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Screw-in LED Floodlights
Anonymous Coward writes "This company claims to have the first LED flood lights that you simply screw in as a replacement for your old bulb. enluxled.com are also claiming it's cool enough to handle, more damage resistant, longer lasting (50,000 hours) and only uses 22w to produce twice the light of a 100w bulb." And hideously expensive, but you never have to change them.
no, it's just 5 years of continuious operation.
Assuming that you use it for 5 hours a week (i would like to put this in to replace the floodlights in my backyard which are mounted high on the house and need to be replaced every year or so) it would last for 192 years. That's pretty much forever, at least long enough so my children and their children won't need to replace the bulb.
I live in the middle of an Amish community. I know that LED has been growing amongst them as a lighting source. An LED table lamp powered by batteries is becoming quite common replacing the hot, noisy and potentially dangerous gas lights that have been used in the past.
They come in 45 watt and 65 watt equivalent bulbs, not twice the output of a 100 watt bulb as stated in the article ;) At this moment a CF bulb can be more efficient than them, pulling as little as 14 watts to produce the same output they do at 22. Tubular fluorescent bulbs are even more efficient.
They do look cool though, and LED's get better and more efficient every year.
At a watt or 2 there is nothing that can touch an LED as far as efficiency, but as soon as you go to higher power levels then even a halogen bulb can be more efficient. In my 1AA flashlights nothing is better than an LED. Plugged into the wall you're better off with a CF bulb.
Reasons for using LED over Flourescent:
1) When a flourescent bulb fails, it stops giving off light completely. Usually and LED light will only have 1 led fail at a time. Given theis, you don't have large areas of darkness and don't have to replace the bulb immediatley when a part fails. LEDs fail gracefully.
2) LEDs are more resistant to damage.
3) The LEDs appear to not need to be replaced as often as Flourescent. The largest "Pain" in lighting is having to replace the bulbs. If these new LEDs last sufficiently longer than Flourescnets, they pay for themselves in labor.
4) I'm not sure about this, but I don't think I've seend flourescent spot lights before. However, the LEDs might be able to put out more light than flourescents.
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They are only rated to -4F. We expect at least -10F every Winter in Minneapolis area.
THIS IS NOT TRUE!!
The specs for the light are I beleive 300 lumens. This is more like a 45-60 watt bulb.
A 100 watt bulb might generate 1500+ lumens.
It still is significantly more efficient, and with a SIGNIFICANTLY longer life span, but it is not equal to a 100 watt bulb.
When these first came out (won some awards) I checked them out for this very thing.
They also are not an all around type light a la a lightbulb, more of a spotlight (90 degree beam angle?), so better for flooding a wall or artwork with color / light.
Still super cool. Still a bit expensive.
According to the GE web site, their regular old 90W floodlight produces 1,100 lumens. Move up to a halogen 100W from Sylvania, and you're at 1,500 watts. From what I saw on the Enluxed web site, their 22w (nominal) LED floodlights produce 300 lumens.
I'm a big fan of LED lighting (having bought three LED flashlights last night as presents), but this is just absurd -- unless there is some kind of misprint or my reading comprehension is not up to par today.
Where are you located. In most areas of the US electricity is around 8c/KWH
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And since we have to walk on a 40' high plaster ceiling that is 40 years old, the lesser trips we make to change house lights, the better it is, no matter what the cost may be.
Is anyone else annoyed by the trend by hotels with replacing EVERY bulb in a room with compact fluorescents? One hotel I was at recently (the Boston Westin) did this, and I've seen a trend towards this more and more. With every light in the room on, it was still a bit dim and uncomfortable to read a book on the bed. Pretty annoying. It seems like much of the savings of fluorescent and other "cost saving" bulbs are from dimming the lumens of output.
Given that these LED bulbs are dimmer than a normal one too, the savings seem questionable. It's like saying that you can double your gas mileage in a new car assuming you drive it half as much.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
In the two years since I installed them, I figure I've already saved $100 in electricity.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
I just installed a ton of recessed lights in my house, and I bought 21 Ushio PAR-20 floods for the 4" cans.
Specs on the Ushio's are:
50 watts at 120 volts
600 lumens
2900K
45 degree flood
These are pretty damn good specs for a 50par20. The Enlux Neutral White is as follows:
22 watts (says 120 volts, but could be 130. Why are they listing figures for 15 watts? Odd.)
300 lumens
3300K
80 degrees
Half the light output. So I'm getting double the light output from just over double the wattage. The color is a bit whiter, which is nice, but I prefer a warmer color. I had a 2800K bulb that I compared to the 2900, and the 2900 was about right. Enlux makes a warmer bulb around this range though, so it's no big deal.
The wide 80 degree flood may be nice in some applications, but spreading 300 lumens over that much area is going to give you very dim light. You want to overlap your lights anyway, but you would need to do much more overlap to get a decent amount of brightness down by the floor. So just popping the bulbs in might not be sufficient if you're picky, you may have to change your lighting layout for optimum coverage and intensity.
I'd like to get ahold of one to compare to some of the bulbs I purchased for testing and comparison, but it's not worth $80 to me.
Note that even if you could put them in recessed cans, the 80 degree width would likely be detrimental because much of your beam would hit the diffuser around the edge and you would lose a ton of your light.
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How does this compare to...Energy saving bulbs we have today?
Power usage for a given amount of light is slightly better (22 vs 26 watts for a 100 watt equivalent).
Life is a lot better. (50,000 hours vs. 6,000, or about 8 1/3 compact fluorescents to match rated lives with one LED lamp.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
In the popular science which they mention these bulbs, they note normal use as 4 hours a day. At that rate it says you get about 35 years out of them:
50,000 hours / 4 hours a day / 365.25 days a year = 34.2 years.
At continuous use (24 hours a day) you get:
50,000 hours / 24 hours a day / 365.25 days a year = 5.7 years.
Very respectable for any lightbulb.
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
Traffic lights, for example, are owned by a city. The city keeps accurate budget information about how its money is spent. Incandescent traffice lights are typically changed on a yearly basis and require a substantial workforce with trucks and ladders to reach the bulbs. One can usually make a convincing case to a city that using LED traffice lights will save $x per year, and so the city opts to use LED lights.
I personally do not keep track of my light bulb spending, and I imagine most households also do not. Thus the "it saves money in the long run" is a much more difficult argument to make.
Furthermore, making white LEDs is typically done either with a blue LED surrounded by something that will emit yellow (and transmit some of the blue) when the blue LED is lit, or by using a red, green, and blue LED together.
The first style has makes a white light that isn't "nice", because it's creating "white" by only combining two colors in the spectrum (blue and yellow). I can't explain it more than that, perhaps someone more knowledgeable can? This style is great for outdoor lighting (street lamps) where "niceness" doesn't matter so much; people aren't trying to read a newspaper but are merely identifying oncoming traffic.
The second style is great (well, as good as RGB monitors), except for one problem: the different colored LEDs wear out at different rates. Thus the color of the light will drift slowly over time and obtain a green hue (how much time? I don't know... 2 years? 5 years?). So, the LEDs may last forever, but the "whiteness" may not last much longer than a conventional bulb.
An aside: what is really cool about the tri-color LEDs is that you could potentially have dials to adjust the relative intensity of the colors and thus produce any color of the rainbow (or RGB spectrum at least), leading to many decorative and even utilitarian applications (e.g. a light inside a water faucet that lights the water according to its temperature).
The drawbacks you list don't exist anymore.
Your "expensive digital ballast" costs $10 at your local Home Depot. Almost every fluorescent fixture sold nowadays uses an electronic ballast. No flicker, instant-on. You can even buy accurate color rendering tubes that simulate daylight.
Sulfur Microwave lamps have two major disadvantages:
1) They're big, not designed for desk lamps and such
2) They use a 2.45GHz microwave generator. That number should sound familiar.... yup, they jam 802.11b/g. For that reason alone, many government installations can not use WiFi.
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Yes, but regular bulbs aren't nearly as heat-sensitive - it's perfectly fine to bake an incandescent bulb in its own heat, but the same even for the much cooler fluorescent bulbs will fry it.
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It's been a while, but I think most of the numbers are still correct;
Lumens/Watt Light Source
100-190 low pressure Sodium (HID)
(150 90W low pressure sodium lamp, clear)
50-150 High pressure Sodium (HID)
(115 1000W dual arc-tube high pressure sodium lamp, clear)
100 Sylvania 18 watt low pressure sodium
84 32W, 48" MOL, T8 OCTRON fluorescent lamp,
60-65 standard F40T12 cool white fluorescent
64 250W mogul based metal halide lamp, clear
60 150W single ended compact metal halide lamp
48-60 compact fluorescents
45-55 Super bright Red/Orange LED
35-45 Super bright Green LED
17.5 Tungsten Halogen Single-End SUPER-Q Frosted Finish D.C. Bay 100Watt
17.5 100W Incandescent A19 Bulb, softwhite
14.5 60W Incandescent A19 Bulb, softwhite (standard bulb)
6 incandescent night light bulb (7w)
6w incandescent flashlight bulbs
For normal home lighting T8 fluorescents are probably your best bet today.
LEDs are good when you're want colored light, when you want a small amount of light, or when the cost/hassle of replacing the bulb is the major factor.
Cree recently announced a 75 lumens per watt white LED, but AFAIK they aren't available in quantity yet.
There's a lot of hope for the future of LEDs, but they're still a few years off.
-- should you believe authority without question?
I wonder why they do not paint fluorescent tube with a yellowish hue to make them warmer. I bet if they would do this, they would conquer a greater market.
f -rh-white.shtml
Compact Fluorescent bulbs come in colour temperatures from 2700-6500K. Higher colour temperatures equal "cooler" light with more blue.
Check these links for an explanation:
* http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Tech-Corner/
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White
I started using CF bulbs a few years ago simply b/c of the geek factor. I've found that quality varies and few remain bright throughout their entire useful life. Some run hotter than others. Also found that different rooms / applications call for different colours. YMMV.
What's wrong with using high beams on the road? You only turn them on when there are no other cars near enough to be bothered by them, and they greatly increse the distance you can see. Great for country roads where you need to see ahead to look for deer/dogs/people.
They are often twice as bright as the cars low beams, and when they are on (with the low beams) there is as much or more light coming from the front of the car as with the high beams alone, and are just as blinding to oncoming traffic (or traffic you are following)
If you are refering to fog lights you are greatly mistaken. Legal fog lights are 55 watt bulbs (model H1 infact), equivelent in power to a typical cars low beam. When they are aimed as they should be, they do not shine up at all and will not "blind" anyone. If you are blinded by a factory or aftermarket fog lights that are aimed correctly (much lower then the headlights), you should not be driving at night yourself. Stand about 20 feet in front of a car with the low beams and fog lights on, look at the light patterns on your legs as you walk toward the car. You should clearly see both light beams and where they are aimed. For a better perspective, bend down and look into the lights, you will see the different heights that they are aimed as noted by the extreme brightness change. There is no way the eyes of an oncoming car are that low to the ground.
Here is are two links that debunk your yellow theory also.
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The Lights of America ballasts are fine, though the color of the lamps themselves are horrid. But for setting up a cheaply blacklit room, there's nothing quite like a $6 ballast and a $6 tube. I helped a fledgling rave promoter get their equipment together on a small budget -- they allocated $50 to blacklights, and I managed to get the entire room covered for that cost (found a supplier that would take the white bulbs back for $2 credit, so got 5 blacklights for $50). I also gave them a laser show unit on "indefinite loan", which meant they paid nothing out of pocket (I already had the unit built) but I got VIP'd in every single week until the city of Pomona passed a shitload of anti-rave ordinances. After that, they just paid me $50 outright to let them keep it because they thought it was cool. I didn't mind, I'd already built improved prototypes by then, and they cost about $30 to make even without any efficiencies of scale.
The cheap fluoros are also decent if you wrap them with stage lighting gels. It's not like they get hot, so the gels can be rolled into tubes and placed directly over the bare bulbs. The gels eventually fade at the ends where the filaments are (I'd imagine from escaped UV) but even this doesn't really affect the color of the output. If you have a sudden need for bad white light, just remove the gel.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Let's bring a bit more factuality to the situation: The parent poster states that heat pumps are cool technology, and that radiant electrical (resistive strip) heating is inefficient.
Guess what? Parent is correct.
Radiant (resistive strip) heating is LESS efficient than a heat pump under many circumstances. "What? No, stupid - radiant strips are 100% efficient! All the power is converted directly to heat!" Yes, it is - but I'm not stupid. Heat pumps are more efficient. Typically, with an outdoor temp of 45F an an indoor temp of 72F, the heat pump moves THREE TIMES as much heat into your fine home as it requires electricity to perform the pumping. IOW, 100W of energy into the heat pump results in 300W of heat into the house. That's three times more efficient than strip heating.
This is not as pronounced at greater temp differentials, and in fact many heat pumps employ supplementary strip heating for really large temp extremes. However, the parent poster's point is well-made and accurate - radiant strip heating IS, in general, less efficient than a heat pump.
I live in Florida - north Florida. It's November 21, and my A/C is on. Every watt I save from running fluourescent or LED lighting is effectively 1.3 to 1.5 watts less electricity used and charged on my power bill. A similar argument can be made for a house using a good heat pump - the extra wattage radiated as heat by an incandescent bulb would provide even more heat if it were used to drive a heat pump instead.
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The initial delay until the bulb turns on is really only limited to fluorescent bulbs. Compact fluorescents are pretty much the same as the regular fluorescent tube lights and require a ballast to start the light up. The reason they need a ballast is due to the initial higher current required to energy the mercury vapor inside the bulb. After the tube is energized the resistance drops considerably and hence requires less current. The ballast is used to control the current between the initial activation of the bulb until it reaches it's normal operating current.
Part of the reason compact fluorescent bulbs were not available until the last 10 years is due to advancements in making the coiled glass, and reducing the size of the ballast. Old ballasts were magnet based and had a longer delay before working and were larger in size. Then electronic ballasts were created and allowed for the ballast to be made smaller. Hence why compact fluorescents are a feasible solution to some lighting problems.
LEDs on the other hand, require DC current like Fluorescent do, but there is no need to reduce the current after the LED turns on initially. So we should be seeing the short turn on time with LED lamps.
Colour rendering should also achieve more full spectrum light, but again, we're all probably used to various incadescent bulbs which have warmer colour rendering. (more yellowish) The enLux website shows neutral white bulbs being available, and should achieve the colour rendering you're looking for.
Newer compact fluorescent bulbs should achieve the colour rendering you want, but again, they still have the initial delay and are difficult to put on a dimmer switch. According to the enLux website, the LED floodlamps they provide are also non-dimmable. This is unfortunate since dimmer controls should simply cause a corresponding number of LEDs inside the bulb to turn off, this would provide some dimming effect. (but would certainly increase the price of the bulb even further) There must be a means of converting the analog voltage level into a corresponding digital signal to turn off a proportional number of LEDs...