Light buld replacement that doesn't suck

[OverVolt]

First problem is the fact that you're talking about an Audi... Secondly, who knows what broke...

Probably the circuits. I've had alot of cheap-o LED flashlights for example and the circuits always give out before the light does. Just by dropping it or something. I've never actually seen an LED burn out. My Mag Light is very sturdy, but then again, expensive. So who knows.

I think if you undervolt an LED you can ruin them that way too. I've run an LED flashlight thats supposed to last 100,000 hours or whatever so I decided to see how long it could run on dying batteries. It lasted like 2 days but I put in new ones and it was done for :/.

 

[slackerinabox]

FYI, just installed 5 of the phillips leds (the $9 ones) and, wow - awesome and clean light. Love it! Will be replacing all the lights in the apartment next.

 

[ElFenix]

Yea and they work great in high use areas with lots of on/off activity burning 5 hours or so off the life of the bulb each time and they work great when subject to vibration too.

They should have kept the office lights in offices.

They don't "die early" so much as just suck in some applications. Oh great like I want to do warranty paperwork on an $8 lightbulb puhleeze.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/electrical-plumbing/4276104

Yea don't use them with ceiling fans... or near heavy doors... or wobbly floor lamps...or upside down (make sure to check the literature for your light bulb!), or with a dimmer, or with a noisy electrical line, or near the washer/dryer, or in the cold.

Its probably easier to just say don't use them in a house but whatever.

why are you bringing up CFLs as an objection to LEDs?

 

[OverVolt]

why are you bringing up CFLs as an objection to LEDs?

Anybody who thinks it isn't time to abandon the ancient, inefficient incandescent design are probably like the same people who would long for the gas mantle lamp or the whale blubber powered lamps.

Knee-jerked at the first part because I dislike all this lightbulb shit. I have never considered lighting all that important. Even with the oogey boogey wasteful incandescents I remember it being around ~22% of the average persons electric bill.

If the guy thinks he made some super-investment that will save him a whole $40 on his power bill over 5 years, sure whatever. Next up a national ban on using a towel only once before washing it.

What sucks is now I have to do "lightbulb research" because everything they stock at regular stores are generally terrible at doing the thing I bought them to do.

 

[child of wonder]

Replaced 21 bulbs in the house with Cree 60W LED bulbs for $4.97 a piece minus a 50% rebate from my electric company. The LED bulbs are awesome and much brighter than the CFLs they replaced. Very happy with the switch.

 

[tortillasoup]

Knee-jerked at the first part because I dislike all this lightbulb shit. I have never considered lighting all that important. Even with the oogey boogey wasteful incandescents I remember it being around ~22% of the average persons electric bill.

If the guy thinks he made some super-investment that will save him a whole $40 on his power bill over 5 years, sure whatever. Next up a national ban on using a towel only once before washing it.

What sucks is now I have to do "lightbulb research" because everything they stock at regular stores are generally terrible at doing the thing I bought them to do.

It depends on your usage scenarios. $40? You seem to seriously underestimate the savings of switching to more efficient lighting especially if you think lighting comprises 22% of a person's utility bill. Also it completely misses the point, why waste the money? Why waste the resources? The bulbs are very cost effective and if you don't see that, that's your own damn problem.

 

[slackerinabox]

It depends on your usage scenarios. $40? You seem to seriously underestimate the savings of switching to more efficient lighting especially if you think lighting comprises 22% of a person's utility bill. Also it completely misses the point, why waste the money? Why waste the resources? The bulbs are very cost effective and if you don't see that, that's your own damn problem.

Yep, using a simple online calculator and NYC's ridiculous energy expenses, I save about $600 a year. That may be overly generous, but it looks like the bulbs pay for themselves eventually. Made me think a little about my energy plan too, using $15 vornado type fans to circulate air from outside instead of A/Cs. I don't want to be hippy dippy about things, but chipping away at the electric bill just means extra money in my pocket after some minor low cost investments ($9 bucks a bulb, $15 fans, etc.)

 

[RossMAN]

Cree 60w LED for as low as $1.98 @ Home Depot B&M

 

[OverVolt]

Yep, using a simple online calculator and NYC's ridiculous energy expenses, I save about $600 a year. That may be overly generous, but it looks like the bulbs pay for themselves eventually. Made me think a little about my energy plan too, using $15 vornado type fans to circulate air from outside instead of A/Cs. I don't want to be hippy dippy about things, but chipping away at the electric bill just means extra money in my pocket after some minor low cost investments ($9 bucks a bulb, $15 fans, etc.)

Lighting really does not use much of my electricity. I turn them off when I'm not in the room. I use a mixture of incandescent bulbs and CFL bulbs in the rooms where I spend alot of time. I use CFL bulbs in the rooms where I don't really care, like the bathroom and laundry room. Protip: The washer and dryer vibrations will cause CFLs to burn out really, really fast.

Let me run to the store and get some incandescent bulbs oh wait nevermind. Oh I know, I will get an LED bulb that will last until I am 178 for how long I leave the laundry room light on. I'll make sure to put my laundry light bulb in my will.

 

[lxskllr]

Lighting really does not use much of my electricity. I turn them off when I'm not in the room. I use a mixture of incandescent bulbs and CFL bulbs in the rooms where I spend alot of time. I use CFL bulbs in the rooms where I don't really care, like the bathroom and laundry room. Protip: The washer and dryer vibrations will cause CFLs to burn out really, really fast.

Let me run to the store and get some incandescent bulbs oh wait nevermind. Oh I know, I will get an LED bulb that will last until I am 178 for how long I leave the laundry room light on. I'll make sure to put my laundry light bulb in my will.

I always have to wonder how wasteful people are when they say they're saving so much money using lighting tech X. Electricity is cheap as shit, and to see a meaningful difference with lighting, you have to constantly have lights running 24/7.

 

[tortillasoup]

Vibrations? What??? Your CFLs shouldn't be burning out quickly due to "vibrations from doing laundry", that's ridiculous! For that to happen, your machines would have to be vibrating pretty horribly for that to happen. Instead what is more likely is 1. You're using cheap/shit CFLs/ and or the CFLs are on for a short duration and don't get to warm up and haven't been burned in (CFLs should be burned in for longer life) 2. You have bad electrical connection somewhere, first place I'd check is the light socket. The center pin electrode is probably corroded, so I'd turn off the power, get some sand paper and sand that electrode until it's shiny, then bend it outward a bit.

It's usually the first two reasons I listed why CFLs AND LEDs burn out prematurely and it's a lot more common then you think.

I always have to wonder how wasteful people are when they say they're saving so much money using lighting tech X. Electricity is cheap as shit, and to see a meaningful difference with lighting, you have to constantly have lights running 24/7.

Saving is saving and yes people are wasteful as shit. But even that not withstanding, if you're in a room for several hours a day and you have 10 65 watt incandescent bulbs burning, that's a piss load of electricity used up! No amount of "dimming" can compensate for the huge energy loss with that. Dimmers are really overrated in terms of energy saving for two reasons. 1. You can only dim so far before it's too dark, even at a 10% dimming level, you're using more energy than some LEDs at full brightness. 2. A dimmer creates a deformed sinusoidal wave which means a horrific powerfactor and while for most people that's ok in terms of saving money, but from a load/circuit breaker/grid utilization/battery backup/environmental standpoint, it's really really shitty.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

http://thesweethome.com/reviews/the-best-led-lightbulb-is-the-cree-warm-white/

This may help.

 

[mmntech]

I just picked up three LED bulbs from Ikea to try out. Despite the push for energy efficient lighting, they're still quite expensive here in Canada. These were $8 each. The light they give off is about the same temperature as the CFLs I had before. Not as bright as the Phillips but good enough for my bedroom. Not sure who makes them.

 

[Kaido]

I'm a big fan of Philips LED bulbs. Have tried several brands, like them the most.

 

[blankslate]

I use a Cree drop in replacement that I got from Home Depot for about 10 dollars and I really haven't noticed a difference and other people haven't commented on a difference usually I have to tell them that it's an LED otherwise they don't realize the difference.


...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Maybe it's one of those NSA spying bulbs. If a mic is put inside the bulb it can be used to alter the wave frequency of the light so it can be picked up with a solar panel hooked up to an amp and spaker by simply aiming it at your window. The frequency may be what is causing you a headache since instead of being a straight 60hz it's varying. You will want to wrap the whole bulb with foil paper.

 

[disappoint]

Maybe it's one of those NSA spying bulbs. If a mic is put inside the bulb it can be used to alter the wave frequency of the light so it can be picked up with a solar panel hooked up to an amp and spaker by simply aiming it at your window. The frequency may be what is causing you a headache since instead of being a straight 60hz it's varying. You will want to wrap the whole bulb with foil paper.

Is that you're impression of a delusional for Jebus playing a paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theorist? Not bad. Not bad. Here's my impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger doing Jerry Seinfeld. Vats vis ze driveway? You pahk on ze driveway but drive on ze parkway? Vy? Just get in ze choppa! Yeah he's not a good impressionist either.

 

[disappoint]

I think if you undervolt an LED you can ruin them that way too. I've run an LED flashlight thats supposed to last 100,000 hours or whatever so I decided to see how long it could run on dying batteries. It lasted like 2 days but I put in new ones and it was done for :/.

No running LEDs on low voltage will not ruin them. Over current in forward or reverse bias burns them out. Something else happened to your flashlight.

 

[lxskllr]

Saving is saving and yes people are wasteful as shit. But even that not withstanding, if you're in a room for several hours a day and you have 10 65 watt incandescent bulbs burning, that's a piss load of electricity used up! No amount of "dimming" can compensate for the huge energy loss with that. Dimmers are really overrated in terms of energy saving for two reasons. 1. You can only dim so far before it's too dark, even at a 10% dimming level, you're using more energy than some LEDs at full brightness. 2. A dimmer creates a deformed sinusoidal wave which means a horrific powerfactor and while for most people that's ok in terms of saving money, but from a load/circuit breaker/grid utilization/battery backup/environmental standpoint, it's really really shitty.

Alternate technology lightbulbs use more resources to build and ship. Energy isn't being saved. It's being displaced. There's also issues with toxic materials in CFLs. CFLs in a home setting are a net loss from an environmental standpoint. Commercial use would require more analysis, but any "win" is marginal.

 

[tortillasoup]

Alternate technology lightbulbs use more resources to build and ship. Energy isn't being saved. It's being displaced. There's also issues with toxic materials in CFLs. CFLs in a home setting are a net loss from an environmental standpoint. Commercial use would require more analysis, but any "win" is marginal.

If you can save money operating a light bulb, then your argument that it takes more resources to make the bulb than it saves would be absolutely incorrect. This is the same retarded argument people have made about the Prius and they've been wrong every time. This isn't to say that all hybrids are good but Toyota's Hybrids are quite good and economical to operate.

Oh as an interesting bit of trivia, the Cree LED bulbs like the 40w, 60w, 75w, and now 100w varieties that are selling at The Home Depot are in fact made in the USA.

 

[lxskllr]

Oh as an interesting bit of trivia, the Cree LED bulbs like the 40w, 60w, 75w, and now 100w varieties that are selling at The Home Depot are in fact made in the USA.

They're assembled in the USA. Big difference. Calling deferred energy use a win is the retarded logic that's fucking over the world. Fuck the fish and air in China, right? I'm saving 22¢ a month on my electric bill, and that's what really matters...

 

[Red Squirrel]

I think they really need to come up with a DC standard for home electrical, in addition to the existing 120/240vac standard. LED bulbs have step down converters as well as rectifiers (the good ones anyway). If there was a standard for DC light sockets you would only have a single converter with it's own breaker box and it would drive all the DC stuff. LED bulbs would pretty much be just an array of LEDs with zero electronics. Perhaps some could have some electronics like temp sensors but you could pretty much have just a bunch of LEDs. In fact this DC standard could extend to things like computers. So many things today use AC to DC adapters, so why not have a DC standard in the home. Basically it would just be a new light socket type and wall socket type.

At first you'd end up having to use retrofit adapters but as you rewire stuff you could add the DC outlets/sockets. 48v would probably be a decent voltage as it would not require too big of cables.

 

[disappoint]

I think they really need to come up with a DC standard for home electrical, in addition to the existing 120/240vac standard. LED bulbs have step down converters as well as rectifiers (the good ones anyway). If there was a standard for DC light sockets you would only have a single converter with it's own breaker box and it would drive all the DC stuff. LED bulbs would pretty much be just an array of LEDs with zero electronics. Perhaps some could have some electronics like temp sensors but you could pretty much have just a bunch of LEDs. In fact this DC standard could extend to things like computers. So many things today use AC to DC adapters, so why not have a DC standard in the home. Basically it would just be a new light socket type and wall socket type.

At first you'd end up having to use retrofit adapters but as you rewire stuff you could add the DC outlets/sockets. 48v would probably be a decent voltage as it would not require too big of cables.

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope.

The short answer is you want your voltage going through zero once in a while, and by that I mean constantly. Because reasons. Safety being one of them.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope.

The short answer is you want your voltage going through zero once in a while, and by that I mean constantly. Because reasons. Safety being one of them.

I'm not saying replace everything with DC, just have a DC standard meant for lighting and light electronic loads, in addition to the existing system. So instead of converting everything to DC at point of use it's only done once. Much more efficient. Also easier to backup, just throw in a battery bank.

Telcos run on 48vdc, could be a similar system for home just smaller scale. (ours is drawing over 1,600 amps, you would not draw that much at home. )

 

[tortillasoup]

They're assembled in the USA. Big difference. Calling deferred energy use a win is the retarded logic that's fucking over the world. Fuck the fish and air in China, right? I'm saving 22¢ a month on my electric bill, and that's what really matters...

What does fish have anything to do with light bulbs? Also you sound like as if you never buy a product with any roots from a foreign country... I call that bullshit. It also isn't just deferred but completely eliminated energy use if having the bulbs mean they're a net savings. You act as if somehow the mining/burning of coal or natural gas is a cleaner/better act that the assembly of a light bulb. It's not!