Comparison: Budget LED Light Bulbs

I wasn't meaning for this thread to turn into an Obama-light-bashing post!

I'm not a fan of the legislation banning standard incan lights, but I still prefer CFLs. I had adopted CFLs long before the impending ban was ever mentioned. I vastly prefer the cooler operation of the CFLs. In NE Texas, it has been 100+ degrees almost every day for the past month, and we are continuing to experince these high temperatures. Running a incan lights adds a large amount of heat which will then need to be removed by running the air conditioning longer. Also, I don't like the heat that radiates directly from an incan bulb when you are working near it; the CFLs are much more comfortable to work around.

I have also had very good luck with the CFLs lasting much longer than incandescent bulbs. I am using bulbs that I have had for years, and I have carried with me from a house I lived in 5 years ago.

As a bonus, I have located my power meter (a Kill-A-WattEZ) and will be testing these LED bulbs to compare the rated power usage vs the actual measured usage. I'll post the results here when I have them available.

Good comparison. It would be a great guide when we make new purchase.

Thanks for this great review!

I was about to order some for testing but I will wait for better bulbs and/or go for some more expensive.

Hey you stole my thunder LOL

An update!

About six months later, one of my MF-purchased GU10 bulbs has failed. The issues appears to have been a bad connection or failed LED on the LED board. As I originally mentioned, I had broken one of the drivers on one of the E27 bulbs. I had retained this bulb for parts, allowing me to removed the LED board and used it to replace the one on the failed GU10 bulb and it worked perfectly once again!

Can you please post real life pictures how well the room is lit up using this bulb, otherwise your post might be considered as spam.

no matter 5050,3014 or 5630 LEDs, the LED brighting is too strong for reading, it's better to install a diffuser on your LED lamps so as to have soft light for reading.

By the way, the lamp shown in your link have 44 pcs 5050 LEDs, let's caculate 1 pcs of 5050 LED has luminous of 18 Lm, then 18 x 44 = 792 Lm, this brightness is closed to that of 100W incandescent bulb, do you really need so much light for reading?

I'm surprised anyone is still reading this thread!

First, to answer Woundedeagle, (if he shows up again):

I had two bulbs, each with 22 5050 emitters; these bulbs were not exceptionally bright, and one failed pretty quickly. The second one still works fine. These bulbs are rather dim and I would estimate the light output to be equivilent to a <20W incandescent bulb. Also, my limited research indicates that a 100W incandescent bulb is closer to 1700 lumens; many times brighter than any of the LED bulbs I have ever tried.

Just as a general update: The 109LED corn lights were pathetic, so I stopped using them. I had them allocated for porch light duty, but they were far to dim for that. One finally began failing after a very short while (sections of LEDs would start to flicker) and after I moved, I never unboxed these.

The Manfont 4W bulbs have been great, for the most part. I had purchased several of these for myself, as well as several to replace the expensive and high-failure-rate halogen bulbs used in the stove vent-a-hood for a family member. These bulbs have been rather reliable but with a few failures due to individual emitters failing, possibly due to poor heat sink contact. The metal base of the emitter isn't soldered to the plate, but rather sits loosly on the plate with a small amount of heat sink paste underneath. As these fail, I'm replacing the defective emitters and applying Fujik in an attempt to improve heat transfer. I was able to buy a bag of 10 replacement warm-tint 1W egg-yolk emitters very cheaply from eBay, and installing the replacement is extremely easy. I have enough spare emitters now to last for years...

10 lumens per watt is a much more realistic number for the effective output of an incandescnt bulb.

This thread is all about very cheap led-bulbs, just thought it was fair to join in with an experience with a quite expensive one, I bought it half a year ago for I think it was 30 dollars at the time, a GU10 reflector bulb replacement:

Output is similar to a 50W halogen, beam is better than most halogen lamps, tint is really pleasant (got the ww version). Gets too hot to touch when running longer periods, but it has not failed yet, with at least 4 hours of use every day.

When opened up you can see 4 XP-E emitters on a board screwed onto an alu heatsink that is one big piece forming most of the body of the lamp, the light is colected by 4 TIR's that are frosted on the outside, all looks like a good design:

Isn’t it amazing how in just over a year technology could change so fast? Now if only prices could catch up, that’s the only factor that’s keeping me off LEDs lol. But perhaps a review of the current, expensive LEDs should be done too just to even it out, not just those from ebay as they’re mostly cheap knock-offs? I would suggest reviewing from different parts of the world such as http://www.ikea.com, http://www.ledlightsmart.co.uk/, http://www.ledcentral.com.au/, and http://www.illustralighting.com.

I know it could be quite an expensive review for one person, so how about those who already have lights from these manufacturers post theirs here and we also agree to some standards for the tests? :slight_smile:

Nice review, but i will go with led lights for their economical benefits.

I believe philips do make led lights?

Ikea led, 400 lumens, 5€ (maybe 7$ in the us). Warm tint (claimed to be 2700K). Better build quality than budget led bulb. Even cheaper than brand fluorescent bulb and no warm-up delay.

LEDs are almost 85% more efficient than these incandescent lights and about 5% more efficient than the CFL Lights.

The E27 spotlight you bought looks near identical to these I just received:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/10X-Dimmable-Led-Lamp-E27-GU10-MR16-E14-GU5-3-B22-E12-Par20-3X4W-12W-Spotlight/1567288196.html

I love them! They’re very close in beam and brightness to a narrow flood PAR16, and actually cost less, despite being LED! I havent tried the dimmable version but I am going to. I know when I do, the choice of dimmer can make as much difference as the quality of the bulbs.

I’ve bought a few of these to test GU10 6,4W 16 SMD 5630 LED Warmweiß Energiesparende Spot-Lampe 85-265V Sale - Banggood Deutschland-arrival notice-arrival notice

But I’ve just watched a vid a similar bulb where the guy explains how dangerous these bulbs are. I don’t understand exactly why but it was something like this bulb not being earthed so there was a 50% chance the heatsink housing could become live if inserted the wrong way. He said the LED area was an aluminum plate which was live, and it was separated from the housing by only a few microns. This sounds really dangerous.

Would this be the same for the globes I purchased which look identical? Should I just throw them out? The BG rating seems to be quite high and customers are happy with their light output.

The “couple of microns of insulation” is all circuit boards . . . I wouldnt worry about that. The aluminum plate itself isnt live.

The exposed electronics at the bottom, that I dont care for. It would be easy to coat the “input” solder joints with some insulating material. Even clear nail polish would make a difference.

I wouldnt sell them to customers unless they knew what they were getting.

The points that are circled. There is a small chance it you touch one of them you could get a shock. It depends on how the bulb is installed, and if they are grounded. Pretty unlikely, but still surprising.