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DIY LED-Illuminated Sleep Chamber
Bulldozer2003 writes "'Finally something both nerdy AND sexy engineers can do.' It sounds like an oxymoron but this guy took a cue from The Vos Pad and decked out his own dorm room bed with Light Emitting Diodes. They're even fully adjustable 'allowing me to create every color of the rainbow.' Total cost, according to him in an email: 'Around $25, the LEDs cost me about $0.25 a piece in bulk, and the potentiometers cost about $6 a piece from digikey. I got the LM317 voltage regulators as a free sample from Texas Instruments. Lots of companies will ship you free samples, its a good deal for college students.'"
...guaranteed to be sex free, no doubt!
DIY psychonautics without chemistry?
It's just a BloJJ
DIY just beats the heck out of getting someone to do the job for you
Step 1: Light up dorm room with ludicrous light display.
...
Step 2:
Step 3: Women!
Reminds me a lot of this guy's projects. He made some damn cool things out of LEDs there, complete with howtos.
I don't think he should worry about the electricity bill, from what I know, LED's don't use that much energy in order to emit light. I think...
Jonathanjk.com
"Why should I go to a club when I can stay at home, avoid long queues, drink cheaper alcohol, set up my own light show, and have the chance to choose your own music?"
ummm.......
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Great for parties... wouldn't want to live there.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
So do you mean free as in speech, or free as in beer?
Looking at the guy's facebook site, "sexy engineer" is the last ajective I'd use
Apparently Huggy Bear has ordered one!
"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." - Ian Malcolm (Jurassic park)
Jaj
Are they trying to shoot themselves in the head by using HTTPS?
I wouldn't worry about the electric bill, but I wonder how long it will be until he burns down the dorm? If you look at the pics, he mounted all the LED's through cardboard with the wires soldered to the back. PS: If he's doing this to get women, he might want to try just cleaning up his dorm room :)
and it still is, take my word as a girl for it :-)
Seattle Eastside Math and Science Tutoring
Clicking on no has no major effect that I can discern except for the guy's last box where the "Get Firefox!" icon/image is missing...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
How long until every DIYer or EE dude posts on how they could have done it cheaper, more efficiently, and with their own favourite microcontroller?
Plastic Surgery!
All your base are belong to Google.
the link wasn't working so I'll try again!
Pot signing out
Jaj
Lots of companies will ship you free samples, its a good deal for college students. laugh.....
Practically nothing. The whole thing probably draws less power than one low-energy lightbulb.
I hope they aren't like my Xmas tree lights; if a bulb breaks they all turn off and you have to check each one manually.
Of course the LEDs in a pad don't work like that, but it would be funny if they did...
--
now you can be somewhere else when the girls don't call..
If you look at the pics, he mounted all the LED's through cardboard with the wires soldered to the back.
:-D
If doing that burns down the dorm room he needs to take a course in EE!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Man who lights his bed
with a multicoloured led
will never get head
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
So this light display -- it's like a warning beacon of sorts, right? A light house, if you will, to warn the woman that the sexy guy she met at the club is an engineer and it's time to start preparing her excuses and leave, lest she crash against the inexperienced rock of his virginity.
The fact that the writeup included the bit about samples is really kinda dumb. Moderation is key. Samples are great but if every idiot starts sampling everything (which i'm sure will be a side effect of the present article) companies will stop sampling or make it more difficult.
in general, the state of slashdot is shameful these days. i dont have a solution (aside from simple obvious things like submission moderation, etc)... maybe i've just changed enough that it isnt the place for me anymore. which is a shame. cause from my POV slashdot aspires to be about Cool Things. the latest microsoft bug isnt a cool thing. it isnt news. (to adapt what John Stewart said about a transmission from Hussein).
and all of this Geek Nerd etc shit. I think the US population is nuts about trying to group people (including themselves!) into groups of like scales. I havent seen anything like it anywhere else (i live in US and have lived in other places).
anyway what was i gonna say? oh yeah:
to anyone who reads it - if you sample, please, PLEASE sample in moderation so that people that actually build prototypes and such (like *this) continue to have this wonderful resourse availible.
The Cheat throws a pretty good rave.
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
I bet his roomate absolutely hates him
Warning : Be sure to place switch box up out of the way. Accidently bumping switches in your sleep can produce nightmares of Satan.
Yes, one of my professors talks almost every day about how it won't be long before all lights are LEDs because of the low power. They just have people working on how to make them suitable for lighting rooms.
25$ for 50,000 hours worth of birth control. What a bargain!
what a dork:m /imagep ages/image1.htmlm /imagep ages/image11.htmlm /imagep ages/image4.html
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/bkpeters/www/Pro
what a girl:
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/bkpeters/www/Pro
what a dork?
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/bkpeters/www/Pro
Very little. LEDs are very efficient power-wise and suck relatively little current; normal LEDs light at maximum with about 10-15mA, after that
;)
they burn out pretty quickly.
The power depends on the voltage, but, say, if you use a 12v power supply and light a 100 of those you'd be using just a tad under 20 watts. That's less than a cheap bulb, and trust me, it would light just a bit brighter
As a matter of fact, LEDs are quite a neat lighting solution; they're cheap, awfully efficient and have a long working life. The thing is that, atleast until recently, clear light LEDs were unavaiable. Those are hard to make, and even then, white light LEDs are not very pure, color wise. Flashlights are beggining to carry LED diodes, for one.
Most LEDs operate at a relatively low current (~20mA) and voltage (~3V). This amounts to maybe .06 Watts (60mW) per LED. It looks like he has 5 panels of 4 LEDs and a 6-LED reading lamp, from the pictures; this makes 26 LEDs, consuming around 1.5 Watts in total. This is 1/40th of the power consumption of a single 60-Watt light bulb. If we say that electricity costs $.06/kWh ("US Federal Average"), then it would cost approximately $.09 to run these lights for 1000 hours.
The kinds of LEDs will probably have different operating characteristics than those I have in my head (like those UV LEDs, which are higher frequency -and energy- than I'm used to).
Whatever it is, it will not exceed the power output of the wall wart he's using.
EE Projects got me laid by some pretty damn hot chicks more than a few times - Especially if you offer to "pimp" their room with something cool for fun ;-) ...and no, it's not paying - I would have done it regardless. It's fun to add a vent that'll allow smoking, and put set-up projectors just to play Super Smash Bros on N64 (another chick magnet). Me and my roommate had our dorm on lockdown from day one!
Me-Fi-Me!
'Finally something both nerdy AND sexy engineers can do.'
There may be plenty of nerdy engineers out there, but everybody knows there's no such thing as a sexy one...
... great! With this, it will be like being on acid, everynight!
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
You can turn it off whenever you want. It's not exactly HAL. Yet.
[...] than those I have in my head [...]
You have LED's in your head? OMFG! Way cool!!
Martin
Of course, as we all know, "low energy" compact fluorescents are a waste of time *anyway*, because their power factor is so awful that twice as much energy again must be dissipated at the substation to compensate...
Ok, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna post a "what the hell is this place comming too" post. Jesus, here's some guy who has done a rather awesome thing. Can we please just admire it for what it is without all the name calling? Jesus the tagline is "news for NERDS" - basicly everyone here so can we just stop it with the cheapshots and one-liners? And please, no more smart areses talking about getting laid. With that attitude you never will.
For those who were seriously interested in this project can I refer you to the link a fellow poster posted: it s more interesting.
Would those even be light-emitting LED diodes?
Ever took a closer look at a led? Basicly the light source in it is a very small dot. The plastic around it turns it in a bigger dot (or square, triangle, whatever). Why not use a simular methode to build a spotless LED-bulb?
Everyone should poke him. He may be the first person to get poked to death (due to a slashdotting).
Andrew
PS: If you don't understand poking, then you weren't able to view the Face Book page.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It follow definition 2. It's written in the form of these traditional Japanese lyrics verses, but is neither in the traditional language (Japanese) nor about the traditional subject matter (nature or the seasons).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Sex by any kind of electric light just does not work for me. Gotta be candles, I'm afraid.
You're not getting any either, huh?
If doing that burns down the dorm room he needs to take a course in EE! :-D
Nothing spells CHEAP like CARDBOARD.
I came close to burning down the house once when I left the soldering iron plugged in next to the drapes. My parents (thankfully) forgot something and we headed back to the house, discovered that it was filled with smoke and the curtains were smoldering.
This was thirty years ago. I remember to unplug the soldering iron to this day.
posting Anon, as I am an adult Nerd.
Damn! That looks kak!
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
Interesting! This guy's project basically connects a dimmer switch each to red, green and blue LED strings. The colors sorta mix, sorta producing colored light, but as you can see in his pictures there are major fringing effects (multicolored bands of light). The howto on this page, suggested by another poster, gives a much cleaner result.
The link above uses a microcontroller and pulse-width modulation to vary each color's intensity, producing a much more even color effect.
Now, of course, I want to redo the apartment with them. Eternal lighting with no more power consumption than a couple of flashlights...yum...
My daughter wants lights in her Barbie house (seriously!), and I thought it should probably be easy with these newer bright LEDs and a battery, but I really know nothing about this.
/. about that, but since the topic came up...
:-)
Wouldn't have thougt of asking
Anyway, I'd rather find the solution than send my daughter asking that guy for advice...
Can I directly connect these to a battery, or do I need some circuit in-between?
Which sort of LED is it that I want? I mean, how do I recognise and select the right type in a catalogue? Or what more specific keyword do I add to "LED" to find relevant information on Google?
u could have saved yourself 25 bucks and the time and had a light switch rave instead !
for further instructions http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail45.html
>Would those even be light-emitting LED diodes?
Light-emiutting light emitting diode diodes? Yes they affirmatively would not wouldn't be.
Hey, you guys should back off. At least he's getting some
anyone knows any good resources, how to switch your household as much as possible away from classical lightbulbs to LEDs and other energy saving illumination methods?
any good pointers, resources, experiences?
thanks.
Lieutenant Commander Data??
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
And please, no more smart areses talking about getting laid. With that attitude you never will
Dude, this story was posted at 2:39 am.
Need I state the obvious for you???
If we are reading slashdot at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, there is a rather (extremely) high likelyhood that readers here do not have the company of a female.
Unless it's a mother telling us to turn out the lights.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Light-emiutting light emitting diode diodes?
- org ?
Almost like aitch-tee-tee-pee-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot
Drool, beatiful women....
look at ground: come see my very cool BED. It has some leds on it that make it a look great.
Droooll, stare her breast...
Definitely a good hit line. Definitely.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
That bed... perhaps. However, I stayed at a rather nice hotel once that had similar lighting over the bed. If the console were replaced with something a bit more... subtle, and the lights were moved a bit, it would be pretty pimp.
8 points for creativity 10 points for lustful intentions 1 point for soldering
Welcome to the world, we have many timezones from GMT-12 to GMT+12. You probably live in the GMT+5 to GMT+8 zone. You may be surprised to discover that more live outside of your zone than live in it.
(Swap GMT for UTC if you think Greenwich is in Connecticut)
While I'm not jumping to build this project myself, I've got a couple dozen others that I'm half-working-on at all times. I've got a list of links to manufacturers that provide free samples of electronic components for this very purpose.
http://lukewarm.homelinux.net/freesamples/
Enjoy. If you know of more, I'd love to add to the list.
The problem with LEDs are that they are still relatively low intensity light sources.
While you may get s high intensity directional beam, it is more difficult to get a uniform general coverage LED source, as it takes many more LEDs. So it is just cheaper to use a good flourescent.
With the price of LEDs dropping this may change.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Is it possible to make a bunk bed into any kind of a "pimp bed"?!
Really? Seems more like 7:39AM to me (not everyone is from the States ya know!). (And not everyone feels the obsessive need to label themselves in socially-limiting categories - geek, nerd, etc.) (And not all females are turned off by mental prowess.)
And not all females are turned off by mental prowess.
No, just the cute ones.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I don't think I could live there. It'd freak me out, like Kramer in the Kenny Rogers Roasters episode.
Come on, LED brightness control should be via PWM. Get going on the microcontroller code, dude! Then you can do color cycling, timed dimming/brightning, etc.
*looks at linux server in one corner*
:-)
*looks at linux laptop as recently reviewed on slashdot*
*looks at LED star canopy over bed*
most girls would run from such things. some have their own, thankyouverymuch
-Leigh
ps. Ubuntu is love.
Mine had a rule you could only use Underwriters tested/approved electronics and nothing rigged up on you own. The chance of a fire, though low with low-powered LEDs, can be devastating in these highly crowded buildings.
This guy is more of a stud than everyone gives him credit. He's got a load of prom pics further in the root of the site. He had a date from the looks of this.. Wait, did he build her? She may be a robot... Stand by...
OYYYY!!! one of us got laid!!
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
You can use a cluster of six or so white LEDs as a reading light - good for offgrid applications because it takes about 12v if you wire them in series.
LEDs are one of the few semiconductors where electromigration is a directly observable effect, and where there's a nice, measureable relationship between operating conditions and lifetime that the casual scientist can see. LEDs are specified with expected initial brightness and a fall-off curve of brightness with age which often drops to 1/2 of the initial luminosity. Run the lamp with less current, and the lifetime curve flattens out; run it with more, and it steepens. All of this because the efficiency depends on the integrity of the P/N junctions which degrade as dopant atoms migrate. Migration, in turn, happens at a rate which depends on applied current and junction temperature.
But, IANASSP (I am not a solid-state physicist) so I might be misremembering my college coursework.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Here's a good place to start: http://www.homepower.com/
After a quick glance, there wasn't much on the website - however, they have had articles on replacing your incandescents with LEDs.
If all else fails - give them a call. Really helpful people.
Somehow I still can't help but mention that there is a town called Greenwich in Connecticut. Damn I feel so ashamed for being that guy.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Those pictures of the dude frying himself on the electrical tower are interesting .. looks like he short-circuited the whole sky.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
2. BEER (Though most women go for flavored malt beverages)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
An even better idea is to short the capacitor using a few kOhm reisistor. Discharging capacitors with a wire is needlessly dramatic, at least on a Monday morning.
Think global, act loco
I don't think you understand the QC implications of illegal.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I totally agree, its sad really. I think the moment I realized this was when I read the comments on the ipod halloween costume story. What a bunch of assholes!
a) WHY are u only looking for a "geek girl".
;)
In my experience, its not good for a geek to date another geek.... The young lady I will be marrying in two weeks time is a Business Consultant. Yet we get along with each other.
b) why do you consider yourself as different?
See you complain about needing "recognition", but you imply you are "different". When I walk in the streets, i am just like everyone else.
Its more to do with personality, and being yourself. also dont be ashamed of being a "geek"... just be yourself. If the lady you are chatting to asks what you are, tell her upstraight without any embaressment, and move on to smiling at her, and flirting with her. These days, being a geek does not have the same stigma of, lets say 20 years ago.
Also girls do realise that its the Geeks who drive the Mercedes/BMWs etc
Have a nice day!
Uh, maybe elion's worked well for you. I ended up taking an extra semester because I trusted eLion's degree audit. And have you ever tried to schedule classes during peak time using elion?
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
He looks okay, but I think he's a little too fond of scat. And I don't mean Ella Fitzgerald.
Nothing says romance like LED lights and an extra-long twin bed.
Several manufacturers are now making high power factor compact fluorescents (power factor >0.9).
I agree that LED lighting may not be terribly efficient and there will have to be some clever work with diffusing the light but its saving grace is that the lamps will last a very long time and the lamp packages can be made very flat which will allow some interesting design changes in products which use lights (like motor vehicles for example). Applications like street lighting and traffic signals and other public space lighting are probably ideal for LED retrofit; even if the lamps cost a lot more the savings in not having to replace them anywhere near as often will pay off quickly.
The problem of getting the illumination pattern even will be solved quickly. Take apart an LCD monitor. Who would believe that that thin cold cathode lamp could illuminate an entire screen so easily? Someone will solve the problem even if you can't see how.
Putting moderation advice in your
Of course, as we all know, "low energy" compact fluorescents are a waste of time *anyway*, because their power factor is so awful that twice as much energy again must be dissipated at the substation to compensate...
1. Even if you count VA instead of watts, a compact fluorescent bulb still draws half the VA of an incandescent bulb.
2. If that's not good enough for you, high power factor compact fluorescent bulbs are available.
3. You probably pay for Watts, not VA. Your electric meter will not charge you for reactive power.
4. If 3 is not the case in your case, you can install a power factor corrector. An active one would be preferable, but a passive one should get you some improvement.
5. There should be power factor correction at the substation, assuming that there isn't some somewhere along the line. I can point out several locations in my neighbourhood where there are power factor correctors on the poles.
www.wavefront-av.com
I have three filament bulbs in my home -- that's including one in the fridge and one in the sewing machine. {No light in the oven. I was thinking to fix a gas mantle on a wire so that it could be lowered into or out of the burner to provide a light; but I changed my mind when I found out what was in them. Besides which, haven't you ever heard of baking blind? :) } The third one is in my bedside lamp; it's on a turn-for-off dimmer switch {thus precluding any kind of fluorescent} and so tends to last about five years at a stretch. This is only ever on for short periods like long enough to get out of bed and put the main light on, or perhaps an hour of reading. Everything else is lit by compact fluorescents {with a standard push-and-twist base fitting like any ordinary light bulb; note that the cheaper ones are only double-folded and so longer than the more expensive triple-folded ones} except the loft, which is lit by "ordinary" fluorescent strip lights. {Unfortunately they're low power factor types, but just require some additional capacitors to correct this. Anyway, the main issue with low power factor is voltage drop in the cable, and I happen to know there's less than 10 metres of 1.0mm2 copper T&E cable from the fusebox to the luminaire in this case.}
If you're retrofitting, compact fluorescents are the obvious way of doing it. If you're wiring from scratch, it might be worth using small fluorescent striplights. Avoid halogen lights at any cost -- they're still filament bulbs. It may be worth arranging rooms so as to take advantage of natural daylight as far as possible. I guess I'm lucky living in a Victorian two-up-two-down, since this would have been designed with the sun as the primary illumination source. Judging by the evidence I've seen, the building was first wired for electricity sometime early last century {definitely before WWII} and completely re-wired about 25 years ago.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
If you want it even brighter, without affecting the life of the LED itself, you can use Pulse Width Modulation. I built some LED replacements for some microscopes at a lab I worked for and it works you can run the LEDs at twice the current which would mean moving up to 40 watts but I think it is worth it for the extra brightness.
Better still, Fry's has Christmas lights made of LEDs going for $9.99 for a box of 50/100, I don't remeber exactly. It has different colors but a constant illumination. Maybe you can just work on it to make interesting things and would be more safe also, and they also provide some warranty too.
Bravo!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Maybe I should clean my apartment before I worry about color-changing LEDs for my bed...
-Rich
Whatever, he's cute.
postmodernsideshow.com
Sure would like to read it:
Forbidden
Available bandwidth quota for this filesystem has been exceeded.
(/bkpeters/www/LEDBed/index.html)
Please, try again later.
Sleep is for the Weak
Correct in theory, but not exactly in practice. Though the LEDs themselves don't take much power to light up, he has also said that he uses an LM317 voltage regulator -- there aren't schematics but being familiar with the part, he's probably using them in a current source configuration.
LM317 are LDO devices -- low drop off -- but if you have a 5V voltage source (probably from a power source or something) then your power becomes ~20 mA * 5V because there will be a voltage drop across the voltage regulator.
Not a huge difference certainly, but it's important to consider all components when calculating power, not just the end component.
You can tell by the fact that he wears socks with sandals that he's not trying very hard to hide his geekosity with fashion.
...because, let's face it, you don't always feel like using a condom, even when you have one in your pocket.
But, by handing out condoms to your kids, you're sending a clear message that you're ok with them having sex, and that there will be no negative consequences to their choice to engage in intercourse.
I've seen this happen first hand. Mom gave daughter condoms. Daughter got herself a boyfriend. Daughter gets pregnant. Oops! So much for that pile of prophylactics sitting in her dresser drawer at home...
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Did you see the plasma screen above the stove? Poor planning? Move it 4 feet to the right or left, maybe a stylish swing arm of some type.
-- No sig for you!
Linky.
No images, though. Bummer.
Yay, Mirrordot!
I think ur post is one of those posts that really talked about doing those projects.( Unlike Funny or Slashdot blaming ones).Great story and comment,Iam gonna try this.Hope you are gonna try to,and post pics of ur room on the web( prbly with the babe u acquired too! :p) .
Your slashdot id no. "4500" is real kewl!
Why does yahoo do this
Christ are there really any 30 year old virgins here? I mean seriously guys its not THAT hard to get some sex.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
...check out these dancing digs. Very handy for showing off your, er, potential... on the road.
Well, kinda, but if you actually want to light your house with the things, you're going to be disappointed. Coloured LEDs have efficiency rather better than that of incandescent bulbs, but fluorescents still beat them. White LEDs are only up there with the better halogens in lumens-per-watt terms. Their colour rendering is actually very good (certainly when compared with high efficiency triphosphor fluorescents), but there's not yet any practical way to get useful light levels from them over more than a small area.
For reading lamps, accent lights and flashlights, regular 5mm LEDs and the high power "super-LEDs" (Luxeon Stars and their clones) work well. If you want to replace a lamp with a rating of tens of watts in incandescent terms, LEDs ain't there yet.
I'm still trying to figure out your sex from your sig. It could be either, I suppose. I think.
Or you just found a pithy one-liner and I'm reading too far into it. Could be.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Don't know if many experimenters know this, but long wave ultraviolet LEDs are available.
See www.hosfelt.com, or it might only be in their catalog as they don't list everthing online.
Their number: 800-524-6464
p/n's 25-497 and p/n 25-498
have fun!
I haven't seen so many cold solder joints since I was a kid. ;)
Hmmm... I wonder if he'll sell it on eBay... the title could be LED bed gets the women, get yours now... Well, at least I could fine the Inova X1 on there.
Somehow I still can't help but mention that there is a town called Greenwich in Connecticut. Damn I feel so ashamed for being that guy.
Then feel shame no more. I shall take up the burden and proudly proclaim:
"There is a town called Greenwich within the state of Connecticut!"
Does that make you feel better?
I like the look. Especially the blue colors.
Considering that GMT+5:30 is India and GMT+8 is China, If more live outside that band than in, it's by a smaller margin than you think.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
...normal LEDs light at maximum with about 10-15mA, after that
they burn out pretty quickly.
If you put enought current through a LED, it will become an LER (Light Emitting Resistor).
If you open your mind too wide, people will throw trash in it.
There are other problem with compact fluorescents, though. I can't put up with the flickering, and even the most powerful ones put out such a pathetic amount of light. Not to mention the really ugly, sickly greenish colour temperature that makes everything look like The Matrix.
Damn, you're correct of course. I really meant -5 to -8.
I'd have thought that -5 to -8 (mostly the americas), +2 to -1 most of europe and africa, and +5 to +8 india, china, would all have been roughly equal in terms of population. But I can't be bothered checking the veracity of my assertation....Thank you.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
if you don't feel like being nerdy, you can always buy the high-end version.. computer controlled, with lots of different fixtures.. http://www.colorkinetics.com
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Now think about the flashlight people's perspective. I don't know the breakdown of how much of their (say Maglite's) revenue comes from new flashlight sales versus replacement bulbs, but I bet the bulbs are a prety big moneymaker. LEDs threaten that business model. Like razor blades, right? Why are they still making flashlights with incandescent bulbs? $$$
Well, there's india, china [alone a third of the world's population] and whatever else is in those timezones.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
But what bothers me is the *waste of power*, whether I pay for it or not.
Then you should be using CF's, not incandescent. Say you were using a 100W incandescent bulb. Since the bulb is a resistive load, 100W = 100VA. An equivalent CF will use 24-26W, and, unless it is a high power factor model, it will use about 50VA. That is still way less than 100W.
Even if you use low power factor models, the utility will still absorb the reactive power in your neighbourhood. If you really want to focus your attention on bad power factors, you might do better to examine your computer and any motorized appliances you own, because they tend to have very bad power factors.
Of course, if you're offgrid and running it all from a 24VDC supply, it's not an issue.
Actually, it becomes a bigger issue, and power factor correction becomes critical. Inverters are rated in VA rather than Watts. While a 3600VA inverter can, in fact, deliver 3600W, it can only do so if the power factor of that load is 1.
I can't put up with the flickering, and even the most powerful ones put out such a pathetic amount of light.
When did you last try them? 1980?!? I've seen noticeable improvements just in the last year, and I've been using them with satisfactory results for over ten years. There is not flicker, and light output is high. Not only that, but the newest one I put in (replaced one that got smashed a week ago) actually comes up to full intensity immediately.
Not to mention the really ugly, sickly greenish colour temperature that makes everything look like The Matrix.
The colour temperature is slightly different from incandescent, sure. It isn't that far off, though. The sickly green colour is a thing that was left behind in the mid-90's, even in the cheapest of cheap.
I think you are just afraid.
www.wavefront-av.com
Actually, it becomes a bigger issue, and power factor correction becomes critical. Inverters are rated in VA rather than Watts. While a 3600VA inverter can, in fact, deliver 3600W, it can only do so if the power factor of that load is 1.
Not if you're using 24V lamps. What's the point of generating power and storing it in batteries, just to kick it up to 240V for use in lamps?
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