light, somewhat harsher than I would prefer. Hopefully they will stand up to harsh outside weather as well as the Sylvania LED spotlights I purchased last fall that they are supplementing to light up my back yard for security reasons.


Just wanted to throw in my 3 month update, these bulbs are now three months old and I am very satisfied with them for lighting entry ways and the Garage. They are so bright when i look directly at them I quickly learned not to do so but as long as you are not at eye level or they are under a frosted shade of some sort they are excellent.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Loki » Sat 18 Jan 2014, 22:30:26

I just tested an LED 1141 bulb for a 12V RV-type light.

With a brand new 1141 incandescent bulb, the lamp drew 1.47 amps. These are plenty bright to read by if they're positioned directly overhead.

With this LED, it drew 0.13 amps. Light was a lot whiter and not quite as bright, but still fine to read by.

Huge difference in power draw, obviously. I'm vaguely considering getting a 7 ah alarm battery to run this LED light. If run down to 50% one of these batteries should run this light for ~27 hours.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Graeme » Mon 06 Oct 2014, 19:27:43

I converted my home to 100% LED lighting and you should too

One of the goals I had in my recent house renovation was to change every light bulb in the house to LEDs. I was dividing the house into two apartments and had to pull all the halogen spotlights out of the ceiling that was now a fire separation, and was finishing what was the basement, so new lighting was needed throughout. Most of the house was lit with compact fluorescents, and I never liked them very much.

But the main reason I could do this is the fact that in the last year, the cost of changing to LEDs has dropped like a stone. There is a wide range of bulbs now available for under ten bucks, and if you are willing to spend a bit more there are some very exciting things happening in the LED world.


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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 07 Oct 2014, 18:39:57

2014 Nobel Prize in Physics: Invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Isamu Akasaki, of Meijo University in Nagoya and Nagoya University, Japan; Hiroshi Amano, of Nagoya University, Japan; and Shuji Nakamura of the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources."


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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 07 Oct 2014, 21:40:51

On boats you are off grid and pretty sensitive to battery usage. We have converted both boats to LED lighting, interior and nav, and are so far happy.

Living in and maintains an old house/ apt building I had a different issue. The three story hallway wiring is pretty darn old. I wanted to convert it to 12VDC LED to decrease the fire threat as well as reduce power consumption. Existing wiring is running behind plaster and lath walls, replacement cost is HUGE.

I found 12vdc lamps using a standard base. But city inspector gave me some heartache about emergency lights I won't go into here. Finally figured a way to make it all work legally (if stupid) and now have it all working for a few weeks.

Very high quality light, better than before. Set us back about $3,300 for 8 lights 8O when all said and done with me doing a good bit myself, all the thinking for sure. The building inspectors interpretation caused maybe $2,500 of that.

This financially only makes sense as a way to avoid rewireing the hallway (NOT required by the inspector but a worry for fire anyway) but we are happy with the outcome.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby jedrider » Tue 07 Oct 2014, 22:42:11

One of my recent projects has been to replace EVERY incandescent/CFL/Florescent with an LED light bulb.
The prices are so low now, that this probably actually makes a lot of sense as well as cents.

The down lights were easy to replace at $35.00 each. I found a 3000K, CRI 93 from Lithonia that I really like. Although I switched vendors from room to room, as I wasn't going to return all the bulbs that I didn't like 100% when I found a slightly better one. The price sounds high, but it includes the trim case and lens assembly and really looks sharp, too.

The rest of the bulbs ranged from $5.00 to $15.00 and it was hard to be satisfied with just one bulb type, so I would buy a few and when I was happy with the results, I would buy a few more or change bulbs when I found a more appropriate light for a specific location.

All-in-all, it is easy to spend a thousand on light bulbs, but in two years they would probably pay for themselves, and the lighting is actually BETTER.

Next are the T8 tubes, but I will wait till one burns out before going ahead. One chandelier needs replacing because the new LED's are 1/4" taller and I need to find a chandelier with glass shades that will cover the entire bulb.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby ennui2 » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 17:13:59

CFL is now dead-man-walking.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/01/say-good ... picks=true

This is just the newest case of rapid adoption of more efficient technology once it is perfected and scales out enough.

A minor footnote, perhaps, but still good news.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 17:41:37

I never had much luck with CFL's but I absolutely love my LED bulbs. They are durable, reliable, work in all weather indoors or out and very energy efficient.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby careinke » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 17:57:20

Tanada wrote:I never had much luck with CFL's but I absolutely love my LED bulbs. They are durable, reliable, work in all weather indoors or out and very energy efficient.


LED's are the bomb. I have solar powered ones all over my garden, just because I think they are cool. 8)
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 18:23:26

jedrider wrote:One of my recent projects has been to replace EVERY incandescent/CFL/Florescent with an LED light bulb.
The prices are so low now, that this probably actually makes a lot of sense as well as cents.

The down lights were easy to replace at $35.00 each.

The rest of the bulbs ranged from $5.00 to $15.00 and it was hard to be satisfied with just one bulb type, so I would buy a few and when I was happy with the results, I would buy a few more or change bulbs when I found a more appropriate light for a specific location.

All-in-all, it is easy to spend a thousand on light bulbs, but in two years they would probably pay for themselves, and the lighting is actually BETTER.

So what is your electric bill such that a small part of that (lighting) will PAY FOR ITSELF in two years? I likely spend well under $10 a month for lighting, and I'm not prone to running around turning off every light possible, and run various lights on a timer to make the house look occupied at night. I run CFL's, currently. (Cool, cheap, and VERY low energy consumption compared to what they replaced).

You remind me of the shopoholic who loads up the credit card because things are "on sale".

What do you do with the old bulbs? Throw them out?

I'm always amused at the first world idea of frugality by spending lots of money.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Shaved Monkey » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 18:34:27

I bought mine on ebay directly from China, free shipping, dirt cheap.
They have been going for a few years no problems so far.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby jedrider » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 18:53:51

Outcast_Searcher wrote:So what is your electric bill such that a small part of that (lighting) will PAY FOR ITSELF in two years? I likely spend well under $10 a month for lighting, and I'm not prone to running around turning off every light possible, and run various lights on a timer to make the house look occupied at night. I run CFL's, currently. (Cool, cheap, and VERY low energy consumption compared to what they replaced).

You remind me of the shopoholic who loads up the credit card because things are "on sale".

What do you do with the old bulbs? Throw them out?

I'm always amused at the first world idea of frugality by spending lots of money.


Yeah. First World frugality is kind of funny. I visit an in-law in a third world country and I replace their light bulbs as well. I tried to throw away the used incandescent lamp, but the lady of the house comes around and asked me for them. My Spanish is not so good, so I don't try to explain why it is useless to try to keep these old bulbs that can probably be paid off in about a year or, at most, two.

GE just announced that CFLs are completely out and LED's are in now. Though, I still have a very few incandescents that defy replacement, mostly because of their small size and high wattage, but they will fall as well, eventually.

Of course, I realize that all this is futile as "Life is short. Death is sure." to quote PBS's Downton Abby. My electric bill is now lower and we have more light as well. Do I save $20 or $40 a month, I don't know?
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 21:04:52

Up thread on Oct 7, 2014 I reported on my hallway lighting experiment. Now, 15 months later I've had no issues.

I did learn something interesting though. I had bought 300W equivalent pool lights. They were specified for 12V so good. But I wanted to try using a 100 W equivalent. So I ordered one. Didn't work. Called company and they sent me a second one. Didnt work.

Long story short, these are POOL lamps and are intended to work on 12VAC, not DC. The site just said "12V Pool Lamp". I just assumed 12VDC. The 300w equivalent worked fine, but (for whatever reason the factory could not explaine) the 100W unites wanted something more to work. Something between about 12.3VDC and 13.3VDc, the two voltages I could reproduce here at the house. The 300W unit works down to below 11.7, maybe 10.5 with no qualms.

But anyway, the origional lights work fine, things are plenty bright. All is good.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby ennui2 » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 21:14:16

BTW, I had been following LED illumination for years and the biggest technological hurdles were to a) make them bright enough and B) make a pure enough white. LEDs in general are not a new technology (not unlike, um, batteries???) and it would be easy to assume when the first wave of LED lighting came out (and they were so underwhelming) that they had simply reached a point of diminishing returns. I mean, gee, they go back to at least the 70s, right??? Well, it turns out progress wasn't "done" yet.

Moral of the story is that game-changing progress, even in relatively mature technologies, can still happen.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Mon 01 Feb 2016, 21:59:03

We had mixed results with our CFLs and LED bulbs. Some lights worked fine for years others had bulbs die every few months. We decided to replace the problem lights with LED fixtures, no bulbs to change. I'm hoping these will last longer. If not, I may have to try these:

Here’s a great way to lower your electric bills, and still have all the ultra-bright light bulbs you want operating 24 hours a day! Innovative new light bulbs called P-Bulbs give out bright, steady light – yet use no electricity. P-Bulbs look like compact fluorescent light bulbs, but instead of using electricity to make the gas glow inside, they use depleted plutonium from an atomic power plant. That means with P-Bulbs, not only do you get all the light you want for free, but you’ll be helping the atomic energy industry dispose of its used fuel! How green can you get? P-Bulbs come in 100, 200, 400, 1,000 and 5,000-watt sizes – choose the brightness that’s right for you. You can have as many P-Bulbs as you want operating all night and all day long! That’s because they can’t be turned off – the plutonium is always active. Imagine never having to remember to turn the light off when you leave a room. Imagine having all the light you ever wanted, with no dark rooms – even your attic and basement can be brilliantly lit at all times. Imagine the amazing holiday displays you can create for your home and yard, because there’s no need to run electric cords anywhere! Remember to position your P-Bulbs as far from your family as possible, as the plutonium is radioactive and has a half-life of 10,000 years. If for any reason you want to get rid of your P-Bulbs, simply apply to the Atomic Energy Commission for a special disposal permit and concrete container. P-Bulbs will change the way you live your life forever!
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby kirbydaniels » Tue 15 Mar 2016, 02:01:07

I have started using LED as the Brightness is equal to or greater than existing lighting technologies and its efficiency is as good as or better than fluorescent lighting.
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Re: LED Light Bulbs (Merged)

Unread postby Shaved Monkey » Tue 15 Mar 2016, 08:39:42

Newfie wrote: But city inspector gave me some heartache about emergency lights I won't go into here.

Im looking at emergency lights for the bathrooms,patios and hallway
Basically a led globe with batteries in it that turns on for upto 4 hours if the power fails.
http://ntfroyal.co.za/products/new-prod ... light-bulb
They have them on ebay
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