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Sandy,

Not all light fixtures can or should be updated. CFL's or LED bulbs look terrible if the light bulb is exposed. I really don't understand the push for efficiency. What people need is a bit of common sense when using utilities. I have 37 25 watt incandescent bulbs in 16 vintage light fixtures. There are rarely more than four on at one time. Thankfully, the bulbs I use are specialty bulbs and not part of the phase out.

I have repaired enough vintage things and not over-consumed cheap throwaway products to offset my use of this terrible inefficient lighting.

travis++12-20-2013-00-37-25.jpg
 
There are 12 sconces around three rooms. If someone will make a molded flame bulb with LED's inside that screws into a medium base, then we'll talk. I am more than happy to pay a little to not look at ugly lighting.

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Lifespan

So far out of the ~50 lamps I have, some are 4 or more years old with decent runtime, I have yet to see one fail!

Based on what I have seen I have no reason to doubt the general predictions that the reputable manufacturers make. LED's don't have the high voltages and odd starting habits like those that plagued the CFL's which surely did have a checkered reputation. Of course at this point we are dealing with predictions based on accelerated aging and there could be some marketing in play. My hunch is that any decent quality lamp should give a typical service life of 10 or more years depending on things like usage and temperature of operation. In any case far long enough to pay back on energy saved and reduced maintenance etc.

I started dabbling with LED lighting about 1998 which was a couple years after the idea of a white LED came to be. The early offerings were fairly low power T1-3/4 package LED's which were basically similar to the indicator LED's we had for years. These devices had no provision for heat sinking and cooled themselves entirely through the leads, this greatly limited what they could do output wise. It was fun to solder them into arrays and see how much light one could get from a watt or two. We have all seen the
LED flashlights that have 9 or more LED's, these are all the old "indicator style" devices and are basically worthless for lighting compared to todays high power devices. In the mid 2000's Philips LumiLEDs broke the barrier making the Luxon devices which got us up to about 1 watt per LED. In the following years Philips, Cree and Nichia and others have pushed the device power up to at much as 20 watts or more!

So my personal take is that I tend to look to the companies that make the LED's themselves when I look at a lamp. I like Philips and Cree for instance. A company like Lights of America is simply rebranding lights made in China and typically they are marginal at best. LoA just lost a lawsuit to the FTC (~$22 million) due to exaggerated claims of light output and lifespan. I might buy cheap lamps from them but at the $10 price point there is much better to be had! Initially I was a fan of the 3M Advanced LED lamp but now I find them to be high cost, high complexity and heavy. My guess is that 3M will leave the market eventually, perhaps only selling the optical products (diffusers and light pipes) they make.

The big change with LED lighting still has yet to hit. Here we are trying to fit this new form of lighting into a package that is 150 years old, trying to provide omnidirectional light and offering replaceability This all comes at the cost of getting the heat out, this has been the bane of the 100 watt equivalent A19 style lamps. When we start designing the fixtures for LED's and embrace their design and longevity then solid state lighting will truly shine!
 
Every bulb in my house has been a CFL for years. I purchased a bunch of them at Home Depot and couldn't figure out why others were complaining about dim starts and overall quality of light. Then our local utility delivered a sample bulb of a different brand to all their customers. I put it in the laundry room and immediately understood what all the complaints were about. It was terrible! Later, Consumer Reports top-rated the Home Depot bulbs. It was dumb luck on my part, I guess.

Now that LED prices have come down, I'm definitely going to switch over to them. I'd rather have bulbs with no mercury in them.

Can LEDs be used in enclosed fixtures? The bulbs in the ceiling fans in my kitchen are housed in enclosed "globes". I've had CFLs in them with no problems.
 
Lighting is a VERY small portion of my energy cost. I run 80W FL and 30W dimmed INCAN 16hr a day plus 20W dimmed INCAN 8hr. Do the math, compared to 1500W cooling that runs almost continously in the summer and 3500W intermittent heat in the winter. Such that I'll stick with conventional instrumentalities as long as they are available.

3200K is the indoor standard, it's what television lighting was when I worked there, but those are quartz/halogen and hot enough to start fires. 2700K is what household bulbs do, substantially warmer/orange, but my dimmed incands are even warmer than that.

Incand however, is a very gentle curve CENTERED upon 2700-3200K. Whereas ultraviolet reradiation lighting (FL, CFL, LED) is a gapped spectrum unless the CRI is very high.

Well, they're working on that. I may live long enough for them to get it right. Meanwhile on Socalled Security, I'm not paying no stinkin $30 for a gawdam lighbulb that will outlive me by 15 years no matter WHAT its CRI is.
 
Decorative LED's

Sandy,

Unfortunately to a large degree the decorative "flame" lamps have very few offerings. I'd wager that with the cost to develop and bring a product to market the manufacturers want to hit the designs that have the highest sales and ROI. I have struggled to find a good set of Candelabra LED's. The ones I do find cost more then what I am willing to pay. In my case I think its more prudent to change out the fixture, helps I was never fond of it to start with...

There are a few medium base candle shape lamps on the Super Bright LED site, but none have the output of a 40w incandescent bulb. It is a complicating factor to attempt to get higher output from a decorative lamp, the required heat sinking detracts from the look of the lamp. There may be more offerings in the 25w eq class but this likely won't give enough light.

For those not familiar with superbriteleds.com is a great resource for finding almost any LED lamp. Odd indicator bulbs, automotive or even discrete parts can be found here. Only thing I dislike is they often sell lamps where the manufacturer isn't proud enough to put a name on them, buyer beware.

For some of these style fixtures, one just has to remain with the old incandescent bulbs. They will give the proper look in any case.
 
Can LEDs be used in enclosed fixtures?

Eugene,

Initially manufacturers were wary of non-vented fixtures for LED replacement lamps. To some degree this is changing today, especially with the lower wattage offerings. I did just buy a new Philips 100w eq lamp and it had explicit instructions not to install it in an enclosed fixture.

I have some of the 8-1/2 watt (40w eq) Cree bulbs in 6" round globe fixtures at Annette's parents house and they don't seem to run too warm. As an aside I don't think anyone in that household has noticed I substituted their incandescent lamps for LEDs.
 
KBONE,

No, I know the difference between color temp and CRI. I don't need a lecture on that.

The $13 60 watt equiv CREE bulb at HD has a CRI of 94, as stated on the packaging. It also uses about 13.5 watts. It's one of their "TW" series.

The $8 60 watt equiv CREE bulb at HD does not, as I recall, list the CRI. Or, if it does, it's in the low 80's. It uses about 9 watts.

Both of these are soft-white, 2700K.

Try reading the packaging?
[this post was last edited: 12/20/2013-11:16]
 
Rich,

I wasn't offering a lecture, I was merely making sure we were on the same page, my sincere apologies if you took it as such.

I did look at documents on Cree's and Home Depots own website. ALL the Cree lamps are listed as having a CRI of 80. Does the packaging say otherwise? I have never personally bought one of their Daylight lamps so I can't read the packaging, I have to go by the information I have on hand.

I did expect to see the higher color temp lamp having a higher CRI, but when I saw them listed as being the same I thought perhaps your comments were regarding temperature.

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KB,

The CREE bulb with the 93 CRI is a TW series, soft white, 2700K.

The packaging on the product IN THE STORE clearly stated a CRI of 93.

Here is info from the CREE website on the TW series bulbs:

1. What is Color Rendering Index?
Color reproduction is an important characteristic of any type of lighting, including LED lighting. Color
reproduction is typically measured using the Color Rendering Index (CRI). CRI is measured on a scale up
to 100. The higher the CRI, the more accurately you will see the actual colors of objects that the bulb
illuminates (i.e. reds will look red).
Daylight has the highest CRI (~100), with a 2700K incandescent bulb being relatively close, and
fluorescent lighting being much less accurate (CRI 70-85). Certain types of specialized lighting, such as
sodium lights (street lights with yellow orange colored light) exhibit a relatively low CRI (as low as about
CRI 20 – 30). The Cree TW Series LED bulb has a high CRI of 93, unmatched for LED bulbs, making colors
look the way they were intended.

 
Rich,

Just found the TW series on both the Cree and HD sites. Indeed these are high CRI lamps. Here in MN I have never seen a TW series bulb in a store.

Looking over the Cree specs the TW lamps have much lower luminous efficacy, they drop down to about 59 lumen/watt. This is about a 30% decrease compared to that of the standard lamps.

Again apologizes, for any incorrect assumptions I made.
 
Yes, the TW series sacrifice some lumen efficiency in exchange for greater CRI. The lumen efficiency of a TW bulb is equivalent to that of a comparable CFL, which is still far more efficient than an incandescent bulb, even a halogen.

I gather the reduced efficiency is due to the neodymium doping of the outer glass of the bulb, which turns it slightly blue and absorbs some of the spectral peaks to make the CRI higher. It's explained in the pdf files I linked in the earlier threads.

Funny, though, when I looked at these bulbs at HD I didn't see a bluish tinge to them. I may purchase one for my desk lamp to see if it helps. Currently I'm running a FEIT daylight 75 watt equiv because I find it gives good light and apparent CRI.
 
I also have a surplus of CFL's. For a while I'd scarf up four, five, six packs that were on heavy discount at Costco and elsewhere, with the subsidies coming from the state public utility. Now they are kind of overflowing storage, lol. Probably will return some to the store. Charities won't take them, even if they are brand new.

I got into CFL's early... I remember buying one with a magnetic ballast back in the 1980's. It worked ok, but was heavy and bulky and probably not all that energy efficient (probably had a terrible power factor). I even bought fan/utililty bulb sizes, which I tried using in the fridges and freezers, but they just didn't perform all that well at cold temps. They've since all been replaced with small low wattage LED bulbs, which work great in fridges and freezers.
 
I have enough CFL bulbs to last a lifetime

Actually in my opinion you shouldn't stock up on CFL lamps as the electronics in them usually age quite badly so even when storing them with care you can't expect a longer life than 10 years or so before the capacitors start leaking or dry up or something else in the poor Chinese electronics they have begin to act up! :S
 
Sidebar: This institution where I'm an inmate uses CFLs in the foyer/lobby. In preparation for HUD inspection, a month ago they had electricians replace all the CFLs, more than half of which were dead. A month later, almost a quarter of them have already failed. These are in open fixtures designed specifically for CFL.

Beside the toxicity when disposed, too many corners were cut. Perhaps if the fixtures were built with competent electronic ballasts, but they wanted self-contained socket compatibility and Chinese componentry. Which isn't worth that much even if achieved, because at least in my residences of memory, almost all fixtures were enclosed and CFL specifically will NOT work in an enclosure. CFL as deployed is a fail.
 
LED bulb power supplies contain capacitors as well as like CFL bulbs-I think if you "bank" the bulbs for no more than 5 years you should be OK.Or you can test and cycle them in your fixtures perodically.This would keep caps formed.For proper cooling of the ballasts electronics in either type of bulb they should be run in unenclosed fixtures-and those that are in dry areas unless the bulb or is packaging says its OK to install them in a damp or outdoor fixture.
 
 
Is there a reliability issue with LED bulbs operated base-up?  I've had that problem with CFLs, early failure.  Tried CFLs in a bathroom fixture (not fully enclosed, but base-up), two bulbs lasted less than 6 months each.

I have numerous in-ceiling floodlight can fixtures.  CFL flood-type bulbs, which one would assume are intended for such fixtures, age faster than the norm as well in my experience.  A couple/three failed early, the others age toward taking longer for start-up, somewhat discolored and slightly dim.

I know CFLs have the contained power electronics but are they more toxic for disposal than "regular" fluorescent tubes regards to mercury content?
 
Electronic Aging

Stockpiling CFL's or LED lamps shouldn't be that big a problem, at least for reasonable time frames. While it is true that electrolytic capacitors don't do well with age, as long as storage temps are moderate 10-15 years isn't likely to cause harm. To some degree I believe that the idea of electrolytic capacitors losing "forming" with age has improved with technology, at least assuming the caps aren't junk to start with.

It is true that the most likely component to fail in one of the LED lamps will be one of the capacitors in the power supply. There has been a movement in the manufacturers to eliminate the electronic capacitors for reliability.

I've been playing with CoB (Chip on Board) modules from Seoul Semiconductor. These are direct drive from 120v AC, can be dimmed by standard phase angle dimmers, have a reasonable power factor and have high luminous efficacy. There are NO electrolytic capacitors used. The module in the photo is a 4.3 watt which can be bought in single quantities for $6.75. They do need a heatsink for cooling, the one I used was WAY overkill.

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