Lighting . Whatever happened to the proposed LED lights for the home....................

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toggleswitch2

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....that were supposed to be super efficient and not need replacing?

For you Rolls_rapide.

Reposting your original quesiton as seen/posed in the thread entitled "Washing Machine Fires" (blue section).

So far I am not impressed with these and and am tempted to hoard incadescent lamps /light bulbs.

TAWK amoungst yourselves...........
 
LED's are very slowly starting to show up. At Costco today I saw LED floodlights and LED candelabra base lights - like for chandeliers. They weren't cheap, and the floodlights looked a bit odd with something like 30 led's. But I'm sure they use far less power than fluorescent of equivalent lumens.

There are also LED bulb replacements for flashlights. Also not cheap. I paid $20 for a Maglite 3 watt LED replacement. It's excellent, very bright, and of course an LED makes a lot of sense for a battery operated lighting item, but the price is a killer. I expect that will go down in time, as well as for the home lighting, and hopefully more powerful single LED's will replace the multiple LED formats.

I wonder if the "stimulus" package includes funding for more LED research & development. It certainly could be an area to help save large amounts of energy. Of course, they'll all be made in China, but what the heck.
 
I saw the same LED bulbs at Costco the other day. I didn't read to carefully, are they compatible with dimmers? That's one reason I will never convert most of my recessed lighting to CFL replacements, although I have seen "dimmable" CFL bulbs in another store.
 
Of course, they'll all be made in China

Unfortunately, they probably will.

I try to avoid buying ANYTHING made in China, which does pose a problem for some things. Does one A) buy the new energy efficient CFL or LED, made in China, which may eventually wreck the US economy. (What's left of it, that is.) Or B) buy the North American made regular bulb, which may help, in time, wreck the environment. Decisions, decisions.
 
Speaking of lighting

I saw an interesting light bulb at the grocery store it looked like a regular clear screw in bulb, but instead of being incadescent it had a halogen bulb on the inside. I didn't look at the price, didn't want to faint.
 
Speaking of lighting...

Autowasherfreak, probably better you didn't look at that bulb. When i bought this house in 2006, those halogen bulbs is all that was in here. When you'd turn on the lights, you could actually FEEL the heat they gave off! Those suckers got jerked out and replaced with CFLs immediately.

CFL's are irritating to some people, but once you've been climatized to them (which I'll admit takes some time) you actually grow quite fond of them. I haven't replaced a bulb in this house since September of 2006, and the light they give out is brighter than the halogens they replaced. Ironically, the reason I switched over had nothing to do with energy savings, but rather heat. With how hot it gets down here in the spring and summer, I prefer not to have a space heater running to light my room. ;-)
 
I have been considering switching to CFL's. I remember the heat given off by a halogen light that I got as a gift once. I use mostly florescent lights on the second floor which is my bedroom and typewriter room.
 
LEDS are still having problems matching the brightness and color of other lighting technologies-but they are improving.In the meantime besides CFL-how bout lower wattage HID metal halide bulbs.These generate a pleasent white light and depending on the halide formula in the arc tube can be made to produce any common colors or present lamsps-with lower power draw and longer life.also --"minature" xenon HID bulbs-like those used in some car headlights could be an excellent alternative to halegen,and incandescent bulbs.a 35W xenon HID bulb is smaller than your little finger-and can generate the light of 2 200W incandescent bulbs.Its time to retire incandscents and halegens.I have two portable lanterns that use these bulbs-they are pretty incredible.If they can be used in portable light fixtures such as the flashlights and lanterns-figure they could be used in home lighting-just make a ballast for them with a 120V primary instead of 12V.All halide bulbs need a ballast-like a flourescent-to operate.I use mostly halides at my home-lov e the sunlight like colors.I could picture a "Lightoleer" type desk or table lamp using a 25W xenon hid bulb.I think HID lights are a good alternative for instances where large amounts of light is needed-I also have some LED flashlights-these are great-the Surefire ones.Carry one with me all the time esp at work.good for lighting dark corners in the transmitters and other equipment.
 
I am waiting for LED lightning to get affordable too. I REFUSE to use CFL for just about anything, hate the light, repeat hate the light. The non-distinct glow is irritating to me, I have dozens of recessed lights and I require lights with a point source, rather than an all over glow. They are all halogen and will stay that way until LEDs are cheap.

The only place I use CFL is in my lamp posts, and there they only last 2 to 3 years., but I guess I'm saving a bit of money, 100w vs 400w dusk to dawn is a savings.
 
Thanks Toggles...

..for re-posting my query in a more suitable place, and thanks all for the replies.

As far as I know, there doesn't appear to be any LEDs suitable for home use in the UK; but then again I haven't been looking for lights as such.

I have seen torches and emergency lanterns with leds, and I believe that some car headlamps can be replaced with such fittings, in addition to sidelights, indicators and brakelights.

I did read something about street-lighting being manufactured, and I think it was USA and Germany that were mentioned. As far as I remember, the lights ran very hot, and the clear LEDs were interspersed with amber LEDS to give a decent night glow: clear alone was too harsh.
 
We used led Christmas lights this year and was very happy with them. My car has led breaklights, I like the way they look
 
We bought solar LED xmas lights on closeout. They're blue lights. Had to replace the ultra cheap low quality AA rechargable battery that came with the unit. Put them up around the door, and out back. After a nice sunny day, they last 8 hours or more. Worth the $5 plus cost of new rechargables. If you want to see some currently available LED bulbs for home use, check out the link below.

 
I have installed several LED lights in my camping trailer. I noticed one significant problem with the white LED's that is never discussed. The phosphor in them degrades after about 2000-4000 hours. Yes, the LED still lights up, so the manufacturer can claim that the LED still works, and has a 100,000 hour life span, but the brightness is significantly reduced.

Still, I used the LED's in my camping trailer for low-level night lighting. They use minimal battery power (around 120 millamperes at 12 volts, or about .1 watt) Their overall brightness though is rather weak. They produce the light of about 3-4 little 3-watt "peanut" bulbs. Obviously, that's much more efficient, but it still isn't enough light to perform major tasks like preparing a meal, or reading by. For that, I installed some 12 volt CFL lamps that use about 13 watts, and produce the same amount of light as a 75 watt incandescant.

LED lights have a long ways to go until they can produce the same brightness per watt levels as flourescent bulbs, especially many of the newer CFL's. There's also the reliability issue. I have seen numerous LED traffic signals around town with groups of LED's burned out in them!

MattL, if you do not like the color of CFL lamps, there are several varieties avaliable with different color temperatures. I know the Lowe's here sells "warm white" which looks like an incandescant, "day light" which is a real white light like sunlight (and probably more like your halogens), and there's "cool white" which is a sort of bluish light. I also recommend getting good quality CFL's...pay a little more, and get a good quality bulb. The cheapie ones don't have solid state ballast, so they flicker, and they have cheap, poor quality phosphors, which is probably the reason why you are annoyed by the color quality.
 
cybrvanr, it's not the COLOR of the light I have issues with, I know there are various color temps available, it the TYPE of light generated.

No matter what they do, reflectors and such, fluorescent light by it's nature is diffuse, a glow. And as such it tends to generate an all over lighting effect. That is fine in some situations and some people like that effect, I don't. I carefully designed my recessed lighting to create pools of light, some areas of intense light others in shadow.

For example, in an entry way I just did the floor is a warm dark maple. I used a number of recessed halogen spots and floods to give the floor some real punch, show off the wood. If I were to use CFL the grain in the wood would look flat and the detail and debth of the grain would be lost. With the areas of light and shadow the floor, and the room for that mater, has dimension. Replacing the halogen with CFLs would result in a look very much akin to the old lighted florescent kitchen ceiling from the 60's - not a look 99% of the population wants in an entry way or any place else for that matter.

Some people have issues with CFL flicker, I don't, but the cheap LED Christmas lights drive me crazy. The newer ones have a better rectifier design and they don't bother me. I guess I'm just sensitive to light, always have been.
 
I think virtually all the CFL's on sale today have solid state ballast. The alternative is a magnetic ballast, and I remember getting a few of those in the 80's. Big, heavy, noisy, and I understand they drew a lot of amps (low power factor). I haven't seen them for sale for at least a decade and a half.

The cheap CFL's (like the 60 watt equiv. Feits one can get at Costco for a rather low price) have somewhat variable color temp. Some give out a purplish glow, others a greenish yellow. Recently I've started getting the 75 watt daylight Feit CFL's from Costco. I really prefer the full spectrum white light they put out. And they seem to last a fairly long time. Although they only put out the lumens of a 75 watt bulb, I find their light is brighter and more usable than most 100 watt equivalent "soft white" CFL's.
 
The problem some folks have with flourescent lights is just that-flourescent is a LINIAER source of light-wheras LEDS,HID,Incandescent,halogen are POINT sources of light.Point sources of light generate a large amount of light for the size of the light source-they are easily focused and directed-Flouresent light is not so easily focused or directed-just a blanket of light.Yes ,solid state ballasts are best for CFL's and other flourescent light bulbs-the ballast operates the bulb arc at a higher frequency so there is no apparent flicker.Also the higher frequency gives better efficiency.The CFL's I have been using are now about 2 yrs old-use in the bathroom and a ceiling fan light.
I like the CFL,Flourescent and HID(metal halide) since they produce a broader spectrum of light then incandescent and halogen.Halogen can be improved spectrum wise by running the bulb at overvoltage.this is dangerous and shortens the life of the lamp.Halogens running at overvoltage can forecibly rupture and spread hot glass all over.Metal halide and mercury bulbs can do this-but is rare.Many metal halide bulbs sold now have a thick quartz cylinder sheild around the arc tube-this is supposed to retain the ruptured arc tube in case if forcibly fails.These bulbs are for open type HID fixtures.bulbs for enclosed hid fixtures don't require the protective arc tube sheild.In the years I have used metal halide-NEVER have had one forcibly fail.most of the time when the bulb reeaches end of life-it fails to start-like a flourescent bulb that reaches end of life.the bulb ages and requires a higher voltage to start and maintain the arc.The ballast can no longer provide that.SS ballasts can do better with older bulbs.Most higher wattage HID ballasts are still magnetic.Some metal halide SS are available to run up to 400W MH bulbs.these are common in the aquarium lighting.
I would love to see LEDS mature-they could be the ideal and safest light source.Little heat-and no toxic chemicals like mercury.HID and flourescent lights have this.Thats a disadvantage to them.Miniature xenon HID bulbs-like those in some car headlights and portable lights-don't have mercury in them.Just the xenon gas and halide salts.And for dimming LEDS would be nice as well-the color doesn't change as much as with incandscent,halogen and flourescent lights.Its a problem with metal halide too-drastic color changes as the light is dimmed.
 

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