Slashdot Mirror

https://www.superbrightleds.co...:

LED lights are great for a lot of uses, but headlights aren't yet on of the best uses. It's best to use LED's as a supplement to your headlights, not as a replacement. Maybe in a few more years, they'll be up to snuff. Complaints I've heard are that they just don't reach down the road.

Auxiliary lights, like these AngelEyes http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/led-headlight-accent-lights/ make you a lot more visible to other drivers, they tend to light up unlit areas close to you, but they do almost nothing to illuminate the road more than 30 feet in front of you.

At present, HID lights are the best you can do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlamp

And, I'm not solely voicing my own opinion here - as a member of a couple of motorcycle forums, I've found this to be the consensus. As I say, two, five, maybe ten years from now, LED will be ready to replace all of our halogen and xenon lights. They are not ready today.

Here are some "typical" luminously intense LEDs, 45 candela requiring 3.4W. Typical LEO is 200km. lux=candela/(distance^2) = 1.125e-9. Magnitude = -2.5 * log(lux) - 14.2 = 8.17

Generally stars with magnitude > 7 are not considered visible.

Compare with Sirius, at m = -1.6, gives 9.2e-6 lux.

If you gang together a bunch of those 45 candela LEDs, you might have something. Magnitude 7 is reached at three of them. 10 of them would get you magnitude 5.6, around the magnitude of the spiral galaxy M33 (used as a test for naked eye seeing under dark skies).

OK so I found a ~2000cd LED (6000 lumens over 115 degrees), it would need 60W @ 3.15A to do this. That gives you Magnitude 4.

Of the seven brightest stars in Ursa Minor, the dimest three are magnitude 4 to 5.

So as they say on MythBusters, "Plausible".

Not sure if you can blow 60W for long on a small satellite though...

I've been wondering about illuminating my license plate with inexpensive infrared LEDs at each corner. They won't help during daylight hours, but IR-sensitive night cameras should be rendered useless. Great holiday gift for those with foil hats and hate the thought of automated license plate scanners that are being used to troll traffic for black hats.

LEDs have a long, long way to go before they can be used in living or working spaces.

Really? Because I just installed under-cabinet lighting in my kitchen, entirely from LEDs. It's gorgeous, and it doesn't melt the chocolate chips in the cabinets above like the fluorescent lights (it was probably the ballast or something) that I ripped out and replaced with the LEDs. I think it looks better, too.

These "good" CFLs of which you speak aren't available to Joe Consumer (i.e., me); the ones you get at Lowes are certainly a different spectrum and temperature than normal incandescents; I've got them throughout the house, and while they don't bother me, you can certainly tell the difference between them and the incandescents that are in the dimable fixtures. Oh, and that's my main beef with CFLs: you can't put them on a dimmer switch.

Incidentally, under-the-counter LEDs were expensive. I was willing to pay the price for the kitchen because I wanted low-profile, low-temperature lighting, but ouch.

--- SER

P=I x E, so 60W = I x 120V, therefore I = 60W / 120V = 0.5A

E = I x R, so a 6V loss at 0.5A is 6V = 0.5A x R, and R = 6V / 0.5A = 12 ohms

Therefore, the electrical wiring has a resistance of 12 ohms.

For a 4W light bulb, 12VDC supply, assuming wiring with the same resistance as 120VAC:

P = I x E, so 4W = I X 12V, therefore I = 4W / 12V = 0.34A (nearly the same as the 120V!)

E = I x R, so voltage drop is E = 0.34A x 12 ohms = 4V (again, nearly the same as 120V!)

The DC calculations are based on a bulb found at http://www.superbrightleds.com/bi-pin.html -- which I found using a google search; I have no affiliation with this company.

Well TFA mentions the mercury problem of compact fluorescents, but CF bulbs have other problems, the first compact fluorescent bulbs were big circles, meant to be able to be installed in Some table lamps... well, table lamps went by the way side, in terms of popularity, and CF bulbs are much much larger than a 'normal' light bulb, and they 'look funny' and to get the same lumens you need a larger bulb, plus CFs are fragile, really bad for parents of small to medium sized kids, or larger less mature models.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?product=MR16
if you look at some of the models available online now for LEDs spotlight and normal bulb shapes are the ones currently for sale, although, I'm sure when the inverters get smaller or they become more popular decorator bulb shapes will become reasonable.
FREEZER lights are now POSSIBLE LEDS can operate in the temperature range of freezers Easily. In the past, freezers with lights, kept the light somewhere odd, or unusable like in the edge of the lid, or something but LEDS can easily operate in a freezer, as long as the control circuitry is protected from temperature. It has always annoyed me that freezers don't have lights, now there no longer is a reason for this annoyance. YES not as good as the psychedelic rainbow bulb... but more practical.

"The temperature range of negative 40 degrees Celsius to one hundred degrees Celsius"
http://www.lunaraccents.com/educational-LED-bulbs-data-sheets-absolute-ratings.html

because of shape and color possibilities LED lights are more practical than CF bulbs, as long as you can make the integrated circuitry small enough any bulb shape is possible instead of being limited to tubes and spirals and circles or very long tubes...

going from 2.7 years (MTBF of fluorescents) to 34.2 years is really not that bad considering some LED bulbs are now as cheap as $8 if they can 'market' CF bulbs as 'seven years' of life then that means they should be able to market 'LED bulbs' as '92.3 years'

Check this out:

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?product=MR16

They have bulbs ranging in brightness from $8 to $50. I've seen this site before, but never tried out the bulbs. $50 seems a bit much, but I might go for one in the $20 range and see how it works in my desk lamp.

What the heck is a BR30? Look at the link

http://www.superbrightleds.com/edison.html

I've done some searching, but not a whole lot, and the best in selection I've seen is SuperBrightLEDs.com: https://www.superbrightleds.com/edison.html and http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/comme rce.cgi?product=MR16

You're best bet would to go with something that has a 3watt Luxeon LED in it that's designated "Warm White" which has a color temperature of 3400K. Check out either MR16-WLX1 or MR16-WLX3 on their Commerce site. I don't know about the number of lumens they put out. It will probably be a bit less than incandescent, but should work with a dimmer as intended. I'm waiting on some red 3watt Luxeon LEDs for an automotive application and they're rated for about 150 lumens IIRC.

I've done some searching, but not a whole lot, and the best in selection I've seen is SuperBrightLEDs.com: https://www.superbrightleds.com/edison.html and http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/comme rce.cgi?product=MR16

You're best bet would to go with something that has a 3watt Luxeon LED in it that's designated "Warm White" which has a color temperature of 3400K. Check out either MR16-WLX1 or MR16-WLX3 on their Commerce site. I don't know about the number of lumens they put out. It will probably be a bit less than incandescent, but should work with a dimmer as intended. I'm waiting on some red 3watt Luxeon LEDs for an automotive application and they're rated for about 150 lumens IIRC.

Just take a look at the power consumption specs here
http://www.superbrightleds.com/led_prods.htm

The purchase price still sucks though.

That being said I am experimenting with a solar lighting system that charges a battery during the day and lights my entire house at night, for free (minus the cost of throwing the system together im my basement of course). My lighting needs will not burn any foreign oil or add to the global warming situation. Not only that but the bulbs will last longer than any of the equivalent CFL's that it would have taken to do the same job! You need to factor in the lifetime before compairing total costs.

This is a great product, but hardly a first. For example:

http://superbrightleds.com/MR16_specs.htm

A few years back I decided I was tired of hot, pressurized gas bulbs providing the lighting in my home and decided to step into the 21st century by upgrading to LEDs. Ultimately I settled on purchasing strands of LED christmas lights which I string up around the upper edge of every wall. It provides even, consistent lighting which I can leave on all the time in most of the house.

You can buy them from here, among other places:

http://www.christmas-treasures.com/AboutUs/Christm asTree/ForeverBright/LED2004.htm

I recommend the white for functional lighting, and the blue for areas that you want to be more relaxing (living room, for example). The purple is nice too but they are quite dim compared to the other colors.

These "screw-in" blubs you speak of are typically known as Edison bulbs. Reason should be fairly obvious.

That aside, LED Edison blubs have been out for quite a while. They are rediculously expesive, but I remember researching this as far back as when VOS Pad was posted on /.

Here are some quick links I found just by going to Google.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

A single chip of gallium and some other chemicals is used to create the light.

Um, that's one method, as I stated. GaN LEDs are blue to ultraviolet in color. They may be coated with chemicals that emit yellow light, together creating the illusion of white. This isn't ideal for all purposes; light using more of the spectrum is more pleasing (more like sunlight) and so is desireable for indoor lighting, hence tri-color LEDs.

• White LEDs in model train set
• White LEDs for microscope illumination
• Tri-color LED

If you have a little cash, you can get pre-assembled strips of bright-led lighting for about $20 each here.

I expect so. If you take a couple of reasonably-high-powered normal LEDs (like these), you can damn near blind ordinary vision, let alone night vision. Based on that, I'd be surprised if a well-targeted IR shot to the face didn't throw a night vision set out of whack, at least briefly. I'd also be surprised if it didn't get you banned from the movie theater.

You don't even need an expensive Logitech MX type mouse to play FPS.

I've been using THIS MOUSE for the longest time and I have had no problems. It's been with me from CPL to Quakecon, from Quake 3 to Unreal 2k3. I've modded it and changed the LED from red to superbright blue and had no problems with it. It may not have a higher resolution like the newer mice but it definitely has what it takes to play FPS plus it's inexpensive.

See also SuperBrightLeds

mine are the same... But i've seen pages around that show you how to replace the old light module with a couple LEDs. I haven't gotten around to it yet though

These guys sell LEDs mounted in standard plugs specifically for easy replacement of incandescent lamps; they might have something that doesn't require custom wiring: http://www.superbrightleds.com/led_prods.htm.

I'ld recommend that you go with LEDs instead. Lots more flexibility. Far more options.
Let me give you a few of the links from the upcoming LED section of my site. (Yep, that was a plug.)

American Science and Surplus
Inner Mountain Outfitters
Gilway
Superbright LEDs
Overall you'll find that they'll work with any decent source of 3.5 to 6 volt (depending on the LED) current, which includes the cheesy little plug-in transformers that you can buy at Radio Shack. But they'll work better off battery power or some other means that is truly DC. I ran a tiny custom jobbie in my bathroom as a functional light source for weeks, all running off standard nine-volt batteries. I just turned it on and left it on to see how long it would last. These, BTW, were rebuilt versions of the LED-based clip-on lights that they sell for bike riders.
Of course if you've got a cheap supply of watch batteries or have a recharger for them then you could just hang photons about the place.
Lastly, if you're just going for cool low-level lighting, good old FLAME can be plenty of fun. In other words, don't dismiss the possibilities of oil lamps and such until you've tried them. Properly set up, especially if they're indirect, they give a just variable enough glow to be quite satisfying. I've also had fun with building custom lamps based on isopropyl alcohol. You know, the stuff sold for 99 cents a bottle to put on small cuts. A big (say, two inches around) alcohol flame in a deep container with a well setup oxygen supply will last for hours. Since the flame isn't very hot, is non-toxic, and blows out readily it's easy to experiment using things like soup bowls while you figure out what you want to do. Yo could cheat and go somewhere like Illuminations (I'm not providing a link, there are too many mall businesses as it is) and buy wicks, but you shouldn't need to bother.
And with all of this the fire department has only come by here once (damn those witnesses!).
Rustin