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LEDs vs. Lightbulbs

Posted by timothy on from the lex-et-lux dept.

zymano writes "www.technologyreview.com has this nice article on LEDs vs lightbulbs" Follows the exploits of one Shuji Nakamura, the same man who brought you the practical violet laser.

6 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. I have a solid state LED flashlight by jmccay · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have a DORCY solid state LED Flashlight--actually, I have two. I liked it so much I bought it twice (one for home and one for my car). It works great. It doesn't difuse as badly as normal flashlights so it can shine further. Walmart seems to have stopped carrying it, but I got my second one at Sears for about $13.00 (no sales tax).

    --
    At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
  2. Crank flashlights and LEDs by wowbagger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've a friend who works for Coleman (he's one of their webmonkeys, let's give him a heart attack by putting some "referrer=http://slashdot.org"'s in his logs).

    He gets plenty of fun stuff from work. One of the things they have is a little crank powered flashlight that uses a Brinkman style little incand.

    It will run for a fair length of time on the batteries, but I have to wonder how much longer it would run with an LED.

    Perhaps next generation....

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    www.eFax.com are spammers
  3. On the road by __aafkqj3628 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Whoever does the traffic lights over here (I think it's the LTSA, but whoever it is doesn't really matter) is slowly changing traffic lights (busted ones and new ones) over to using LEDs instead of the traditional light-bulb.
    The change is quite noticeable (when you see 500 LEDs peering back instead of a large bulb), but the LEDs seem to provide greater brightness in addition to a longer-life and better energy efficency (which is always good during our annual energy-crisis).

    1. Re:On the road by phelddagrif · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I find that the LED traffic lights are far easier to see in both the daylight and the night. They don't seem to be effected by sunglare nearly as harshly as the coloured glass sodium bulbs do. Which is nice because it can be a bitch to try and figure out what colour the light is sometimes. (It's not super hard,just much harder than it should be). Whereas the LED's are always readable. At least that's my experience with them.

  4. Re:efficacy versus efficiency by kriston · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Certain overnight radio shows tout the LED flashlights as being more efficient than incandescent or incandescent halogen. This is patently false. The LED lamps are more durable, but most do not use any more or any less energy than the equivalent incandescent or incandescent halogen at the same wattage (and efficacy).

    The trend of changing traffic signals to use LED lamps is a question of reducing maintenance costs since the signals last so much longer than the old incandescents. It has nothing at all to do with saving electricity. It has everything to do with installing lamps so that the fixture does not need as much relamping as before. Of course, safety by reducing burnt lamps is also a big reason :)

    On a lighter note, the very newest LED traffic lamps use diffusers so they look more like traditional lamps and not like 100 lamps. Here in Washington DC the green, amber, and red lamps are all being replaced and they are brighter and more attractive than the old lamps were. THey are much better than the green traffic lamps that Fairfax County is experimenting with.

    Kris

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    Kriston

  5. Re:A long way to go... by mandolin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One implication of the greater efficiency of the compact fluorescent light would be the lower heat output for a given brightness. So you need to run the air conditioner less often -> even less power used. Double the pleasure, etc.