Lowes Deal Alerts & Discussion Thread

I went to my local Lowes today and they didn’t even have the 99 cent display at all.

So I ended up getting 10 (5 2 packs) of the 750 lumen 40 watters. Worked out to $1.49 per bulb and I was ok with that.

I also got 2 individual 60 watt bulbs for my living room, and two 75watt ones for my front and rear porch lights.

I noticed that the 75w equivalent units had SIGNIFICANTLY more heft to them as the others did. So that’s promising. I understand that these are cheap, budget LED household bulbs, but I just didn’t want CFL’s anymore.

I’m not used to the 3000k color temp, I’ve had 5000k and 6200k for the past 8 years. But so far I’m pleased, even if I didn’t get them for a buck a piece.

But I got 4 60W equiv Ultilitech’s anyway. $3.98x2, so OK I guess compared to anything else these days. The warm white 3000k looks nice.

I must be getting old since I can remember incans at 4 for $1 in my youth and hearing folks gripe about that being a high price!

Phil

LOL, I don’t know how old you are, but I remember as a kid my parents bringing old burned out icans to the electric company because back then they supplied the bulbs for free.

BTW, I stopped at my local store this evening and asked the manager about the 99 cent bulbs. My app shows that the store has 912 but when I try to add them to my cart for in store pickup they are unavailable. He said they are holding them for Black Friday. Mystery solved. So if anybody wants those bulbs, they will be available once again on BF. I suppose some stores will screw that up though and have them out early.

All that is left to do is sand the domes from the 99 cent bulbs that I got the LEDs and drivers from so that they will fit between the clear plastic shield on the front of the worklight. I will glue them in place which I will do tonight.
I will post a separate build thread in case anyone wants to see how easy it was.
3 x 750 Lumen equals 2250 lumens, plenty to work by. :slight_smile:
20 years or so ago I got plenty of these florescent worklights on subsidy. They were like $5 each, ran cool, no harsh shadows but the bulbs were sensitive to shock. Replacements were costly, but I happened to get a few at Office Depot of all places on clearance for $2. That helped keep them going for awhile but everyonce and awhile a ballast goes. No fixing that, hence this LED conversion.

^

Nice work there. Great concept. I want one.

Check out how much more surface area the heat spreaders (traces in solder resist) cover on the longer life light on the left.

Thanks ImA4. Here is a link to the build thread. Not much response to it though, I guess worklights are not as interesting as flashlights :slight_smile:

Now that you point out the heat spreaders I notice them.
Also, I have run those bulbs alongside of the versions with the heavy heat sinks. Each seem to run at about the same temperature after a few hours.

I have confirmed the 60W LED bulb in the twin pack for $3.98 with the 4.57 year lifespan is the same exact bulb as the 99 cent bulb with the 1.8 year lifespan. It is the same exact bulb inside and out.

That 99 cent bulb will be available again on Black Friday, probably at all the Lowes.

Holy crap this is crazy! I didn’t know any of this was going on! 99¢ led bulb with life of an incandescent?! :open_mouth: This is madness! This is the future of led bulbs! (haha)

Too bad there isn’t any lowe’s close by here; mostly home depots only.

dchomak can you do a flicker test of the cheap 99¢ led bulb? The power supply looks extremely simple (for “decent” led bulbs) so it might flicker. You can look at it closely with a camera to see if it flickers. Or you can shake it or shake something in front of it.

Also here’s something interesting about Lowe’s: I found out that Lowe’s sells mostly Cooper (Eaton) Wiring Devices (switches, receptacles, GFCIs, etc), for the same price as Home Depot sells Leviton!
But I think Cooper Wiring Devices are better than Leviton Wiring Devices. I was impressed with the features on the Cooper receptacles. They have a “Screw-Catch™” and they have a built-in wire stripper and looper and bla bla…
Also the switches are better because they don’t have that problem of tending to want to be on. With the Leviton switches, they feel like they want to be on. Flicking them on makes a nice flick sound, like the switch is enthusiastic about it, but flipping them off makes a quiet flup like they don’t want to be turned off. The cheap generic Jasco/GE switches sold at Walmart are even worse. The old Leviton switches didn’t have that problem but the new ones do. :frowning: Also the Leviton have a derp with the ground screw… they _screw_ed it up. The two nubs that hold the wire loop are too close together making it almost impossible to fit a loop in there, so you either have to bend a nub down or rotate the loop in an improper position.

bla bla bla you get it, The wiring devices lowe’s sells are cooper and I think they are better than Leviton that home depot sells, and for the same price.

This time I got a great deal on some incandescents :bigsmile:
250 Watt Infra Red. (Heat Lamps)

Then I found more of the 75W equiv LED bulbs

50 cents more per bulb than the last store but when you want need them, the extra money is easily justified :slight_smile:

Then I came across this deal. Unfortunately someone else beat me this time.

That’s a 24 inch cast iron pipe wrench that normally would be $24.98. That is a BIG wrench. Here is a picture of the replacement model with my SK68 sitting on top of it for scale. And this picture is in perspective. The head is actually bigger than it appears in this photo. Oh well, I can’t win them all.

dchomak you can sell your earnings and make a profit.
What do you do with all the stuff you get? :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, as far as these LED bulbs go, it takes a lot of bulbs to fill up those 1 to 7 socket converters.
For instance, I am about to replace an antique 4 foot florescent light fixture in my in home shop with an old bathroom light fixture that has 8 sockets. One of these. The gold ones also happen to be 4 feet long :slight_smile:

Once I get that up I will either fill it with 8 of the bulbs I got at Lowes. If that doesn’t give me enough light, I will try 2 of the 1 to 7 converters at each end and fill them up will bulbs also. I have the option of installing up to 20 bulbs over my bench. See what I mean, they can get used up quickly.
BTW, 20 - 800 Lumen bulbs would give me 16,000 Lumens. That is probably to much. If I use 20 of the 450 Lumen bulbs (that I paid 42 cents each) We are talking 9000 Lumen. Maybe that is more reasonalble.
Another way to reach 9000 Lumen would be skip the 1 to 7 converters and use 8 - 1100 Lumen bulbs.

See, all kinds of options with this kind of setup. Only when using lots of cheap bulbs (LOCB) do these options become available.

Yeah I see that you can use up the lamps but what about all the other stuff …… like the uh… the random stuff you get?

All the Utilitech LED bulbs are cleared out from the shelf at my Lowes. Getting them ready for Black Friday sale?

I was at Lowes today (for roofing sealer… but I had to check out the deals while I was there).
They have 36-packs of Rayovac AA alkaline for $5.99. Nice deal.

16.7¢ per cell; better than Dollar Tree at 25¢/cell.

Just got out of Lowe's. No sign of the $0.99 bulbs; no idea where the display even was! Wasn't at my usual Lowe's though and think we may drive to another. Did pickup a nice deal on plastic shelving units.

-Garry

I went to HD first, only because they always have free donuts and coffee first thing on BF.
Then I went to Lowes. They had 2 displays of the 99 cent bulbs. Everybody was taking 20 to 30 bulbs at a time. I got there are 6:30AM, 30 minutes after they opened up and they were halfway thru the 912 bulbs they had put out

The base of the 60watt equivalent LED light runs hot. Am using 2 lights in the kitchen ceiling. Is there any fire danger running the lights in closed, cramped space?

No, just short life.
How hot is it? Is it hot enough to hurt your fingers after a short moment of touching it?
The Philips basic bulbs get that hot but they are rated for 10 years or something like that.

It gets hot enough not to touch it only a few minutes after turn on. Great relief that only the life is affected. Maybe this is the reason the warranty is only 4 yrs. Thanks for response.