Energy efficient bulbs

[Elstupido]

OK , Rubi, just where are these LED'S in real life? I have not seen them in any production yet

 

[Rubycon]

Plenty of places actually. CREE Q5 is over a year old. It has a warm incandescent-like cast producing over 70 lumens per watt! These are higher end lighting products found in the better flashlights. Prices will come down it's only a matter of time. Like waiting for SSD devices to become mainstream.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: ja1484
Ok, so you clearly recognize the situation. Care to take a stab at explaining to me why so many people try to make it sound so noble? "Saving the planet"? It's disingenuous and insulting to intelligence.

Because they want to feel good about themselves - same reason you like to metaphorically piss in their faces.

Not the same dynamic though. Yes, I get some satisfaction out of antagonizing these jackoffs, but I don't preach my method to others, or insist they change their ways to my ways. I just give them choices. They can keep doing what they're doing and be annoyed by me, or they can stop and not be. Or I guess they could always move, or stop being emotionally involved in the situation, or something like that, but those would seemingly require more effort.

So I guess it's more of a philosophical activity for me.

Agreed, but then we can't predict the consequences of our actions. Attempts by federal agencies, for example, to "manage" predator and/or pest populations have resulted in species/environmental disturbances on a grand scale in countless instances.

So, extrapolating that, how is acting one way any less risky than acting another? You're not preventing the demise or slowing it, just changing the mechanics.

Tell me how having more mercury in the atmosphere is going to be a good thing.
Or how wasting our finite energy sources is a good thing.
Or how wasting money is a good thing.

You're misinterpreting me. I'm not claiming those things are good or bad. I'm asking why I should care. What will be - note, not COULD BE, WILL BE - the direct change to my life because of these items?

And no, we can't predict the future with perfect accuracy. Yes, sometimes plans go awry. Do you propose that we just say "Fuck it, do whatever you want to" and hope for the best? If the future can't be predicted perfectly, why try in the first place, right?

I don't propose that you do anything. I already know what I'm going to do. I'm just curious why you do what you do. And frankly, you're being a bit bitchy about it.

If it lowers the personal cost to me, I'm all for it. If it requires me to sacrifice for the benefit of others, to hell with that. I don't provide them with any favors, and I don't ask any from them. That's what my tax dollars are (theoretically) for.

Use CFLs and it lowers your energy usage, reduces mercury output into your environment, and it reduces your need to replace bulbs as frequently.
It might occur to you then that some of this terrible "sacrifice" might be benefiting you as well.

See, now you've given me a reason I care about. And it wouldn't even require any sacrifice really. You could just say "Use these suckers, they'll probably reduce your electric bill a bit, and save you some house maintenance labor." That's a much easier sell, and it doesn't require any false chest-puffing that I'm acting on behalf of baby seals or penguins or some other bullshit. I just have to choose where I'd rather spend my money, and consider whether I believe those advantages are worth the extra cost.

And hell, if you can refine the product and make the cost comparable or lower than existing products, then I'm really in your camp. Come to think of it, this sounds a lot like Obama's energy/economic strategy. But that's another thread.

Is superficiality so very wrong? What, exactly, of superficial or non-superficial nature that you have or experience in this world do you plan to take with you after you die? I would argue that I'd prefer to have a good time while I'm here and not worry about the consequences unless they directly impede that goal.

I also have this crazy idea that when I die, the world won't end - other people will still be here. If I pursue a life of pure hedonism, it'd probably not only be illegal, but it would make a mess for those who outlive me, making it more difficult for them to be happy. Now maybe you don't give two shits about other people like that, and that's just unfortunate. I think you can find balance between happiness and not impeding others' pursuit of happiness at the same time.

Well I think you hit on it squarely there in that last sentence. Seeking the balance is the idea. What I haven't been convinced of is that this green brou-ha-ha isn't just lemmings following the tree huggers down touchy-feely lane. I want reason to believe that being more "environmentally friendly" will strike the balance we're discussing. So far all I've seen it reliably do is ask me to change my life with no visible benefit.

In a slight divergence from topic, I'd like to touch on the hedonism: Pure hedonism would actually probably avoid illegal activities, since the inconvenience and trouble of dealing with the legal consequences would likely, on net, outweigh the potential enjoyment gained. You just have to find ways to tiptoe around these things. For example, instead of polygamy, which is illegal, just don't bother with marriage and womanize a lot. Same essential benefits, less potential legal entanglement. It runs into a bit of a speedbump if you believe all that "emotional satisfaction" bullshit some people like to parade around, but that's basically just another sales pitch from the Club of Made Up Nonsense.

Now, back to where we were.

It's not like any of these things are terrible sacrifices. Oh no, maybe you'll have to take your dead CFLs to a recycling center, costing you a precious 20 minutes of life! My god, how will you ever recover from that?

First off, I'm throwing that shit away unless the city provides me with a recycle bin. And I mean a no-hassle recycle bin, not one of these "wash out the bottles and cans and then sort them" programs. You can pay someone to do that shit and I'm not willing to do it, so create some jobs. It'll look good during some politician's re-election campaign.

In other words, if it's any harder to dispose of the damn things "properly" than it is to throw them the fuck away, I'm throwing them away. This is primarily why I don't recycle now.

You're reminding me of something posted in P&N, about how some women are now "sacrificing" for Christmas this year, by not purchasing new designer jeans, while still enjoying their upper-middle class lifestyle. Or a post, I believe it was here in OT, about a sports player who must park his own car, and is unable to use a valet, due to a DUI violation.

Their use of "sacrifice" tarnishes the meaning of the word.

I suppose you think there are sacrifices of greater import due to the morals and/or belief structure you have come to hold?

 

[Elstupido]

And when will that become mainstream? Like LED will? BS, LED is a dream

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Elstupido
And when will that become mainstream? Like LED will? BS, LED is a dream

Hardly. Think of all the things we have today just a short time ago people said would not happen. It will happen, it is happening just not obvious unless you use the technology. LED is far from a dream. It's not nearly as esoteric as tritiated aerogel illumination, for example.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: Elstupido
And when will that become mainstream? Like LED will? BS, LED is a dream

Hardly. Think of all the things we have today just a short time ago people said would not happen. It will happen, it is happening just not obvious unless you use the technology. LED is far from a dream. It's not nearly as esoteric as tritiated aerogel illumination, for example.

Damn, he's got you there.

 

[Elstupido]

Rubi, I understand the potential of all the tech,, but really, what is actually available today?

And is is not LED! Cfl, yes

 

[Rubycon]

Check out some mfr links:

http://www.philipslumileds.com/

http://www.osram.com/osram_com/

http://www.cree.com/

http://www.nichia.com/

 

[Joemonkey]

Originally posted by: Elstupido
Rubi, I understand the potential of all the tech,, but really, what is actually available today?

And is is not LED! Cfl, yes

As much as it pains me to disagree with Rubycon, I have to agree. A long lasting pure white LED has yet to appear in the mass market, they all turn blue after a short while.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Interesting so guess they ARE better then, in general. Guess the application has big impact as well - bedroom vs hallway, for example.

Also are these bad to use outdoors? I'm assuming there are indoor / outdoor types, or can they all be used outside? Just wondering how much stress the electronic portion would get when it's turned on at -50C.

yea the ones for outdoors are marked as such. buglights or porch lights. extra covers on them, they don't look like the regular ones

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Joemonkey

Originally posted by: Elstupido
Rubi, I understand the potential of all the tech,, but really, what is actually available today?

And is is not LED! Cfl, yes

As much as it pains me to disagree with Rubycon, I have to agree. A long lasting pure white LED has yet to appear in the mass market, they all turn blue after a short while.

And again this is true of the cheap mass produced junk! The real workers are trustworthy (and expensive!) but that will be changing hopefully sooner than later.

 

[Joemonkey]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: Joemonkey

Originally posted by: Elstupido
Rubi, I understand the potential of all the tech,, but really, what is actually available today?

And is is not LED! Cfl, yes

As much as it pains me to disagree with Rubycon, I have to agree. A long lasting pure white LED has yet to appear in the mass market, they all turn blue after a short while.

And again this is true of the cheap mass produced junk! The real workers are trustworthy (and expensive!) but that will be changing hopefully sooner than later.

so we will agree to half ass disagree then MASS MARKET = MASS PRODUCED JUNK

doesn't exist quite yet

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Elstupido
OK , Rubi, just where are these LED'S in real life? I have not seen them in any production yet

maybe 5-10 years.
its still very expensive. in theory it can get there. we'll see. don't hold back on buying cfl's to wait for them though/ one place where leds are awesome are in flashlights.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Check out some mfr links:

http://www.philipslumileds.com/

http://www.osram.com/osram_com/

http://www.cree.com/

http://www.nichia.com/

A quick look at the Cree LR6s and it seems they provide absolutely no benefits over Dimmable CFLs.

The light output better be spectacular considering it's ~8x the price for only 5x the life, barely more efficient, and requires you to retrofit your current recessed lights.

Even if we get to where economically it makes sense to go over to LEDs, I don't see mass adoption at $50/bulb for good quality lighting.

I think LEDs will come into play in the future, but I highly doubt it's a year or two down the road.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I wonder if it's possible to just make bigger leds, that would probably reduce the price by a lot. It's a great technology so it would be neat to see led bulbs being mainstream. Do leds even, die? I've never really seen a led die under normal conditions.

 

[Rubycon]

They *are* spectacular. We have LOTS of CFL lighting on the ship and that is being replaced with LED in specialty areas first. The cost is extremely high right now. Hence the wording the future is bright for LED tech.

Just 13 years ago the Philips Earthlight cost over $20 U.S. and people laughed at them. It was one of the first consumer compact fluorescent lamps. It was electromagnetically ballasted so it was heavy and too big to fit in many fixtures. It did fit in table lamps and because of its weight a warning was included about some table lamps becoming unstable due to being excessively top heavy! Look where CFL tech is now. Granted the extremely cheap CN produced junk is unreliable and this trend is expected to continue as LED tech replaced CFL tech. The main problem with poorly designed LED "bulbs" is the driver circuitry won't have adequate spike suppression and the housings may not provide sufficient heatsinking for packaged devices.

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
I wonder if it's possible to just make bigger leds, that would probably reduce the price by a lot. It's a great technology so it would be neat to see led bulbs being mainstream. Do leds even, die? I've never really seen a led die under normal conditions.

Packaged (arrays) can be made to large sizes. The only thing you lose here is the point source but many applications favor this.

LED's do have a finite life. Their output slowly degrades. MTBF is typically published at 100k hours. Device operating lifetime can be extended by underdriving the devices and consequently lifetime can be sacrificed by over driving with increased output.

 

[NoShangriLa]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Plenty of places actually. CREE Q5 is over a year old. It has a warm incandescent-like cast producing over 70 lumens per watt! These are higher end lighting products found in the better flashlights. Prices will come down it's only a matter of time. Like waiting for SSD devices to become mainstream.

I believe that Nichia started to ship 90 Lumens/Watts LED early last year, however their 90 Lm/W LED white are abit cool in colour but the 60 or 70 Lm/W models colour are very close to natural colour spectrum. If I remember correctly a year or two ago they claim that they has discovered 150 L/WLED & will be shipping them sometime in 2009. A few years back Nichia also suggests that the will have 250-300 Lm/W LED by 2010.

IMHO, the future belong to OLED as indicated recently by SONY, and like SONY, GE Global Reasearch, Nichia and many others are working hard to bring out OLED technology to the general public.