The false economy of in home LED lighting

[nqcken]

clearly there is a large YMMV gap among users here of cfls. starting with the first rebates several years ago i made a decision to completely switch to the cfl format. seemed like a no brainer. as has been pointed out, with the subsidies offered they are very inexpensive and whenever one burned out or started flickering i just replaced it. when the first led house lighting bulbs came out i tried them and got nowhere, the wife hated the color, they were too directional for general household lights. as i stated above i put them in some places where accessibility was an issue and the family tended to leave them on. over the following years i have tried a number of led bulbs attempting to solve some of the issues described but with limited success. just recently i read about the nationally sponsered “L” prize competition with a $10million cash prize for the winner/ Phillips won this competition with their 10W (9.7W) 60W replacement bulb reportedly with 93.4lm/W. current subsidized prize is ~$25 per bulb going down to $15 and then to $8bulb in the following years. i am going to purchase a few of these (just because i can) to give them a try but it seems that the future may be getting brighter (NPI) for household led replacement bulbs. meanwhile i can not wait to throw out all of my remaining cfls.

btw lest i be called a shill for philips, i have no former, current or future affiliation with home depot or phillips or pretty much anyone. it would be nice to have someone more knowledgeable than i take a look at these new generation bulbs and give a review.

ken

[peteybaby]

I recently replaced some pot lights. The original ones were GU-10 halogen bulbs, and now they’re Cree CR6’s. I didn’t go for CFLs. My reasoning:

• CFLs in pot lights (where the bulbs can be visible) look funny
• The few dimmable CFLs I’ve tried were not very dimmable. They’d go from 100% down to about 50%, and then off.
• I don’t want any mercury in the house
• in my experience with CFLs, frequent on/off switching makes them die about 10x sooner than advertised
• as others have said, CFLs are just an interim lighting solution
• we could have bought CFLs and replaced them with LED bulbs when LED bulbs were cheaper/better, but the CR6’s look nicer than any bulb, CFL or other.

The Cree CR6’s are superb. The CRI is I think 90, and we truly can’t tell the difference between them and the halogens we had up there before (colour-rendition-wise). They dim really well, they are 2700 K (the colour we like), they look nice on the ceiling, they’re nice and floody (the GU-10s were too “spotty” for my liking), etc. I won’t mention other benefits over the halogen GU-10’s, but there are many.

The only way I could be happier with the Cree lights is if we were able to get the NEW CR6’s, which are 800 lm instead of 575 lm, at a good price. But in our application, 575 lm was plenty, and they were on sale. For our kitchen, where we do want more light, we’ll wait for the 800-lm ones to drop in price.

[tabetha]

@gords1001

The CFL’s we get here now are instant on no flicker (this coming from a brit, we don’t seem to notice pwm either), I can cope with them but miss in-cans tbh.

That’s what I use as well, about 70-80% bright instantly my ones from MEGAMAN (a german co I think), but have had one explode in terrific fashion, thankfully was in garage, and don’t know if moisture was a factor there tbh, I use 23W ones, about £10 each though.
Is that landy in your piccie ?, me mate works on them all day for RAF, I even use a Land Rover series 2/2a clutch master cylinder on my sierra cossie after I converted it to hydraulic clutch with a southwest.com(us) concentric slave.

[dct73]

@joe1512

LIFETIME:
LEDs have about a 25000 to 50000 hour lifetime which is actually fairly likely to be accurate as they don’t poop out like Incans do. They are also pretty much indestructable and even when one of the LEDs goes out there is an array of many of them, so even really bad luck is mitigated.

CFLs have much shorter lifetime and are way more likely to break. You will likely buy many CFLs for the lifetime equivalent of 1 LED. This is where the ‘green’ part comes in.

It’s not the LED that “poops out”. It’s the circuit. I’d be highly suspicious of anyone telling me to expect 50,000 hours out of ANY light bulb. I don’t know what cfl’s everybody that has trouble is buying, but I don’t recall one EVER burning out after several years. I’ve broken a few though.

[allan_d (Allan Douglass)]

I don’t know what cfl’s everybody that has trouble is buying, but I don’t recall one EVER burning out after several years. I’ve broken a few though.

Same here. I have been using CFLs for over 5 years and have never had one quit. I have one in a bedroom lamp that has about a 1 second delay at turn on, but it has done that for 3 years now. I guess it may be on it’s way to quitting.

I’ve only broken one and that was while cleaning a ceiling fan.

[garrybunk]

Received this just today:

I see my photo got cutoff. First row = lumens, 2nd=watts used, 3rd=life expectancy, 4th=cost to operate per year, 5th=savings over 25,000 hrs use.

So based on this chart, why buy the LED?

-Garry

[dchomak]

Another reason not to buy the LED. If it lasts 23 years, WHO CARES. It will be obsolete LONG before then. My strategy in buying high tech is to buy behind the “bleeding edge” curve (leading edge, but you bleed money) and update fairly often. Never invest so heavily in a technology, or product, that you wouldn’t be willing to throw it out and start over. I can’t tell you how often I will see someone buy a computer, or TV or whatever and spend 2-3 times more than they have too for “quality or features” thinking that they can then postpone their next purchase. Very poor investment.

[Shaquille]

i say just keep a few of these in the house :bigsmile:

[lensmanmark]

I went big for CFLs a long time ago, but have been switching to LEDs in the last 3 years or so. Reasons?

1. Higher CRI makes for a much more pleasant light. CFLs currently top off around 80. As you know, LEDs can be above 90.

2. Waiting for CFLs to warm up got annoying. I much preferred having instant-on at full power. Especially when I'm just walking through the hallway or grabbing something from a room.

3. CCFLs address some of these issues, but are less efficent and more expensive.

4. Disposing of the CFLs properly is a pain in the butt when you don't have a car.

[texaspyro]

@leaftye

Yes, for whatever reason, LED light bulbs just don’t last that long.

The thing some people miss is that they’re not buying an LED, or a few LED’s, they are buying a LED light bulb. That make the 50000 hour estimated life span somewhat dishonest.

Mine seem too… I have had two bulbs (out of over 300 die). Both were infant mortality issues. One bulb was a Chinese bulb and a wire to the driver was not soldered properly. Another was a Sylvania 15W PAR38. It popped an internal fuse. I have had several bulbs running 24/7 for over three years… that’s over 25,000 hours.

EPA Energy Star certification involves characterizing the bulb as a unit. The makers have to document testing of the bulb as a whole. They cannot specify lifetimes that they can’t back up and get certification. That is one reason many bulbs say 25,000 hours… their life testing past that could not be backed up with hard data.

[tabetha]

@dct73

@joe1512

LIFETIME:
LEDs have about a 25000 to 50000 hour lifetime which is actually fairly likely to be accurate as they don’t poop out like Incans do. They are also pretty much indestructable and even when one of the LEDs goes out there is an array of many of them, so even really bad luck is mitigated.

CFLs have much shorter lifetime and are way more likely to break. You will likely buy many CFLs for the lifetime equivalent of 1 LED. This is where the ‘green’ part comes in.

It’s not the LED that “poops out”. It’s the circuit. I’d be highly suspicious of anyone telling me to expect 50,000 hours out of ANY light bulb. I don’t know what cfl’s everybody that has trouble is buying, but I don’t recall one EVER burning out after several years. I’ve broken a few though.

Even though you live in the same country as the, Livermore-Pleasnton Fire Dept who have a bulb that has burned for over 950,000 hours, so far, aka 110 YEARS continuously!!
Located at 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California.

[bob_ninja]

@leaftye

@dct73

@joe1512

LIFETIME: LEDs have about a 25000 to 50000 hour lifetime which is actually fairly likely to be accurate as they don’t poop out like Incans do. They are also pretty much indestructable and even when one of the LEDs goes out there is an array of many of them, so even really bad luck is mitigated. CFLs have much shorter lifetime and are way more likely to break. You will likely buy many CFLs for the lifetime equivalent of 1 LED. This is where the ‘green’ part comes in.

It’s not the LED that “poops out”. It’s the circuit. I’d be highly suspicious of anyone telling me to expect 50,000 hours out of ANY light bulb. I don’t know what cfl’s everybody that has trouble is buying, but I don’t recall one EVER burning out after several years. I’ve broken a few though.

Yes, for whatever reason, LED light bulbs just don’t last that long.

The thing some people miss is that they’re not buying an LED, or a few LED’s, they are buying a LED light bulb. That make the 50000 hour estimated life span somewhat dishonest. That’s the life of just the LED under ideal conditions. Will the rest of the light bulb allow the LED to operate that long? The reviews indicate that it won’t. If the manufacturers actually engineered and manufactured their LED light bulbs well, there would be virtually no downside in offering a great lifetime warranty, and plenty of upside.

As far as CFL’s, I had older ones fizz out. The newer bulbs dim over time, or part of the tube darkens significantly. Instead of waiting for these bulbs to go fully dead, I replace them.

Here is my solution

[CheapThrills]

I got hese yesterday from mail:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/230793300741?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&\_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Well, at least they are far better than the ones I got over a year ago for similar price.
Tint is pretty warm but bearable.
They light up straight away, which can be a plus.
They make some less light, compared to 7W CFL yet they heat up almost the same.
The shade of the lamp stays 4Celcius cooler when these are in.

CRI is by eye worse, than with 940 fluorescent but that should not surprise anyone.
If you need E14 socket lights to light up fast but no High Quality light is needed measured by CRI, these might well be a good option.

BTW, they look terrible.

[Pavithra_uk]

4 CFL for 0.97$ ??

here 1 CFL cost around 3-5$

[nqcken]

national tv (NBC) was promoting a “go green” iniative for xmas by converting all of the incan xmas lights to led. something i have done a long time ago. i think the case has been made here that led household lighting is still not there wrt cost effectiveness however there are other variables at play and since i do not mind paying more i choose to go led and anxiously await the time when leds replace cfls. if cost effectiveness were the only variable in choosing lights we would all be buying 800 lumen flashlights that cost no more than $12. and really the name of the forum should be changed to budget led light forum since leds are the priniple topic for discussion with the occasional hid thrown in.

ken

[Dimbo_The_Blinky]

@sixfink

Ah yes, the wonderful GREEN scam movement! Don’t we all just absolutely adore totalitarian ideas and ideals of all kind?

[snip]

As far as CFLs are concerned, can’t say that I like them much. I can’t operate my scroll saw properly, the oscillating blade gets all blurry in my vision and I can’t see where I am cutting. They are good for lighting up my brother’s garage, though.

First, I call it “The Disinterested Third Party Fallacy”: The mistaken notion that some (any) third party, other than the two of us, can make a better decision about what’s best for you and for me. And you know what we get from fallacious reasoning…

I want to help you keep your fingers!!

As far as LEDs are concerned, my old eyes see the PWM flicker FAR more on LEDs, since they literally cut ALL the light when they’re Off. And they change color when you lower the If, so you either dim them with flickering pulses or dim-and-recolor them with lower current. Not the choices I’d pay for! OTOH, I will admit that sometimes the color shift makes the Light better…

No, I’m not trying to claim my eyes are immune to Persistence of Vision!! Of course they all look “smooth” generally. PWM flickering makes dangerous things like car engines, fan and saw blades appear to stop moving. That’s as bad as it gets in my book. It’s like lying, and you KNOW how much I hate that!!

Fluorescents (whatever their shape) spark off the plasma & then don’t need that huge blast anymore. Even in the cold (like, e.g., a walk-in freezer), once they start, they’re supposed to calm down. The flickering may be due to bad manufacturing processes or variable AC supply. Don’t laugh. In the PC LAN repair business, we see “Bad AC” far too frequently to “assume” the power company is doing its job. It sounds like maybe yours keep trying to restart. This will cancel any cost savings you might get from fluorescents. Have you tried replacing your Ballast? They make new fluorescents where the tube( s ), fixtures/reflectors, ballast and everything can be hung from its own power cord! And make huge (wicked-cheap) light, with your choice of colors (like the 5000K 4-tube fixtures in my garage & workshop).

The point of all that (waaay off-topic) is, when I’m scroll-sawing (or any time the cutting edge blurs like that), I try to LET the blade “blur”, and just guide the “hole” that’s appearing at the end of the cut. It’s a weird way of looking at things, but it works for me. Just focus on keeping the leading, inside edge of the cut half-way into the pencil line & the cut will be beautiful. I developed this trick working as a “saw man” on a home-building crew… I would have a big problem if the moving blade appeared to stop!!!

Dim

[march.brown]

If you have a three-phase supply , you can treble the apparent flicker frequency by using different phases … You do need three times as many light units though.
.

[dct73]

@tabetha

@dct73

@joe1512

LIFETIME:
LEDs have about a 25000 to 50000 hour lifetime which is actually fairly likely to be accurate as they don’t poop out like Incans do. They are also pretty much indestructable and even when one of the LEDs goes out there is an array of many of them, so even really bad luck is mitigated.

CFLs have much shorter lifetime and are way more likely to break. You will likely buy many CFLs for the lifetime equivalent of 1 LED. This is where the ‘green’ part comes in.

It’s not the LED that “poops out”. It’s the circuit. I’d be highly suspicious of anyone telling me to expect 50,000 hours out of ANY light bulb. I don’t know what cfl’s everybody that has trouble is buying, but I don’t recall one EVER burning out after several years. I’ve broken a few though.

Even though you live in the same country as the, Livermore-Pleasnton Fire Dept who have a bulb that has burned for over 950,000 hours, so far, aka 110 YEARS continuously!!
Located at 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California.

And guess what? That bulb isn’t an LED, it’s incandescant. Of course one out of billions is pretty pour evidence.

[sb56637]

Very interesting discussion here. I use exclusively CFLs due to the high cost of electricity where I live. I’m very interested in LED lighting, but from what I can tell, none of the LED bulbs can give me the brightness that I need. I like a very bright room in most circumstances, and so I use 26W CFLs that are approximately equivalent to a 100W inca, if not a bit more. Light output is somewhere over 1600 lumens for these bulbs. I don’t think there’s any LED bulb that can match that. Please give me links if I’m wrong.

That being said, CFLs aren’t ideal. Where I live, they cost around $3/ea, and they don’t last all that long. Most of the locally available CFLs have a putrid, vile, repulsive, sickening, hideous, repugnant, detestable, depressing stark white color. I don’t have enough adjectives to express how much I hate the tint of the CFLs that most people use here. The color is positively depressing. They are just recently starting to import warm light CFLs, but almost nobody here uses them yet. So I’ve been using warm color GE bulbs from the United States, which I really like. They last fairly long, but nothing like the 6 years they advertise. I’ve also had a few duds. The locally available CFLs also burn out quickly, and worse yet, are a fire hazard. In many cases I have been startled by the sound of popping and crackling from up above, followed by sparks and electrical smoke. Not very nice to think what could happen while nobody is at home with a CFL left turned on.

This thread is a good reference, and I think it should be in the LED Light Bulbs category. Anybody mind if I move it there?

[gords1001]

@tabetha

@gords1001

The CFL’s we get here now are instant on no flicker (this coming from a brit, we don’t seem to notice pwm either), I can cope with them but miss in-cans tbh.

That’s what I use as well, about 70-80% bright instantly my ones from MEGAMAN (a german co I think), but have had one explode in terrific fashion, thankfully was in garage, and don’t know if moisture was a factor there tbh, I use 23W ones, about £10 each though.
Is that landy in your piccie ?, me mate works on them all day for RAF, I even use a Land Rover series 2/2a clutch master cylinder on my sierra cossie after I converted it to hydraulic clutch with a southwest.com(us) concentric slave.

It’s a little Suzuki sj, I value reliability and capability over some idea its best because its British. :bigsmile:

The japs have been fairly whuppin the landy bum for a long time with both. Plus, Landrover = British Leyland, I can’t think of a worse example of British manufacturing, I can’t think of one good car they ever made. I’m either Ford’s if its saloon cars or jap if its 4 x 4.