Hello, I just created an account to jump into this thread.
Iām looking for the perfect daylight bulb, that needs to be available in Europe. Hereās my research. Any comments on this are appreciated.
- HiraLite: I own a few 14W 5000K 94Ra 1090lm bulbs, they do help me survive the winter but Iām suspecting a lower R9, and the company no longer exists anyway.
- Soraa: unavailable in Europe, and donāt go higher than 3000K
- Waveform: $90 shipping to Europe for a single bulb, also R9 is just around 80 which seems lower than the competition.
- Philips: Iāve got lots of Hue bulbs, but the daylight colors arenāt that comfortable. (RGB is unnecessary IMO, my dream is 2200/3000/5600 in one bulb, with high CRI and no flickerā¦)
- SunLike: is this still active? Seems like they were made in Ukraine, and thereās a post saying that the owner got an asylum in Norway, unless Iām mixing it up?
- YUJILEDS: I was just about to order their CRI-MAX bulbs when I noticed their new SunWave bulbs that will be available around March 2023. These use the new violet wavelength thing thatās supposedly better for the eyes. But itās only either 4000K or below, or 6500K. For a ādaylight supplementā Iām guessing ~5000K is the best?
I emailed them asking whether the violet light is also beneficial when you actually need extra daylight to stay alert, during daytime. They replied very promptly that they will update their information on the website.
Sunlight ranges from 2000K to 6500K. 5000K has a pretty flat spectrum, so I consider it a good CCT for daytime use. 5700K to 6500K may be better for periods of higher productivity.
I think living in Europe you can get COB LEDs from different manufacturers like Bridgelux Thrive, Nichia Optisolis and Seoul Sunlike. So it would be possible to build your own lightbulb, if that is an option for you. Otherwise, these YUJI seem to be worth a try.
DIY is what i do too.
But if you want remote controled color temperature and dimming without 50 or 60 Hz strobe effect i wouldnāt know where to find modules that can fit in a bulb for that.
I just pick mid powered LEDs and put them either on a LED strip or adapted 20mm aluminum LED boards and drive them with decent little mains switching drivers from aliexpress.
I make sure they stay cool too and usually under-drive the emitters for efficiency and life span.
And so far they all last for years.
Whoa, thatās an idea. Butā¦ with my previous DIY LED projects, I ultimately wasnāt confident about the electronics required for switching light sources, and was left with too many questions about lenses, reflectors, diffusers, and how to ultimately package everything so that it feels safe for long-term home use. I made both a water cooled lamp and passively cooled one with over a kilo of heatsinks. For a light bulb that would connect directly to AC230ā¦ itās tempting but probably more than I can handle.
Well, if I could remotely switch the power through different LEDs thatās good enough, or even just changing CCT by switching power off and on again. Are those possible without PWM? Blending different colors is not necessary at all.
As I wrote above, I have an unfinished project with a Meanwell driver and 2 circuits of 80-100W each, different CCT. I suddenly realized that I didnāt know if it was safe to operate a physical switch while powered on due to sparks. Image: https://imgur.com/a/mPK4sJH
TL;DR I donāt know electronics.
LED strips is also something that I feel could work, but Iām not sure how you would integrate those industrial-looking drivers in your home. I guess you buy some fancy box for it so it looks civilized? YUJI has some bi-color LED strips with compatible drivers and remote control, that package is $360 plus shipping and customs though.
Is the store active nowadays? And if so, is there a thread/guide about how to order, because there were some customizations I didnāt understand.
Bulbs from ā90+ 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 $5.63 at the moment. There is a 2700k version as well but I like 3000k bulbs.
May be, for āCalifornia standardsā itās good.
But 25-30% flicker (on 100-120 Hz) is clearly visible by humanās (for example, for me) and itās not good.
I also use incandescents at home, quite a bunch. I have a few custom led lamps where I want lots of light at lower running costs, but that's about it. Incandescent lighting is a simple technology well done from the start and has its own advantages. I love the cozyness of bedtime lamps with incandescent lightbulbs, and of incandescent lighting in general.
This might be fake news but Iāve heard they might be making light bulbs illegal. I talked to a dude on another light forum in EU who has a storage unit full of incandescent bulbs and is selling them for 5x what he paid. Better return than the stupid stock market
I guess you probably mean hotwire bulbs, but @#$% 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:)
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. Weāve done similar here in the US with many incandescent standard bulbsā¦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 isnāt policed (againā¦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 (omgā¦$$:money_mouth_face:, and then figured out it was only EU at this time. Weāll follow suit eventually Iām 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 agoā¦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 theyāre long lived as are the ballasts these daysā¦ā¦shopping around Iām a little unimpressed with what Iāve 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 areā¦robbery based on marketing alone).
I heard from an industry fellow that even when EU plants stop manufacturing whatās left of incandescent and fluorescent products, Mexico may continue and itās very likely that China or India would pick up the slack, so theyāll probably still be available somehow.
I donāt know why people donāt 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 youāre really good with OCR, it shouldnāt be hard to automatically process the spectrum images to calculate everything you need. Surely itās not so hard to write a program to process images like this into a CSV of the SPD?
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 donāt map cleanly into CSV, so I canāt just export all of them. Can share the script I used to download if anyone cares.
Anyway: Why arenāt there any good high-CRI (>90), high-R9 (>60) bulbs that have decent luminous flux (>1000lm)? Why are they all so weak?
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 yepā¦itās that bad. Or maybe Iām just spoiled with my Waveform Lighting bulbs.
