Ultimate LED Bulbs - Ultra High CRI - The Honorable Quest

Hoop · 2023-02-03T01:05:47.000Z

Bulbs from “90+ Lighting" are pretty good and not too expensive. I have been using these in my kitchen alongside some Waveform bulbs. SE-350.070 (3000k) is dimmable and also rated for fully enclosed fixtures. >90 CRI, >50 R9, <30% flicker. I requested a flicker report from the company and these bulbs have 24.4% flicker, flicker index .073, min lumen 950, max lumen 1574, frequency 120hz. The performance is in compliance with California standards. These bulbs are in stock at 1000bulbs and sell for $5.63 at the moment. There is a 2700k version as well but I like 3000k bulbs.

Photon_Master · 2023-02-03T01:23:22.000Z

Hoop:

Bulbs from “”90+ Lighting”:https://90pluslighting.com/” are pretty good and not too expensive. I have been using these in my kitchen alongside some Waveform bulbs. SE-350.070 (3000k) is dimmable and also rated for fully enclosed fixtures. >90 CRI, >50 R9, <30% flicker. I requested a flicker report from the company and these bulbs have 24.4% flicker, flicker index .073, min lumen 950, max lumen 1574, frequency 120hz. The performance is in compliance with California standards. These bulbs are in stock at 1000bulbs and sell for $5.63 at the moment. There is a 2700k version as well but I like 3000k bulbs.

That’s crazy that California even has laws about light bulbs. I guess I’m a stubborn dinosaur I’m still rocking incandescent bulbs in my hizzle

Evgeniy · 2023-02-03T03:03:47.000Z

Hoop:

Bulbs from “”90+ Lighting”:https://90pluslighting.com/” are pretty good … >90 CRI, >50 R9, <30% flicker. I requested a flicker report from the company and these bulbs have 24.4% flicker, flicker index .073, min lumen 950, max lumen 1574, frequency 120hz. The performance is in compliance with “California standards”

May be, for “California standards” it’s good.
But 25-30% flicker (on 100-120 Hz) is clearly visible by human’s (for example, for me) and it’s not good.

Barkuti · 2023-02-04T00:58:14.000Z

Photon Master:

…

That’s crazy that California even has laws about light bulbs. I guess I’m a stubborn dinosaur I’m still rocking incandescent bulbs in my hizzle

What is a hizzle?

I also use incandescents at home, quite a bunch. I have a few custom led lamps where I want lots of light at lower running costs, but that's about it. Incandescent lighting is a simple technology well done from the start and has its own advantages. I love the cozyness of bedtime lamps with incandescent lightbulbs, and of incandescent lighting in general.

raccoon · 2023-02-04T01:01:21.000Z

Snoop Dogg in tha house tonight!

Photon_Master · 2023-02-04T01:10:29.000Z

Barkuti:

Photon Master:

…

That’s crazy that California even has laws about light bulbs. I guess I’m a stubborn dinosaur I’m still rocking incandescent bulbs in my hizzle

What is a hizzle?

I also use incandescents at home, quite a bunch. I have a few custom led lamps where I want lots of light at lower running costs, but that’s about it. Incandescent lighting is a simple technology well done from the start and has its own advantages. I love the cozyness of bedtime lamps with incandescent lightbulbs, and of incandescent lighting in general.

Yep me too! I know you save a few bucks with LEDs but if my budget is that tight I’m really in trouble

Photon_Master · 2023-02-04T01:11:31.000Z

raccoon city:

Snoop Dogg in tha house tonight!

Ha yeah my better half doesn’t appreciate me talking like a gangsta cause now my kid talks like that too and I’m just a Po’ little honkey

Hoop · 2023-02-08T09:08:31.000Z

Photon Master:

I guess I’m a stubborn dinosaur I’m still rocking incandescent bulbs in my hizzle

Nah, they are great. I use Halogen on dimmers in the bathrooms and bedrooms. The high CRI LED bulbs are everywhere else.

Photon_Master · 2023-02-08T12:32:55.000Z

Hoop:

Photon Master:

I guess I’m a stubborn dinosaur I’m still rocking incandescent bulbs in my hizzle

Nah, they are great. I use Halogen on dimmers in the bathrooms and bedrooms. The high CRI LED bulbs are everywhere else.

This might be fake news but I’ve heard they might be making light bulbs illegal. I talked to a dude on another light forum in EU who has a storage unit full of incandescent bulbs and is selling them for 5x what he paid. Better return than the stupid stock market

Barkuti · 2023-02-08T22:50:10.000Z

Photon Master:

This might be fake news but I’ve heard they might be making light bulbs illegal. …

All lightbulbs? :D

I guess you probably mean hotwire bulbs, but @#$% with that. I think I've heard that fearful bullshit many times in the last 5 or even 10 years, and sorry but I'd keep buying them even if illegal. Illegal and bad are very different concepts, and common law is not necessarily good when after all it is based on admiralty law, all of which has to do with commerce and not with moral or ethics. Human beings like me and many others don't really need and not necessarily abide to common law, although we have to deal with it. O:)

Photon_Master · 2023-02-08T23:22:36.000Z

One million % agreed my friend

Correllux · 2023-02-09T00:19:15.000Z

EU has already done some of this and as of this coming August (previously announced as September but pushed) they will be banning most fluorescent tubes. We’ve done similar here in the US with many incandescent standard bulbs…can only find decorative and appliance bulbs now, plus a few types of watt-limited service bulbs. The bans (as far as I know) are on manufacturing but sales will continue until old stock is sold through and of course ownership/use isn’t policed (again…as far as I know). This gives a long sunset period for transitions. I got alarmed a little while ago because of the changes/scarcity of some common T8 fluorescent tubes in regular retail outlets, googled and saw the ban, wondered how on earth our office building should go about dealing with this in 8 months (omg…$$:money_mouth_face:, and then figured out it was only EU at this time. We’ll follow suit eventually I’m sure, but in the mean time as global manufacturers stop making some of these products, the price shoots up considerably. T8 tubes are already nearly twice the price they were just two years ago…between that and the energy savings of LED, it can sure prod people to change more quickly. The phosphors for T-type tubes are already much better than they were not too many years ago, so lumens and cri are pretty good, and they’re long lived as are the ballasts these days……shopping around I’m a little unimpressed with what I’ve been seeing from commercial LED solutions (and if you want to hunt down high cri, the cost is kinda ridiculous, esp knowing what the actual costs are…robbery based on marketing alone).

I heard from an industry fellow that even when EU plants stop manufacturing what’s left of incandescent and fluorescent products, Mexico may continue and it’s very likely that China or India would pick up the slack, so they’ll probably still be available somehow.

bigEnjoyer · 2023-02-17T03:26:22.386Z

I don’t know why people don’t use the EPREL database for this. You can get CRI, full spectra, flicker, etc for all LED bulbs that are legal to sell in the EU, and sometimes R9 and so on too. Just scan the QR code in the store and then read all the info, or search here: EPREL Public website

If you’re really good with OCR, it shouldn’t be hard to automatically process the spectrum images to calculate everything you need. Surely it’s not so hard to write a program to process images like this into a CSV of the SPD?

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Here is a list of all E27 bulbs over 599lm with CRI, luminous flux, and some other info: https://files.catbox.moe/x2zo0p.csv. You can open this in Excel and then use the filter to find relevant bulbs.

There are other fields too, but some don’t map cleanly into CSV, so I can’t just export all of them. Can share the script I used to download if anyone cares.

Anyway: Why aren’t there any good high-CRI (>90), high-R9 (>60) bulbs that have decent luminous flux (>1000lm)? Why are they all so weak?

Hoop · 2023-02-17T04:51:21.516Z

bigEnjoyer:

Anyway: Why aren’t there any good high-CRI (>90), high-R9 (>60) bulbs that have decent luminous flux (>1000lm)? Why are they all so weak?

There are, in the A21 size.

From Waveform there’s 4006.30, 4006.40, etc. 15W, 1600 lumens. Not dimmable. Not for enclosed fixtures. Flicker free.

From “90+ lighting” there’s SE-350.052 which is 14W, 1100 lumens. Dimmable. Not for enclosed fixtures. <30% flicker.

robertsig · 2023-02-17T14:47:46.858Z

Based on the last few posts, I bought these:

TCP LED, 40W equivalent, CRI 95 and CCT 3000
90+ Lighting, 60W equivalent, CRI 90+ and CCT 3000

I measured both with my cheap Opple Lightmaster Pro.

Summary: Both perform exactly as advertised. Unfortunately they are advertised with a flicker of 30% or so, and yep…it’s that bad. Or maybe I’m just spoiled with my Waveform Lighting bulbs.

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Opple was at the base of a lamp, pointing up.

TCP LED

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90+ Lighting

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Hoop · 2023-02-17T20:58:43.313Z

Until there’s an LED bulb which is advertised as dimmable, rated for enclosed fixtures, and flicker free, we don’t have an ideal LED bulb.

Right now as far as I know you have to trade between those features. You can have flicker free but not the other two, or the other two but not flicker free.

You could take a flicker free Waveform bulb and attempt to dim it, and also put it in an enclosed fixture, but it will lose brightness relatively quickly in an enclosed fixture.

I just use Incan/Halogen where I want dimming, which is bathrooms and bedrooms. This is better than LED dimming because the CCT also drops as the bulb is dimmed.

An alternative option to LED bulbs is to build a custom system with dimming LED drivers, like certain models from Meanwell, and use some super high CRI COBs like Bridgelux Thrive. Then you can have it all, but this is not very practical outside of a new home construction, or a garage or basement environment, or a stand alone lamp.

About the “California Building Energy Efficiency Standard CEC JA8-2016 Title 24” which the 90+ Lighting bulb is advertised as complying with:

• CRI must be ≥ 90
• R9 must be ≥ 50
• Flicker must be < 30%
• CCT lower than 4000
• Rated life ≥ 15,000 hours
• Minimum 10% dimming required

I have not noticed flicker or any effects of flicker from the 90+ bulbs.

lights_on_bikes · 2023-02-21T19:42:14.014Z

How about these Philips LED Frosted Dimmable Warm Glow Effect A19, Ultra Definition, Flicker-Free, EyeComort bulbs?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B92VRHJ2

CRI 95
R9 84
800 lumens
Dimmable
Suitable for enclosed fixtures
No flicker that I can detect using my high speed camera at 240 fps. I haven’t tried a photodiode yet. The only other lights I have seen with no flicker are the strips I have from Waveform. Even my Halogens have more flicker.
Plus, these are ridiculously cheap. <$3 each.
I don’t really know how they did it. I think they are cheating on the R9 a bit by adding some red LEDs in there. The spectrum plots aren’t as nice as Waveform bulbs, but pretty close.

energystar.gov

Product Finder — ENERGY STAR Certified Light Bulbs

Compare ENERGY STAR Certified Light Bulbs, find rebates, and learn more.

They have a whole family of bulbs with the same CRI 95 spec. I am going to try the A21 1600 lumen bulb as well. I couldn’t find it in the energy star database, though. Any ideas why?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8TMM25D

lights_on_bikes · 2023-02-21T19:47:56.928Z

I was hoping to get this bulb, because I prefer 3000k and 1600 lumens in an A19 form factor! But, it seems to be impossible to order, since every time I order based on the UPC 046677561079 I get the old version!
New version with great specs:

energystar.gov

Product Finder — ENERGY STAR Certified Light Bulbs

Compare ENERGY STAR Certified Light Bulbs, find rebates, and learn more.

Old version with not so good R9 and not rated for enclosed:

energystar.gov

Product Finder — ENERGY STAR Certified Light Bulbs

Compare ENERGY STAR Certified Light Bulbs, find rebates, and learn more.

Hoop · 2023-02-22T01:21:03.466Z

I haven’t looked at that Philips bulb before. The listed specs are sparse. Link to Philips product page.

They do not say if the bulbs are rated for enclosed fixtures or recessed fixtures. Where did you see this claim? (edit: I see now, on the energystar.gov page)
Unfortunately Philips provides no photometric reports, no details regarding the flicker characteristics. One might be able to procure these from Philips.

The feature where the CCT lowers as it dims is nice, although a reviewer mentioned: “at about 90% dimmed, they seem to lose most of the amber color and go back to a soft white.” The dimming behavior might be dependent on the dimmer controls used. Ideally the bulb would be 3000k at the top end instead of 2700k, and ~1900k at the bottom or whatever can be realistically achieved.

lights_on_bikes · 2023-02-22T15:48:59.144Z

There’s some info here:

r/flashlight - Very New High CRI bulbs came in! --- Philips Ultra Definition...

138 votes and 101 comments so far on Reddit

My guess is the photometric data will look like this, from a different Philips bulb:

One user measured a similar spectrum from these specific bulbs here:

I haven’t noticed anything unusual in the dimming behavior. The CCT lowers. Maybe at the lowest level it gets cool again, but it’s hard to say. Our eyes aren’t that good at recognizing color in extreme darkness.

I’ll measure the flicker percentage, but it looks very good. I’m not sure how they did it. I can see a 12 uf capacitor in the bulb. I’m guessing there is an IC in there, since it has a delayed turn on. Maybe a linear regulator to even out the remaining ripple? But no idea how they did all that with no external cooling. I might have to tear down one to see the inner circuits.