The false economy of in home LED lighting

Moved to “LED Light Bulbs”. Good discussion here, please keep it going.

I have 3 light fixtures that use candelabra base bulbs. I have yet to see a candelabra base CFL bulb that didn’t look ugly as sin in such a fixture. I’m gradually working on switching them all over to LED bulbs, buying a couple of bulbs when I run across something newer, better, brighter, cheaper.

I’ve been using CCFLs for years now, energy saving is good, but they are annoying in CRI, short lifetime and slow startup. I’ve bought a couple 40w and 60w LED bulbs, but I will be extremely glad when bright 75w and 100w equivalent LED edison base bulbs show up at reasonable prices. Longer life, better CRI and instant on make LEDs worth a premium over CCFL prices, but they still need to get down to the $10/bulb range for me to switch over completely.

It’s a little annoying that the power company here subsidizes CCFL bulbs, but not LED bulbs. The CCFL era can’t die soon enough for me.

I have a couple hundred bulbs from this supplier (| eBay) in my house (My adventures in LED home lighting)

You might find something useful there. Keep checking their listings, their offerings change regularly.

I’m wondering why there’s all these people claiming CFL’s don’t last long. I’m thinking wrong use. One thing CFL bulbs don’t like is heat. It’s bad for their cheap electronics and that’s what’s causing them to break down, the electronics go bad. And because price point is the biggest consideration people are using for the purchase of their CFL’s obviously it’s a you get what you pay for purchase which compounds the problem, cheap electronics will fail earlier. As for me my room uses a single 45 watt CFL for light, yes it’s insanely bright but I like a bright room. I’ve replaced it one time and the previous one lasted 6 years. A 45 watt CFL isn’t a bargain basement offering either since that’s a more specialty CFL, they cost me 30 bucks like 10 years ago, now they’re down to $12 but that’s still more than the $3-4 of bargain CFL’s and the higher cost is evident in better overall construction and they never flicker and are instant on. The difference is the fixture it’s in keeps the base exposed to cooling air. Many people put these CFL’s in small glass enclosed domes or fixtures designed for incandescents. When you do that they get baked in their own heat and the electronics fail.

This is actually a good practice even for led’s. Keep the led fixture cool. Even though they may run a little cooler than CFL’s they’ll benefit from having more cooling. Because even though the led’s may last a long time, if kept at elevated temperatures everyone here knows led’s will dim quite severely from extended high temperature operation.

The OSRAM facility CLF bulbs seem to managed that problem pretty well, I know an apartment manager who switched from incandescents to this special CLF bulb, he even uses them in on-demand switches in staircases in large apartment buildings.... which would normally lead to certain death for standard CFLs within weeks. He has 200 of them running for over two years now and I think he replaced one of them. They are expensive in small quantities, but if you order them in large quantities they are doable. And yes he did the math upfront and yes they are profitable over their life expectancy vs. incandescents and LEDs ... at least with German Energy prices of 26-27 €-cent ( isn't that insane?) per kWh this year and the projected development in the future.

I was looking at facility series two years ago for staircase lighting and they were really expensive (approx. 20$ /piece)

Last time I bought some in a sale they went for €6.99~$9 (18W~80W inca) and in larger quantaties they can be bought closer to €4-5. They have been my go-to recommendation ever since. If they would come up with a way to make them mercury-free... they would be pretty much perfect.

Warm Comfort Light = 2500 K

Color rendering index Ra >=80

Rated luminous flux = 1050 lm

It appears that there is a wide variety in the quality of cfl’s sold and their ability to tolerate dirty AC current. Some here have had good forune with them, I have not. In my experience they turn on slowly(sometimes dangerously slowly), don’t last long even in a fully exposed ceiling fixture where excess heat is not an issue, and have poor color rendition. Even so, being green means to me that I’m not going to throw out working units until they fail and cfl’s don’t go in the trash.

Yep, saying all CFL suck ... is like saying all LEDs suck based on having seen only the white 5mm ones.

Product benefits

  • Extremely durable due to extremly high switching resistance
  • Much longer relamping intervals (compared with the standard reference product)
  • Variable use at Direct Current and Alternating Current
  • Extremely fast lumen ramp-up thanks to Quick Light Technology

Areas of application

  • Where the lamps need to last a long time or have to withstand frequent on/off switching
  • Installations with automatic disconnection circuits (e.g. in stairwells)
  • Emergency lighting
  • Hard-to-reach holders
  • Wherever light is required quickly
  • Hotels, restaurants, facility management
  • Outdoor use in enclosed and ventilated luminaires only

Product features

  • Extremly high number of switching cycles: >1,000,000
  • Extremly long average lifetime: 20,000 h (equals 20 years at 2.7 h per day)
  • Quick Light: 60 % light output in ≤20 s
  • Warm Comfort Light – energy-saving light similar to that of an incandescent lamp
  • Can be used in Direct Current systems: 176…310 V DC
  • Very broad ambient temperature range: -30…+50 °C
  • Already complies to ecodesign requirements of EC 244/2009 regulation stage 5

Don’t buy 99 cent CFL’s go for quality ones if you don’t know how to spot specifically good CFL construction, often times I’ll take one of the light bulbs in a multipack I just bought apart to see if it’s built good. A good way to generally figure out how good something is I’ve found is to simply look it up on Amazon and sort it by average rating. If something can maintain a good 4-5 star rating with at least 50 reviews generally you’re gonna stand a good chance it’s not a piece of crap.

I’ve had nothing but good luck with the GE Energy SmartTM bulbs even in harsher enclosed fixtures. They definitely last me at least 4 years on average. Not as much as my specialty 45 watt monster CFL’s but considering the price they definitely pay for themselves in energy savings.

I understand that marketers spin specs to present their product in the best light (no pun intended) but bullet points like this really chap my hide for several of reasons.

1) Requiring up to 20 seconds to achieve 60% of its rated brightness strains the connotation of “quick light”. Especially for a society raised on incandescent light where full output was almost instantaneous.

2) How bright will it be after 1 second at 25C? How bright after 1 second at, say, –10C? That is, is the light suitable to be used in a porch fixture? If it takes even 5 seconds to achieve a reasonable brightness in the winter, then it’s not going to help you identify who or what is scratching at the window at 3am…

I’ve been switching to LED’s since CFL’s are generally less durable and don’t offer drastically higher light output. I know LED’s still have a long way to go but at the moment it’s more useful to have a few light fixtures that can take a good knock or two rather than the fragile glass that CFL’s and incandescent’s are often housed in.

I’ve seen some CFL’s fail dramatically but never in a way that would have caused some harm (One made a burning smell when it was on but no access heat or smoke was emitted, had the fire dept a bit confused since they couldn’t find it) and as of now no bad results from LED bulbs. Light output is generally not crucial since most fixtures generally have more than enough places for bulbs so a bunch of 650+ lumen LED’s generally work just fine.

Best thing is not having to change the bubs all the time and that they aren’t major health/safely issues when disposing. Heck I can probably salvage the HS’s and all that from them when they finally do bite the dust and possibly reuse them (Safety in mind when working with mains power).

I see CFL’s becoming less dominant and LED’s becoming more popular but it might take some time yet and who knows if there is going to be a new revelation in that time frame. My LED’s are abused more than my other bulbs and they handle it a lot better than them as well; If I go though 6 CFL’s a year vs 2 LED’s then I think that I’ve had my money’s worth, at least in convenience (Although I wish LED’s were still cheaper/brighter, who doesn’t?).

I had been replacing at least one halogen bulb a week. Since switching to LEDs, I haven’t replaced a single bulb in over two years. And frankly, the LED bulbs that are out there now are plenty bright. Every one that I have puts out more lumens than the halogens that they replaced.

I, for one, would LOVE to know more facts about that!!!

SWMBO and I made the Leap of Faith into CFLs a few years before they became useful as Light Sources. (I sense an echo here: wildly exaggerated claims, tint-color lottery, variable QC, no useful engineering info, etc. — all the same, just concerning CFLs (and tubular FLs “back in the day”) as I hear today over every new LED manufacturer to come along…) She won’t turn lights OFF, I usually have to be reminded to turn them ON. We put CFLs in her “always ON” sockets, and incans where we need occasional light, special light (120W for one), or where the huge pigtails don’t fit. But I digress…

We don’t have government subsidies around here to skew the cost bases & thereby confuse people, although the power co-op did give away dim brown CFLs (“60W-equivalent”) to anyone who wanted any. Our “best” home-LED bulbs run closer to $40USD than $4. And the “best” CFLs don’t even hit $4 if you don’t care what color or quantity of light they put out. That makes it RARE to find anyone actually USING the LEDs…

It’s surprising how many “ordinary” people DO care — a LOT — about the color and quantity (and quality, if any of you remember “flicker” of FL tubes) of light their bulbs emit.

(Full Disclosure: the color-reference-standard a lot of posters here seem to prefer is what I call “60W White” because it seems to my eyes to match the color emitted by a standard 60W incandescent bulb. These bulbs cost us poor folk Zero Dollars and Forty-Two Cents ($0.41667). Each. My preference is “100W White”, just so you’ll know. Top-shelf 3-Mode (dimmable!) ones of these cost a whole $1.24! Even with magick thinking, it takes a LONG time to balance that equation!!!)

I have a friend (believe it or not) who popped on a cheap LED for his workshop. He didn’t keep the package, and doesn’t care about details, so don’t ask. All I can say is, it was the cheapest one Lowe’s had last summer. As a near-to-hand “task light” or as a ‘courtesy light’ so visitors don’t crash into stuff, it’s fine, but here’s what I want you to try with one (1) of yours: Walk across the room and try to read the label on a laptop HDD, or the instructions for microwaving a meal… Now, (sorry, but someone had to say it) leave that one bulb as it sits and walk to the OTHER side of the room and repeat the test… IFF your LEDs make enough Light to do that job, I’m VERY interested, nevermind the cost. (I’ve seen your beamshots… You of all people know what I mean by “throw”.)

I’m just trying to defend the idea that QUALITY and QUANTITY of the ACTUAL LIGHT is at least as important to some of us as the Price Tag (yes, I mean Lifecycle Cost) of the bulb used.

And I do know that CFLs and LEDs are MONOchromatic, where the light I seem to need most is OMNIchromatic Meaning: why only 5000 (whatever)k? What about 5000k AND 3700k AND 14000k (and IR and a little bit of UV) all together like humans are used to seeing??? ALL wavelengths make the best “white” light… So the notion of “cost of light quality” over “price of green hype” will likely rub quite a few people the wrong way. I hope so… I have yet to meet anyone who will commit the effort to think thoroughly about something they feel comfortable believing. Full disclosure: as much as I love the LEDs for flashlights, I can’t see any way they could ever be made AS USEFUL, overall, as plain old point-source burning wires. When they make a small, spherical, BRIGHT (not “…for an LED”) multi-chromatic LED, I will be at the head of the line!!!

The color temperature scale already encompasses all light below the rated color temperature. If you look at how black body radiation is categorized, the higher the color temperature the more complete and even a spectrum of light is generated. So in effect a 5000k light bulb already includes all the colors emitted by temperatures below it. If it didn’t include the 1400k spectrum range the bulb’s color would actually simply just look blue. Monochromatic light is light of ONE color only, like a green or red led. White light is composed of many colors. I think you may be confusing a smooth color spectrum with one that has peaks or spikes, a weakness with certain LED’s or Fluorescents or if you try to make composite white from RGB color sources but certainly one that can be mitigated with proper phosphor controls for CFL or LED. Hence why you can have high CRI daylight white CFL’s near indistinguishable from daylight, try getting daylight white from a burning wire and the filaments wouldn’t last long at all.

And having tons of IR and UV from hot burning halogens simply wastes a lot of energy and in particular UV is damaging to the eyes. That’s why all halogen desk lamps have to have a glass UV filter on them.

Oh yeah and as for all the mercury paranoia. Yes mercury is bad, but CFL’s contain so little of it and unless you’re licking the scraps up with your tongue you’re facing very little exposure to mercury.

In fact if you’re worried about mercury. Don’t eat tuna, at all, no lobster either. The specific mercury compound methyl mercury is even more toxic than elemental mercury because elemental mercury doesn’t accumulate so brief exposure poses even less a hazard. But methyl mercury like that emitted from coal plants and what collects in sea food is much more dangerous.

http://science.kqed.org/quest/2009/06/12/how-toxic-is-a-busted-compact-florescent-bulb/

In fact the amount of mercury absorbed from a broken CFL under the worst possible scenario of improper ventilation and cleanup is about equivalent to eating just one can of albacore tuna. Something to think about there. Don’t eat tuna if you don’t like mercury.

I think we’re agreeing here, but just to be thorough…

Here’s a published “Spectral Power Distribution” chart of actual Daylight:

Here’s Cree’s SPD of their own XM-L’s three “color” ranges:

Just to illustrate the “monochromatic” (perhaps I should say “BI-chromatic, given the camel-hump shape from Cree) nature of the ”modern” lights.

And yes, getting good white light out of a wire costs you filament life. The Good News is, as chemical engineering has evolved, they’ve discovered ways to prolong that lifespan, e.g. with Noble Gases that “rebuild” the filament — providing you put the “proper” current through it (!!!) which seems to be the root cause of a lot of reported problems with incans…

I’m not just condemning LED or xFL lamps!! I use them as much as I can! Just pointing out how far they have yet to evolve, just to catch what we have now, which is still evolving (IFF the “disinterested third parties” can keep their stupid “policies” to themselves!).

IFF light quality is more important than lamp cost, is all I’m saying…

(Full disclosure: this is kind-of a prelude to a post I’ve been hatching re: I was fortunate to get the opportunity to MEASURE, with a calibrated camera, the color temperature of a Cree “3C” XM-L LED in a “stock” TrustFire F20… To spare the suspense, yes the dead-center measured ~5000k, but the “rotten cat urine” ring around the hot spot was NOT, and by the time I got to the “Lewd Lilac”/”Perverse Purple” ring (“spill”??) the Kelvin color number shot up into 5 digits!!! Looking at these XM-Ls beams I would DREAM of monochromatic LEDs!!! Even CFLs tend to be “all the SAME color”…)

Or “too many of” the Native Fish of the waters of the State of South Carolina !!

If my own experience is any gauge, people will hate on us both for pointing that out!

We too have many of the new cfls. I’m also sick of em. They simply don’t last as long as the labels indicate. The ballasts burn up, melt the plastic housing and look very capable of burning the house down. The color is always but always wrong. (I’m a photographer, this is important!)
Who want’s photo’s of their babies looking green? Or yellow? I’m sure nobody here does.

Anyone here realize a single candle is rated at 100CRI? So how do CRI numbers actually help us, if the numbers are only related to the Kelvin temperature of the bulb in question? They just make confusion. Like so much else the government has their hand in these days.

Mercury is so horrible…I remember playing with it as a kid, lucky to be alive. Lead is horrific…handled it in fishing sinkers and bullets for almost 50 years. Lucky to be alive. If fluorescents are so special, why are TV’s going LED backlight?

I say, for the Americans out there, buy American. That’s green enough for me. Whether that be incandescent, led or matches.

Best answer? Go to bed at sundown and get up at sunrise and most if not all of your lighting issues will be solved. Incredible annual savings! Lighting stress headaches a thing of the past! lol, ok, so there are no best answers. In all things one must weigh the options based on their own personal use and desire and go with what works best for them. So the only best answer is the fact that intelligence is needed, gather information and weigh the possibilities, then do what works for you.

I don’t think you can make a TV comparison justification to lambaste fluorescent room lighting. The main reason they’re going led is for different various reasons; one is it makes the TV sets thinner which sells better, the other is it lets you artificially bump up contrast ratios with selective led lighting, and the other is better color temperature controls using RGB backlighting instead of trying to control the LCD’s themselves which would reduce color contrast at more extreme ends of color temperatures.

And if you’re doing photography then yes halogens make sense because they’re not on ALL the time, only when working. It’s also easier to work with because with incandescent lights are always the same CRI 100, you just need to match color temperature. But with that said, how many photographers use flash strobes? A great many. How good are flash strobes when it comes to CRI? Pretty poor, xenon strobes are 80 CRI on average. It’s just that decent strobes which cost a lot are just consistent. I’m sure if you were willing to pay as much for your home lighting as your photography lighting, you’d have no complaints.

But to compare high level photographic lighting to a 99 cent CFL, come on, that’s a bit unfair. But for the most part the 99 cent CFL is a bargain. Heck even at their full unadjusted price of about $3-4 they’re still a heck of a bargain. And I don’t know what it is people saying they’re popping CFL’s quicker than incandescents, they’re really doing something wrong. I definitely know that I keep less CFL’s in storage than I remember with regular bulbs. Regular bulbs I remember having to keep a supply of a dozen or so to make sure in one season I don’t run out, when I made the switch to CFL’s my replacement supply for one season is just a couple of them collecting dust.