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Making Strides Toward Low-Cost LED Lighting
Roland Piquepaille writes "You all know that incandescent bulbs are pretty inefficient, converting only 10% of electricity into light — and 90% into heat. Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, could soon replace incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs in our homes. They are more efficient and environmentally friendly. But LED lights are currently too expensive because they are using a sapphire-based technology. Now, Purdue University researchers have found a way to build low-cost and bright LEDs for home lighting. According to the researchers, the LED lights now on the market cost about $100 while LED lights based on their new technology could be commercially available within a couple of years for a cost of about $5. It would also help to cut our electricity bill by about 10%."
They will be way more environmentally friendly. No mercury involved.
No mercury = huge improvement
But how much of an improvement will they be over fluorescent lights, which we already have at an affordable price?
Well, they won't flicker, they won't contain mercury, and they won't be too big to fit in many light fixtures.
Even if LEDs aren't any more efficient than current CFLs, they'll be a lot more attractive to people who don't like or can't use fluorescent lights.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I'd be interested to see a progression timeline of the light vs. heat ratio from the various methods we've used. I'd imagine candle and torches would be the heaviest on the heat side, but seeing it slide with gas lamps, lanterns, incandescents, CFLs, and now LEDs would be neat. Anyone have some spare time on their hands?
With the cost of solar cells and LEDs plummeting, a solar cell roof installation with closed-circuit LEDs might soon become cheaper than a ceiling window.
What do you know! Soon enough it'll all get so efficient that with closed-circuit LEDs shining on solar cells you'll be able to make your own infinite source of energy!!
Oh shit that's a hell of good idea! The first one to the patent office wins!!
You just got troll'd!
Take a hint from the car manufacturers. Today, high-end cars are using LED tail lights. They are also used on trucks. The main advantage is they do not burn out.
However, for most people in the world a burned-out tail light bulb is a minor safety issue and a minor expense. Replacing the bulb takes 10 minutes and maybe the owner's manual if you are truely clueless about how to do it. Also, many people own a car for 5+ years without ever having to replace a single bulb.
Compare this to the cost of a minor traffic accident where a tail light is cracked. No, you cannot replace the lens or any individual part, just the whole assembly. Instead of $100-$200 for an incandescent bulb assembly expect to pay $1500-$2000 for the LED tail light.
Sure, over the life of many vehicles it is a minor issue that bulbs will never burn out. But over the same number of vehicles it is far, far more likely that a lamp assembly will have to be replaced. The result is a far more expensive part to replace.
With trucks there is a certain amount of sense to be made with claiming that the bulbs do not have to be replaced. Replacing a bulb on a truck or semi-trailer can be a real hassle requiring a ladder and tools. However, again the likelyhood the bulb would ever need to be replaced vs. the lens being damaged is about the same as for cars. Basically, it is a complete rip-off.
Expect to see wired-in LED systems in household lamps where the fixture must be replaced because the bulbs cannot be. Expect to see the fixtures sold to builders with non-replacable bulbs will cost the builder only slightly more when bought in huge quantities but the homeowner will be faced with $1000 lamp fixtures should they ever need or desire to replace them.
Many of these white LEDs are blue or UV LEDs that stimulate a phosphor coating to produce white light.
Having three Red Green Blue LEDs to create white light might produce a light that appears white to the eye, but might not have the same effect when reflected off material.
The white from the phosphor would generate more of a broad spectrum white, whereas the Red, Green and Blue LEDs would probably create spikes in the Red, Green and Blue spectrum.
So you might have a green material that appears black when you use the "RGB white" LED - just because it does not reflect the Green LED's narrow green, whereas it will appear green in the white from the phosphor white LED.
The phosphor means one more step in light conversion, and that probably means less efficiency.
In addition the no mercuary as already noted, they will have a longer life, be less fragile, and be smaller.
Infuriate left and right
They really have a phobia about LEDs there- especially if there are wires attached like an AC cord.
It's so Roland the Plogger.
The "breakthrough" this time is that someone made gallium nitride substrates that might, someday, be useful for LEDs. After they solve the problem that their material cracks during cooling. However, Panasonic did that last year, and has been shipping white LEDs using that approach in sample quantities.
I don't know about the USA, but if LED-lights cost about $100,00 over there I'm going to set up an export-company. They're like E 10,00 in the Netherlands. Of course, with the current exchange-rates that could well be $500,00 tomorrow.
I realise it's customary not to RTFA, but I would think that the submitters would at least read what they submit. Roland wrote:
The article says:
Far from the same thing. But I suppose that's another reason people don't like Roland.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
So, suck it up, I hear you say. Right, except that each blink leaves an annoying remanent patch on my retina that lasts for a few seconds. Imagine driving at night in a city, 10 cars in your field of vision, look left, right and suddenly you have 200 spots in your field of vision. Awesome to know what's going on, right ?
I loathed the xenon high beams when they first came out a few years ago. You know, those tiny very concentrated blue lights ? Leaves a retina trail that lasts for 20 seconds. I'm so glad that they are gone now. I've never heard if they were made illegal or if they just went out of fashion, but I hope LEDs (which are a good technology) are applied in a good way...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I would have absolutely agreed a few years ago. Traditional fluorescents hurt my eyes after a while, and incandescents are slightly warmer, and yellower, like natural light. However, the new compact fluorescents are awfully good, and with certain ones I can't tell the difference between them and incandescent bulbs.
Another article http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/86/i28/html/8628cover4.html provides some interesting information on organic LEDs - OLEDs have interesting design applications since you can make them in flat sheets
(I think an illuminating wall would be way cool, but maybe thats just me :-))
Right now efficiencies are similar to the inorganic LEDs and fluorescent bulbs.
LED light bulbs are coming along. I've been keeping my eye on the GeoBulb sold by C Crane, but it's about $120 and always seems to be listed as out of stock. It is available in three color temperatures, however, so perhaps that's been worked out. There are a few others, including some T8 replacements. Unfortunately, they're all expensive and the ones that fit standard sockets max out at about the equivalent of a 60 watt incandescent. But these things will get worked out. On the plus side, advantages include not just electrical savings and longevity, but also less heat (less risk of fire) and less vulnerability to things like vibration and moderate temperature changes. Unlike compact fluorescents, they contain no mercury and turn on/off instantly. I believe some are dimmable, but I'm not sure. In any case, it seems clear that it will only take a few years of fairly routine development for LED bulbs to be much more practical than all the alternatives. There doesn't seem to be a down side.
The summary would seem to imply only modest electrical savings. I'm pretty sure the 10% figure just reflects the fact that light bulbs are only part of your electrical picture. The rated wattage for a 60-watt equivalent is about 8 watts. Correcting for overoptimism, that's about 80% savings wherever you plug one of these in.
Poster saith:
TFA saith:
Me: "I live in Canuckistanbul - we NEED the heat, you ignorant clods!"
Electricity costs less than oil or gas here ... it's cheaper to get some extra BTUs from incandescents in the winter months ...
2003 called, it wants it's CFL stereotypes back.
CFLs don't flicker like old ballast-type fluorescent tubes of decades ago. And the newer ultra-compact ones are actually smaller than the incandescent bulbs they replace. I have one in the swing-arm desk lamp in front of me right now, and the tip of the bulb no longer protrudes past the end of the shade like the old bulbs I used in it long ago. In my bathroom I have CFL bulbs made to look identical to G25 globe lights, in the same fixture with the actual incandescent bulb I am slowly replacing. They appear the same except the CFLs are brighter and their light isn't as yellow.
I will give you the mercury, though.
Another thing I imagine might be to make the LED as an integrated circuit - an array of LEDS with each junction a slightly different gap than the preceding, so while you don't really get a true continuum, a few million different colors would be awfully close (and besides the frequency that an LED produces does have a band width, so if each color is close enough, you do get a continuum with enough colors.)
Anyone know if anyone is working on either method?
They'll also have a longer lifetime than CFLs. The article says they could last as long as 15 years, compared to CFLs which I believe have an expected life of about 7 years.
not just an illuminating wall. Imagine the entire ceiling covered in an OLED sheet and have lighting do cool stuff like follow you around or whatever. Rooms with people get lit while others don't. Crazy flashy lights for parties. the possibilities are limitless!
Balderdash!
Can LED's be dimmed? As far as I've seen it's not possible.
Not so. LEDs can be dimmed either by regulating the forward DC current (then they don't flicker at all) or by pulse-modulating some fixed current; the LEDs in the latter case will flicker only if the frequency of the pulses is too low. LEDs have very low capacitance and inductance, so they can be easily pulsed with any high frequency of your choice, though 1 kHz would be more than enough. And as I said the DC source works also.
The mercury depends on efficiency aswell. Modern CFLs have <=2mg mercury content, (at least the CFLs I own). Over a 5 year period, the electricity needed for CFLs, generated by coal based power plants in some portion, releases 2.4mg of mercury into the air. For incandescents the number is 10mg over a 5 year period. LED lighting is currently less efficient than CFL, so more mercury gets into the air.
The question is really, whether you prefer 2.4mg of mercury in air plus 2mg in the landfills, or more than 2.4mg of mercury in the air. Until LEDs become more efficient than CFLs, I'll opt for CFLs.
Note, there is a confusion over LED vs CFL efficiency. LEDs generate light more efficiently than CFLs, but they do so in a narrow arc. To make it useful for everday applications conversion to a wider arc takes place and that causes efficiency loss.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
As far as I know, the most used variant is the blue LED + yellow phosphor one. In this case, the blue light, emitted by the LED, is cast directly, besides the yellow light coming from the phosphor. The mix of blue and yellow produces white light.
Unfortunately, these LEDs don't produce a very broad spectrum of light either. The spectrum has a sharp peak in the blue range, and a bit broader yellow range, as can be seen on this graph on the Wikipedia page.
LED lighting is already cost effective in certain situations. I priced a cable-hung low-voltage lighting system using LED-based MR-16 socket bulbs vs. 12 volt halogen incandescent and the system pays back in less than a year in electricity savings. That doesn't even count the significantly smaller number of bulb changes that are required.
If you have a large number of low wattage/low voltage light sources, CFL is not viable, but LED is. The power requirements are so much lower that smaller transformers can be spec'd, you can string piles more of them on a circuit, saving even more money.
There are some neat bulbs available at http://www.theledlight.com.
you need to look at the Color Temperature when you buy CFL bulbs. A CFL rated at 2700 degrees Color Temperature will look almost exactly like an incandescent light. A CT of 3000 degrees is called a warm white and is very pleasing. A CT of 4000 is called a cool white and looks a little bit blue. And a CT of 5000 degrees or more is about the same color as Sunlight and appears to be very blue indoors.
I really like the color you get when a 2700 & 5000 degree light are in the same fixture, everything looks bright and colorful.
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
Luxim Plasma
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
>CFLs don't flicker...
CFLs cause me migraines and other visual problems. I recently changed all my home lighting, where possible, to CFLs.
After a week, I began suffering from an extreme migraine. As the CFL's made it difficult for me to read or focus on small objects - I instantly held them suspect. To test my theory, I changed all the lighting back, and by the next day my life had certainly improved.
I gave it a month and tried the CFL's again, and again after a week a migraine set in. I intend to remove them tomorrow. My girlfriend (as in a living 3D female human-being) who doesn't normally suffer from migraines has been complaining of symptoms while I had the CFLs in.
I think CFLs definitely have a use but not as a be all and end all of general home lighting. The most pleasant affordable technology for me is halogen lighting. I am looking forward to what LED and OLED technology has to offer in the near future.
--
Deceive the rich and powerful if you will, but don't insult them.
[Rent This Space]
Well, they won't flicker, they won't contain mercury, and they won't be too big to fit in many light fixtures.
Even if LEDs aren't any more efficient than current CFLs, they'll be a lot more attractive to people who don't like or can't use fluorescent lights.
Have you actually looked at high-quality CFL bulbs? A good daylight bulb is a thing of beauty. No flicker (and, you know, CFL bulbs have never had flicker because they are run at much, much higher frequencies than you visual sytem can see), proper color balance, small, reliable, quiet.
Note that I'm not talking about the two or four foot long fluorescent bulbs that you might have in your office. Those are probably not daylight balanced and probably flicker at 120 Hz (yes, 120 Hz, not 60 Hz, because both half cycles push current; unless you're in part of the world which runs on 50 Hz mains, in which case they flicker at 100 Hz). Their ballasts also have a tendency to buzz.
Good CFLs are wonderful.
Note, also, that many LED bulbs you can get these days are simply awful because they flicker at 60 Hz (yes, 60 Hz, because they're arranged in cascading diode fashion and only conduct on every other half cycle) and the phosphors are terrible. They also lose brightness at an astonishing rate and are horribly temperature sensitive (hotter chip, lower light output). The 60 Hz issue can certainly be fixed with better circuitry (ie, bridge rectifiers and some low-pass filtering) and one hopes that the phosphors and lifetime improve.
Wait, phosphors in an LED? What am I smoking? Yes, it's true, most white LED bulbs for sale are actually UV emitters that excite phosphors. And just like fluorescents, the better the phosphors, the better the output spectrum. While it is possible to generate white-ish light from a combination of red, blue, and green LEDs, because the aging curves are different for the three classes of emitters, the color balance is dynamic over the bulb lifetime. And, also, the spectrum is terrible -- even the spectrum from fluorescents is better -- because it's essentially three isolated wavelengths instead of a continuous spectrum.
LEDs have a long, long way to go before they can be used in living or working spaces.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
That's a great idea! I'm gonna be mounting a wind power generator on my car to improve gas mileage. I don't think it'll get all the way to infinite but I bet I could easily get a good 300-350MPG out of this thing!
A fool and his lamb are worth two in the bush.
I bought mine at Wal-Mart. They're GE brand and were right next to their older, longer GE bretheren on the display. The package said "Smaller Size" right on it in big letters. They came in a two pack instead of a three, and they are more expensive than the older ones. But they also put out a few lumens more (not much, but still slightly higher) than the longer ones, even though they were both rated for the same "incandescent watt" equivalent. They are rated for longer life though, 10,000 hours verses 8,000 for the older ones.
I just attempted to measure, and the bulb is almost an entire inch back from the edge of the lamp shade (this is with a 60w equiv. bulb).
GE only offers two color temperatures in its bulbs (faux incandescent color, and cool blue). Home Depot sells a brand called n:vision that comes in three temperatures. They also seem to be ultra-compact, but not quite as small as the GEs, they are cheaper though. I picked up these to replace the CFLs in my ceiling fixture when I moved into my place (I found the ones already there too yellow). I couldn't fit the old bulbs into the package for storage easily because they were longer than the n:visions brand.
The G25 bulbs were also GE brand, but I can only find them at Target and Ace Hardware, Wal-Mart sells a Philips brand I tried that is really lousy (like three bulbs have burnt out in one year bad, the old incandescent beat them in life). The GE G25 CFL bulbs are slightly smaller in globe diameter than the incandescent, but it's not that noticeable. They are also rated at 10,000 hrs.
I have a new way to deal with Roland Piquepaille spam, every time I see an article by him I go away for 3 days.
So, see you on the 24th...
MP3 Search Engine
I've never had a CFL burnout
They will do. My parents were early adopters (must be over 15 years since we had them), I think the only incandescent light in their house is in the microwave.
I remember the first ones cost about £10 and were massive, heavy things and they did flicker, and take five minutes to warm up. But the ones made in the last 5 years or more are brighter, white, don't flicker, and don't buzz. They do (eventually) burn out though.
Yellowy incandescent lights remind me of my grandma's house; admittedly the yellow effect was enhanced by her cigarette smoke.
They are already more efficient. I have a 3W MagLite that runs on 2AA and will blind you.
Mercury in the CFL's are not as much of a concern as mercury in those 4' flouro's of the commercial buildings, but maybe they are more likely to be recycled.
Eating tuna might be more of a problem though.
http://www.gotmercury.org/article.php?list=type&type=75
'Me: "I live in Canuckistanbul - we NEED the heat, you ignorant clods!" '
um, that heat really does you a lot of good up there on the ceiling, that 60 watt desk lamp is probably too far away from you as well.
just pointing out that thermodynamics mean that all that waste heat is really wasted, unless you want to sit directly above your light source, you're getting 0 benefit.
besides, there are plenty of efficient electric heat sources that let you heat just one room, or 'just one person' not to mention you could just wear a parka all the time.
electric blankets don't cost much, and are nice and cozy even from the couch. although in practical terms, you need to keep the pipes from freezing etc, you can keep a place nice and cold, without risking bursting pipes.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Very dim. About 50% of the amount of light they advertised to put out.
Even adding a lot of these wouldn't increase the light above "dismal" level-- the intensity of the light was just lower than that put out by CFL and incandescent.
I want LED to work-- they last a long time, they use no power, and they have no mercury.
These might be okay for a porch light-- dim but always on.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Intensity and light output are two different things. LED lighting doesn't exceed the efficiency of fluorescent lighting in terms of lumens per watt yet. Many LED manufacturers continue to announce products they claim exceed the efficiency of fluorescent lighting, but they haven't actually managed to do it yet. That said, they're getting very close.
because they aren't going to exist much longer into the future. http://www.idtechex.com/products/en/articles/00000591.asp
I also find it ironic that everyone seems to love that mercury is not contained in LED's, yet is it essential to the extraction of gallium from ore.
According to the blurb, current LED bulbs sell for $100 and they expect this new breakthrough to lower the cost to $5. I can see that being possible for the manufacturing cost, but the cost to the consumer will always be set to one click below 'haha yeah right'. It's the way of business. Look at how many times in the past couple years we've been told that the cost to manufacture solar panels will be cut in half. You'd think with all that progress we'd be able to roof a house with them for about $10, when actually the cost remains one click below 'are you insane?' as always.
Dimming LED's.
LED's are commonly dimmed in headlamps. I have right next to me a Petzel Tikka XP Headlamp that has multiple LED light settings. And yes, each of those settings is a different dim setting. The LED can also be "over-driven" for a short period, putting out more light than normal.
So, parent poster is correct, LED's do dim, and they dim quite well.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Unbroken florescent tubes can be collected and safely disposed of.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The LF version flickers with 50 or 60 Hz (depending on where you live) while the HF version has a lot higher frequency and will be almost flicker-free.
LED:s also suffers from flickering if you feed them with AC, but if you use DC and a low-pass filter you will get rid of the flickering.
The color spectrum is also different depending on the type of light source.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
* no flicker
* INSTANT on
* INSTANT max-brigtness
* 5W v.s. 16W for a 700lumen bulb replacement LED v.s. CFL - efficiencies scale better for LED than CFL for lower lumans, but benefit CFL for higher lumans.
* lighter
* more durable
* no mercury
* longer life expectancy
The two negatives are the color spectrum and price of LEDs. You can get very nice ranges of colors in CFL's these days (soft, white, 'natural daylight'). The few LED lights I've sampled have very distinct colors.
CFL's are already cheaper than incandecents even if you ignore energy costs (due to 1/4 to 1/10th the replacement schedule). LEDs advertise 6x the life of CFLs. While I'm aware of CFL's not all being equal - cheaper brands get 70% of their advertised life, while many name-brands get 120% of their ratings. LEDs haven't had anywhere near the public testing (because there aren't enough volume vendors to test against).
-Michael
LED displays already exist. Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas (giant canopy display) is a giant LED screen. Some of the modular large screens are also built this way. Many stadiums are also already using LEDs for certain displays. As for programmable room lighting, go check instructables. They have a bunch of projects there (I plan on building one myself in the near future). If you use the right controller, you can auto sync your room lighting to whatever music is playing and the like. Cool stuff.
they won't flicker
My CFLs don't flicker either. I've been buying CFLs for more than 10 years and I never had one that did flicker.
they won't contain mercury
True but coal fired power plants emit more mercury to produce the electricity to power incandescent lights than CFLs contain. On top of that, I wonder what alphabet soup of toxins are created in the manufacturing of LEDs? And how does that compare to the manufacture of CFLs?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
That's all well and good but you would be surprised at how much mercury gets into the environment from dental fillings and how few people will pay the extra $15.00 to get composite fillings!
Not everyone knows dental fillings contain mercury. I got into an argument with someone over that, I had to prove to them mercury was used. And not all dentists use composite fillings.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
One night, I had to replace a light bulb in the bathroom over the sink. It was a pretty far reach but I was able to remove the old incandescent fine. I had one more CFL in an open pack of bulbs. As I was trying to screw it in, I dropped it in the sink and it shattered.
Crap. Well, that's OK...I don't really use that CFL in the ceiling much, and since I use the light over the sink more I'll just pull the CFL from the ceiling and put a spare incandescent there. Unscrew, unscrew....*CRASH*
So to answer your question...twice in one night :P
You could vote it down in the firehose.
Funny thing, that.
The dutch wikipedia site shows they do:
Dutch article on Ledlamps
See the table...
Where, then, are you proposing the heat actually goes? Basic thermodynamics, energy does not simply disappear. Some minor fraction might escape via various means, but the rest eventually ends up in the air of the room, and convection takes care of the rest. It might not be *fast*, but that doesn't mean it's wasted. Also, it's physically impossible to have an inefficient heat source, so I'm not seeing the point of describing one as efficient. Effective, sure. Efficient, no. It's certainly possible to use less energy by heating only what is necessary (i.e. yourself), but that's a matter of targeted heat transfer, not efficiency. If, on the other hand, you want to keep a room or a house warm, the only relevant factor is the rate of heat transfer from within the system to the surroundings - any transfer of heat into the system is not wasted, given the reasonable (I think, for anyone wanting to prove me wrong, this is where I might be mistaken) assumption that the rate of dissipation of heat within the system is far greater than the rate of heat loss to the surroundings.
Nobody expects the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
Ordinary LEDs do stop working eventually. Take a look at some of the early streetlights, you will see dead LEDs (somebody suggested they be called DEDs - Dark Emitting Devices). They have a finite lifespan, and gradually become more dim. That said, they will often last 10-20 years in ordinary usage.
If you put them on a dimmer, make sure the power is maxed. My parents have had several CFLS die, all on their lights that have dimmers. They will buzz and flicker more on a dimmer as well. When we remodeled, we didn't use any dimmers, because we have all CFLs. Will LEDs work on a dimmer?
Maybe some day the US will get the idea that you shouldn't put things containing mercury (and other things toxic to our planet) into household waste that will end up in landfills. Here in Europe we actually recycle (!) and CFL bulbs do not go into landfills, they are properly recycled so the mercury doesn't end up where it shouldn't be.
We do. Our recycling facilities take back CFL bulbs as do several commercial chains which sell the bulbs, most recently announced, the Home Depot. So it's just as easy as taking the burnt out bulb back when you go to purchase the new one.
That being said I don't know what all the fuss is about. Read the posts above - there are so many more meaningful sources of mercury that are "socially acceptable", yet we harp on CFL's. It's all posturing.
LED lighting doesn't exceed the efficiency of fluorescent lighting in terms of lumens per watt yet.
Your description of the problem displays a level of ignorance which could easily be corrected by simply reading wikipedia. The simple truth is that there are numerous LED lights which are more efficient than flourescents, but there is a very good reason why the bulk of them are not.
This reason is that white LEDs are fluorescent lights. Not all of them, but all the cheap ones. That's because the alternative is to use multiple junctions in a package to produce a mixture of light to produce the whitest possible light. There are bicolor and tricolor (and for all I know quadcolor) LEDs, some of which are tuned for the closest thing you can get to white, and some of which are tunable.
The typical white LED is a blue LED (the most expensive single-color visible LED) doped with a material which emits yellow light when the blue light strikes it. This method does not produce the brightest light nor the whitest, but it is by far the cheapest way to produce a "white" LED.
The 3W mag-lite may not be more efficient than an imaginary flourescent that would produce the same amount of light, but they do illustrate a different point; the flourescent has a glass tube filled with toxic shit and a ballast to drive it. You can build the voltage regulation hardware right into an LED and just hook it up to some LVDC. I would be extremely amazed if the total lifetime energy cost of flourescent lighting were not significantly higher than that of LED lighting.
In short, [typical] white LEDs are not more efficient than fluorescent lighting because they are fluorescent lighting. When the cost of blue LEDs come down, and tricolor LEDs become more ubiquitous, then the price of the more-efficient "white" (in this case, tricolor) LED lighting will come down.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Extra current will do it too... Ever tried to hook an LED up to a power source without adding a current limiting resistor?
Good times.