When moving from CFLs to LED bulbs...

[BoomerD]

LED bulbs can be hit or miss. I bought a 2-pack from Home Depot for $5...they bulbs take several minutes to "warm up" to full brightness...however, I got some Phillips "Slim-Style" bulbs for $1.97 (after instant utility rebate) that work great.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-...ED-Light-Bulb-E-452978/204730356?N=5yc1vZbm79
(your price may be considerably higher than what it shows me.)

 

[Imp]

Ikea's been selling 60w and 40w LEDs for <$5, I think it might be nation-wide too.
They're dimmable also, which is awesome. They don't dim fully on old analog dimmers though. They have pretty good CRIs, but they're mostly around the 2700K-3000K (warmer) ranges.

Their higher lumen bulbs are also not terribly expensive. 75w equivalent 1000 lumen for ~$15. The colder/bluer light appears brighter, whereas the warmer/yellower light appears dimmer.
They aren't the most efficient though (lumens/watt)

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=led+bulb
In my opinion it doesn't look like the ikea bulbs are as yellow as incandescent bulbs though. Maybe i should try taking some pictures with my k100d to see if they turn out really yellow :S, since it tends to have problems with auto white balancing hah.

color temps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

I have a few Ikea bulbs, been using one at least 5 hours a day for a year and a half now. My other LED bulbs are Philips -- one has also been used at least 5 hours a day for over 1.5 years.

Just watch out for the lumens on the Ikea LEDs. Their 10W bulb is rated for 600 lumens whereas a Philips 10.5W is about 800 lumens.

 

[radhak]

FYI http://www.edn.com/electronics-blog...672ad54b8e8948c93cd16a02e1&elqCampaignId=3287

Whoa man! That was a blinder I was not ready for!

Within an LED bulb the internal generation and distribution of heat is such that it &#8220;desperately&#8221; needs access to cool surrounding air. The fact that it has that metallic housing is irrelevant in restricted air.

That 60 watt Wal-Mart bulb, when operating base down in open air and not even using a shade, has its internal LED case at 85°C, the absolute upper end of what is considered &#8220;safe&#8221; for full life expectancy. The same deal is true for competitive bulbs. Put a shade around it... and it&#8217;s a little warmer. Put it into any kind of base-up socket and it gets a lot hotter and all life expectancy numbers are off the table. Put it into any kind of porch or post light fixture, and it can fry, with its internal power supply components at the cliff edge of failure. Put the lamp in a ceiling-mounted fully enclosed fixture and set the timer for when failure will occur.

Looks like I might as well forget about LEDs! The only place I was gonna put them was the recessed lighting, and this chap says that's a no no!

Bummer!

Has anybody here used LEDs for recessed (Top Hats)?

 

[shortylickens]

It's still not cost effective to switch to LEDs unless you get a major rebate. Those bulbs just cost too much compared to CFLs.

Just like gas mileage, wattage savings are not exponential.

Going from 100 watts to 10 watts with a dozen bulbs will save you money. But you are correct in that it takes a while to cover the insane cost of the bulbs themselves.


Ditto solar panels.
They save you maybe 10 bucks a month but since they cost 10000 dollars to install, you better hope you stay in that house for 3 generations and those things continue to work.

 

[K1052]

Whoa man! That was a blinder I was not ready for!

Looks like I might as well forget about LEDs! The only place I was gonna put them was the recessed lighting, and this chap says that's a no no!

Bummer!

Has anybody here used LEDs for recessed (Top Hats)?

We have installed hundreds of Philips and TCP BR30s in recessed cans and all are still ruining strong in the 15-20K hour range.

 

[stormkroe]

Whoa man! That was a blinder I was not ready for!

Looks like I might as well forget about LEDs! The only place I was gonna put them was the recessed lighting, and this chap says that's a no no!

Bummer!

Has anybody here used LEDs for recessed (Top Hats)?

They work great in recessed lighting without lenses, there is lots of circulation to keep them cool (relatively).
Interestingly, all those cons apply to CFLs as much, if not more. Whoever decided a bulb/ballast combo must have got a huge bonus from the suppliers, as it would be super cheap to replace a snap in bulb to the ballast base that probably still works when the CFL bulb goes out.

 

[boomerang]

We have installed hundreds of Philips and TCP BR30s in recessed cans and all are still ruining strong in the 15-20K hour range.

Yeah, I think the author of that article has got some kind of ax to grind.

 

[e-ricesucks]

measure in eye pain
11 more posts for pm

 

[Appledrop]

i do not like the LED light we installed, noticeable flicker, less natural light.. would be good for outdoor lighting only in my opinion

 

[TheSlamma]

Lastly, just buy Cree bulbs.

This.. only decent brand LED's out there. High quality, best warranty, works with ANY dimmer out there, their color range temps are really good too. Lots of LED's claim 2700K and it's not even close.

 

[Jeff7]

Lastly, just buy Cree bulbs.

This.. only decent brand LED's out there. High quality, best warranty, works with ANY dimmer out there, their color range temps are really good too. Lots of LED's claim 2700K and it's not even close.

Cree is also a manufacturer of LED emitters themselves, and they're a major player in that industry.

(I would really hope and assume that they're using their own LEDs in the lamps they sell.)

 

[Stopsignhank]

It's still not cost effective to switch to LEDs unless you get a major rebate. Those bulbs just cost too much compared to CFLs.

Just like gas mileage, wattage savings are not exponential.

That is true, kind of. I am in SoCal and I am on a tiered rate. The rate for the top tier is $0.34/KW. So if I reduce my energy usage I am saving $0.34/KW, at least until I get the usage to the next tier with I think is only about $0.25/KW. I just can't base the calculations off of the average cost per KW that I can get from my bill.

 

[Squisher]

120 watt equivalent LEDs are too expensive. Heck, even the 90s will break the bank. I've only moved to LEDs in lamps that can tip over. All are 60 watt equivalent except a couple for reading which I had to dig deep into my pockets and shell out $30+ each. I'm reluctant to put CFLs where they can be easily broken.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Personally I want to give LEDs a bit more time to mature and go down in price before I switch. CFLs seem to be the best bang for the buck now. When I bought my house I bought a lot of CFLs and I've only had a few fail in the 5 years that I've been here. They were probably defective and not actually "burnt out".

That said at work they installed some LED light fixtures that look kinda like fluorescent fixtures and they're pretty cool. They produce a really nice white light. Would be perfect for a garage or something. They're like 300 bucks a pop though. In an environment where there are tons of lights that stay on all the time such as a big box store they would actually make lot of sense.

 

[BoomerD]

I replaced all the ceiling fixtures in the house with these:

http://www.lightsofamerica.com/Products/Ceiling.aspx

WOW! VERY bright...so much so that I'm going to have to use dimmers in the bedrooms...and WHITE light. Much more pleasing than the "warm white" CFL's...or even the bluish "daylight" CFL's.

 

[K1052]

120 watt equivalent LEDs are too expensive. Heck, even the 90s will break the bank. I've only moved to LEDs in lamps that can tip over. All are 60 watt equivalent except a couple for reading which I had to dig deep into my pockets and shell out $30+ each. I'm reluctant to put CFLs where they can be easily broken.

You need 120W incandescent in a reading light?

 

[Red Squirrel]

You need 120W incandescent in a reading light?

Also acts as a heater to stay warm while reading.

 

[bbhaag]

Whoa man! That was a blinder I was not ready for!

Looks like I might as well forget about LEDs! The only place I was gonna put them was the recessed lighting, and this chap says that's a no no!

Bummer!

Has anybody here used LEDs for recessed (Top Hats)?

I was into saltwater aquariums for around 5 years(75g tank with a 20g sump)back in 2006-11. LED lighting fixtures were just coming in as the big thing to replace MH and T5 fluorescents. The biggest singe issue people were facing back then was early failure due to lack of cooling in the fixture.
Maybe tech has overcome this issue but it has made me leery of LED bulbs ever since.

 

[lxskllr]

I've had led cannister floods at work for nine months now. Light looks good, and no failures running 12+ hours per day.

 

[gbeirn]

We have installed hundreds of Philips and TCP BR30s in recessed cans and all are still ruining strong in the 15-20K hour range.

Yep, I've used them in everything: lamps, recessed cans, glass porch globes, covered ceiling lights, you name it. Not a single failure yet. I've had CFLs fail in them all the time. Personally I've had the best experience with Phillips. Some of the cheaper Cree from Home Depot have failed on me, Phillips in the same environment is still going strong. About 90% of my house is LED now.

 

[Tiamat]

Also pay attention to flood angle. Normal lights light across a wide angle whereas led lights still have a significant beam effect. The very high lumen 100 watt led bulbs tend to have a very narrow flashlight type beam

 

[Viper GTS]

I've installed 50-60 bulbs from several different vendors between my house and my parents. I have multiple makes and models ranging from cheap ikea par for rarely used locations to $30 apiece globes and high output medium base. My parents have nothing but Cree 60w soft white in their house.

I haven't had a single failure to date, even relatively high output bulbs in enclosed fixtures. I'm approaching two years on my house and one year on my parents. The parents were skeptical when I put the Cree bulbs in as they have had terrible luck with incandescent failures - some fixtures were killing bulbs every few weeks. Zero failures on the Cree is a huge improvement.

We will see of course on the long term reliability but with prices dropping like they have been warranty claims likely won't make sense. I spent $800 doing my house, my parents a year later was $150. There's just no reason to get incandescent or cfl at this point unless you are doing some highly color critical task where the relatively low cri of cheap LEDs won't work for you.

Viper GTS

 

[BoomerD]

I was at Home Depot yesterday. The local electric company had folks all over the store, handing people the light bulb I linked above with a coupon and one penny. Made the bulbs free at checkout. (but IIRC, I had to pay sales tax on it)
I made two trips into the store and scored free bulbs twice.

(but the second trip was because I forgot something on the first trip...so I went back in...and scored a second free bulb.)

 

[Jeff7]

I was at Home Depot yesterday. The local electric company had folks all over the store, handing people the light bulb I linked above with a coupon and one penny. Made the bulbs free at checkout. (but IIRC, I had to pay sales tax on it)
I made two trips into the store and scored free bulbs twice.

(but the second trip was because I forgot something on the first trip...so I went back in...and scored a second free bulb.)

So weird.

My parents got swept up in the ad campaigns of decades ago, when electric heating was apparently all the rage. After spending crazy amounts of money, they finally switched over to a wood pellet stove.


I guess now it's all "We don't want to spend money to upgrade our antiquated and semi-functional infrastructure. Please stop using so much of our product."



(Some of that bit about infrastructure is annoyance - the power here likes to flicker or go out when there's no storm or significant wind in the area. Recently a substation sharted all over itself, which ended up causing blackouts and brownouts across a city of 100,000 people, rather than just in the section serviced by the substation. That sort of thing makes me think that the power grid is actually more like the rats' nest of cables behind most entertainment centers or computers.
Or when power went out in half of the industrial park where I work. Workers took 5 days to get it working normally again. After a full day without power, they still hadn't figured out what was even causing the problem, and patched our building into another power feed with their large version of an extension cord. I assume they were waiting for parts to arrive.
Or when a construction crew at the university struck an underground cable. Word was that the power company gave approval to dig there, but that they didn't have record of that cable. The campus was without power for half a day, following the rather noisy bang that occurred when they happened upon the cable. Maybe their magical divining rod was broken. :awe



.

 

[lxskllr]

Maybe their magical divining rod was broken. :awe



.

Interestingly, I was a job once, and the project manager wanted a couple wire flags to use as diving rods to find electric. I was laughing at him, but gave him the wire flags. I was walking with him as he walked over the lines, and the wires crossed. He gave them to me, and I got the same result. It's something I've been meaning to try replicating, but never really got to it.

Even if it works, it's just an interesting novelty. To cover your ass, you need a service to come and locate them. You then have someone to point to when you hit a utility.