Have you found the longevity of CFLs to be over-hyped?

[Rubycon]

I would, but that's what's great, everybody is different!

So you would enjoy the equivalent of getting sprayed with hot slag from a blast furnace?! :sneaky:

 

[Muse]

They used to be a lot more expensive. I've gradually phased out all my incandescents over the years. I'm not sure I have any left in sockets in the house. If so, they are rarely used and if used only for a minute or so.

In the early days (and this may still be so, I haven't been paying attention because I've been experiencing almost no CFL dieout), the cheaper CFL's often died early. The skinny was to get high quality CFL's, such as Philips, GE, one or two others. They said to stay away from the off brands, and I did so until I ran into some that were so cheap I figured, WTF I'll just get them. I think that even those are doing a lot better than the old ones used to. At the prices I've been noticing recently (I haven't actually bought a CFL for a few years, my supply in a drawer is still very good!), the only CFL that has me at all concerned is the circular one in my kitchen. I had to replace that early and the replacement set me back something like $10, IIRC. The replacement has been holding up, however. It's been up there for something like 6 years I think.

My main reason for going CFL is to save on electricity. It's nice not to have to replace bulbs all the time, of course. I think it probably saves on the cost of bulbs. I do have a little 15 watt incandescent right next to my bed. Maybe when I run out of those (I may have one replacement on hand) I'll put a CFL in there too, if the space accommodates it.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

And the mercury in the lamp itself is any better? Have you seen what you are supposed to do in case you break one?

Step 1 - Leave for 15 minutes, air out the house.

There isn't enough mercury in the lamp to worry about.

Even the treehuggers aren't concerned...

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/ask_treehugger_14.php

 

[Gillbot]

So you would enjoy the equivalent of getting sprayed with hot slag from a blast furnace?! :sneaky:

Been there, got the scars to prove it! Not fun at all when you are in the beginning of a heat and it has to finish before you drop wind on the cycle. The clean up on that one was NOT fun.

 

[0roo0roo]

I saw some LED lamps at Costco a few weeks back for a 'reasonable' (more expensive than CFL) price. Unfortunately, there was no colour temp selection, just 'warm' 3000ks.

you sure?
the only ones i've seen at walmart are the GE ones and they cost like 40+ bucks for very little light. they were more halogen spotlight replacements than anything else, quite nice looking heatsinks though. any others i've seen were joke lights made of cheapass 5mm led clusters isntead of the several watt emitters.

 

[Oceandevi]

I have cfl's that are over 5 years old. Some have gotten dimmer and some have died. But a few of the original purchase still work. Its an easy way to lower power bills. The fish tanks erase any saving though.

 

[0roo0roo]

ok i guess costco lights look a bit like this

3.5 watts..thats a flashlight alright

the ge lights at walmart looked more like the real deal

 

[Red Squirrel]

Now if they can come up with a way so the driver is separate from the bulb and they'll be even more cost effective. I bet lot of the cost of LEDs is the driver. Have to lower to a voltage low enough for a LED and also convert to DC (I think).

Either way I'm looking forward to see LED become more standardized, I think this is the future of lighting.

But for the love of God, those blue LED car lights need to be illegal until pure white LEDs come out!

 

[Rubycon]

ok i guess costco lights look a bit like this


the ge lights at walmart looked more like the real deal

Nice showerhead! Does it make coffee too? I can see the jingle now:

"The best part of waking up...
Is with some photons in your cup!"

 

[Gillbot]

Nice showerhead! Does it make coffee too? I can see the jingle now:

"The best part of waking up...
Is with some photons in your cup!"

Ok, that seriously made me LOL!

 

[Red Squirrel]

Come to think of it, I think it would be cool if it spins, it would even act as a fan!

Sadly about 30% of the price is probably for that high tech design. Guess it's almost twenty ten, it's time for really high tech looking light bulbs. It needs a blinking green LED to let you know it's on, too.

 

[0roo0roo]

"I borrowed a neighbor's LED 5W LOA bulb that he bought at Costco and put it on a Kill-A-Watt® power meter, and although the stamp on the bulb says it draws 100 mA, it actually was drawing 150 mA (power draw was indeed 5W as labeled). Worse yet, the power factor of this particular bulb is a measly 0.31, which means that even though your electric utility company is only charging you for the 5W of electrical power it consumes, the utility company is actually having to force roughly 18 W worth of electricity down the wire to power it. So you will be saving yourself money powering this bulb, but the planet will be feeling the full "18W" worth of fuel being burned back at the power plant and the full 18W worth of greenhouse gas that will be produced.



For reference, incandescent bulbs have a power factor of roughly 0.98 or so, which means that if the label says it is a 60W bulb, the electric utility is generating that same 60W worth of electricity to power that incandescent bulb at your house (ignoring transmission losses). With their power factor close to 1.0, icandescent bulbs are "true to their labeling" in terms of the power consumed back at the power plant, and with regard to the amperage you expect them to be drawing through your house wiring (60W/120V/0.98=0.51A, assuming PF=0.98). So although an incandescent bulb uses more power, what you see is what you get. Not so for these modern LED and CFL bulbs with low power factors, wherein the electrical current in your house wiring to power the LED or CFL is anywhere from 2X-5X more current than the labeled watts would indicate.



If this LOA 5W LED bulb was truly well-designed and efficient, it would have a power factor ("PF") of at least 0.95, in which case the current draw would be only 45 mA, not 150 mA (assuming 120 volts AC electrical supply). In fairness, many current LED bulbs that run on AC house power are similarly inefficient (power factors in the range of 0.20-0.45 are apparently more common than one would like to think).



Similarly, most CFL bulbs have a power factor of 0.55-0.65, which means that CFL bulbs require the power company to deliver almost twice the electrical current to the bulb than you are paying for, and the result is the air pollution and resource consumption back at the power plant is roughly 2X what the labeled CFL bulb wattage would have you believe.

"http://www.ecohuddle.com/forum/thread/1141/costco-brand-led-floodlights-on-the-cheap
interesting if true.

 

[foghorn67]

"I borrowed a neighbor's LED 5W LOA bulb that he bought at Costco and put it on a Kill-A-Watt® power meter, and although the stamp on the bulb says it draws 100 mA, it actually was drawing 150 mA (power draw was indeed 5W as labeled). Worse yet, the power factor of this particular bulb is a measly 0.31, which means that even though your electric utility company is only charging you for the 5W of electrical power it consumes, the utility company is actually having to force roughly 18 W worth of electricity down the wire to power it. So you will be saving yourself money powering this bulb, but the planet will be feeling the full "18W" worth of fuel being burned back at the power plant and the full 18W worth of greenhouse gas that will be produced.



For reference, incandescent bulbs have a power factor of roughly 0.98 or so, which means that if the label says it is a 60W bulb, the electric utility is generating that same 60W worth of electricity to power that incandescent bulb at your house (ignoring transmission losses). With their power factor close to 1.0, icandescent bulbs are "true to their labeling" in terms of the power consumed back at the power plant, and with regard to the amperage you expect them to be drawing through your house wiring (60W/120V/0.98=0.51A, assuming PF=0.98). So although an incandescent bulb uses more power, what you see is what you get. Not so for these modern LED and CFL bulbs with low power factors, wherein the electrical current in your house wiring to power the LED or CFL is anywhere from 2X-5X more current than the labeled watts would indicate.



If this LOA 5W LED bulb was truly well-designed and efficient, it would have a power factor ("PF") of at least 0.95, in which case the current draw would be only 45 mA, not 150 mA (assuming 120 volts AC electrical supply). In fairness, many current LED bulbs that run on AC house power are similarly inefficient (power factors in the range of 0.20-0.45 are apparently more common than one would like to think).



Similarly, most CFL bulbs have a power factor of 0.55-0.65, which means that CFL bulbs require the power company to deliver almost twice the electrical current to the bulb than you are paying for, and the result is the air pollution and resource consumption back at the power plant is roughly 2X what the labeled CFL bulb wattage would have you believe.

"http://www.ecohuddle.com/forum/thread/1141/costco-brand-led-floodlights-on-the-cheap
interesting if true.

lolwut? Can somebody chime in that knows better than I about this?

 

[Rubycon]

"I borrowed a neighbor's LED 5W LOA bulb that he bought at Costco and put it on a Kill-A-Watt® power meter, and although the stamp on the bulb says it draws 100 mA, it actually was drawing 150 mA (power draw was indeed 5W as labeled). Worse yet, the power factor of this particular bulb is a measly 0.31, which means that even though your electric utility company is only charging you for the 5W of electrical power it consumes, the utility company is actually having to force roughly 18 W worth of electricity down the wire to power it. So you will be saving yourself money powering this bulb, but the planet will be feeling the full "18W" worth of fuel being burned back at the power plant and the full 18W worth of greenhouse gas that will be produced.



For reference, incandescent bulbs have a power factor of roughly 0.98 or so, which means that if the label says it is a 60W bulb, the electric utility is generating that same 60W worth of electricity to power that incandescent bulb at your house (ignoring transmission losses). With their power factor close to 1.0, icandescent bulbs are "true to their labeling" in terms of the power consumed back at the power plant, and with regard to the amperage you expect them to be drawing through your house wiring (60W/120V/0.98=0.51A, assuming PF=0.98). So although an incandescent bulb uses more power, what you see is what you get. Not so for these modern LED and CFL bulbs with low power factors, wherein the electrical current in your house wiring to power the LED or CFL is anywhere from 2X-5X more current than the labeled watts would indicate.



If this LOA 5W LED bulb was truly well-designed and efficient, it would have a power factor ("PF") of at least 0.95, in which case the current draw would be only 45 mA, not 150 mA (assuming 120 volts AC electrical supply). In fairness, many current LED bulbs that run on AC house power are similarly inefficient (power factors in the range of 0.20-0.45 are apparently more common than one would like to think).



Similarly, most CFL bulbs have a power factor of 0.55-0.65, which means that CFL bulbs require the power company to deliver almost twice the electrical current to the bulb than you are paying for, and the result is the air pollution and resource consumption back at the power plant is roughly 2X what the labeled CFL bulb wattage would have you believe.

"http://www.ecohuddle.com/forum/thread/1141/costco-brand-led-floodlights-on-the-cheap
interesting if true.

Try using a Dranetz (not a chill-a-watt!) and let me know the real results please.

 

[rockyct]

Now if they can come up with a way so the driver is separate from the bulb and they'll be even more cost effective. I bet lot of the cost of LEDs is the driver. Have to lower to a voltage low enough for a LED and also convert to DC (I think).

Either way I'm looking forward to see LED become more standardized, I think this is the future of lighting.

But for the love of God, those blue LED car lights need to be illegal until pure white LEDs come out!

I think those are HID lights and the idiots basically chose that color.

 

[EricMartello]

But for the love of God, those blue LED car lights need to be illegal until pure white LEDs come out!

They are illegal, actually...that doesn't stop douchebags from putting them on their hyundai so they can pretend it's a lexus. HID headlights which operate in the 4000K light temp range are what OEMs install on cars and provide superior light to halogens. Blue and Purple actually emit less visible light so driving with them is like having no headlights at all.

As for CFLs...I've had one burn out. I usually stick with a brand like Phillips, GE or Sylvania. The problem is that they dim out over time. As someone else said they're not ideal for rooms where the light is frequently turned on and off...but they're better in terms of light per watt than incandescent bulbs...though I do prefer the light of incandescent much more than CFL.

 

[0roo0roo]

looking at the stats the philips led 16 watt puts out 600 lumens. a 15 watt cfl puts out 600 lumen.
lol

 

[Rubycon]

ok i guess costco lights look a bit like this

3.5 watts..thats a flashlight alright

Crappy brand alert - Lights Of America.

Then again it's pretty hard to mess an LED up! Of course using the MINIMAL components to rectify AC and make it suitable for emitters may result in their premature demise. Otherwise who knows?