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Philips Releases 100W-Equivalent LED Bulb, Runs On Just 23 Watts
MrSeb writes "The Light Fair convention kicks off in Las Vegas this week, so there will be any number of related announcements coming soon. Lighting giant Philips is starting things off early with the announcement of their 100W-equivalent LED bulb, the AmbientLED 23W. The model produces 1700 lumens, putting it at a very respectable 73.9 lm/W. The unveiling comes shortly after Philips' L Prize bulb was made available to consumers. That bulb currently sells for about $60 and is a more efficient light source, capable of 94 lm/W. The two use similar designs; for example, both take advantage of remote phosphor, but the AmbientLED 23W (it will be called the EnduraLED in non-consumer applications) is brighter and lacking in some of the performance characteristics of the L Prize winner, including luminous efficiency and color accuracy. Philips' 100W-equivalent bulb will be available some time in the fourth quarter. Pricing has yet to be announced, but it will likely be well over $30."
At those prices, I expect it to come with a warranty that backs up their "Lasts X years" claim. If you say it lasts 10 years, and you can't even offer a 5-year warranty, I'll keep my $60, thanks. I've seen too many of these bulb manufacturers make promises they knew they couldn't keep. CFL's in particular seem very sensitive to electricity fluctuations and brownouts. I've got a couple of fixtures in my house that burn through them like crazy, even after replacing the switches (finally just put a incandescent back in them and they do fine).
No way I'm slapping down that kind of money for a bulb unless I can be sure the thing is really going to last, and that the company has enough faith in it to put their money where their mouth is. I'd hate to buy a bunch of those only to have some local brownouts blow them in their first year (and find out the company won't back their product up with a replacement or refund).
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
And now we are discovering why they passed the law requiring all light bulbs to be higher efficiency than standard incandescents, so that Philips can sell light bulbs for $30-60.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I have fluorescent lights that use pretty much exactly the same amount of power to output 100W equivalent of light. And those bulbs cost not much more than a buck a piece. What exactly does these provide to me for $30?
Cfls already get 50-70 lumens per watt, so I don't see why I should get out of my seat for a $60 led at does the same. Kind of a straw man to compare them to incandescents, when obviously the most relevant comparison is against fluorescents. IMHO, the best use of LEDs is as a built in light source for particular uses. If you're putting a bulb in a socket anyways, then there's no benefit over cfls.
The ROI on these for average residential use is just way too high. Many people just do not use enough energy to make those worth the cost.
The LEDs I have seen in the small sizes are just pi$$ weak. Compact fluorescents get less energy efficient in the smaller sizes, but I am thinking that since the big light bulbs have multiple LEDs, that you could get high efficiency at the low wattage end?
LEDs seem to have a directivity to them where they are more efficient as a spotlamp where a compact fluorescent has losses to the reflector whereas an LED seems to be less efficient as an area light, since it seems to want to throw its light in a cone anyway. One should play to the advantages of the particular tech.
The spectrum from a LED bulb is better than florescent. Many people don't like florescents simple because the color temperature isn't as close to incandescent.
From what I've heard, LED can come in several ranges.
Better explanations: http://www.agreensupply.com/what-is-warm-white-and-natural-daylight-cool-white-color-for-led-light-bulbs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Temperature#Lighting
All that said, that is worth maybe $5 to me, but not $30.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
I don't understand this hype. I can /almost/ see how you'd want this in a few situations over CFL, but how can it possibly compete with the competing bulbs from LG and GE that are in the $10~20 range with pretty equivalent specs?
..by stockpiling 300 100w incandescent light bulbs. By the time I run out of those, a suitable, and cheaper, replacement for 100W incandescent bulbs should be available.
All these relatively small LED lights are using a phosphor layer, pumped by either a blue or UV diode or diodes, to generate something resembling reasonably white light. The phosphor step gives them much lousier efficiency compared to their monochromatic counterparts, which don't have that additional step eating photons.
I am assuming that they do this, rather than using arrays of multiple colored LEDs matched to add up to 'white', because of the difficulty of getting suitably even mixing, weird color fringes, and the like. Does anybody know what would be needed(either advances in LED fabrication, or minimum size/complexity requirements for a light fixture) to make the multiple-colors-mixed approach viable?
Interesting. I had a problem with LED holiday lights. I used an X10 appliance module so that I could turn them off by remote control. Unfortunately, when I switched to LED lights, I found that the X10 module leaked just enough current to keep the lights going, only slightly dimmer. Not very useful.
Early adopter.
You cannot see the flicker of CFLs, they flicker at 40,000 cycles per second. It is not possible for a human to see that. You are a liar and a bad person.
So why not just get a CFL? In general, it's probably not worth it. But if:
1. there's a high cost to change the bulb [ladder, scaffolding, or left required], additional lifetime is extremely valuable;
2. the color is different and that matters to you;
3. the warm-up time and process is different and that matters to you; and/or
4. the fragility or hazardous materials in a CFL is a concern,
then LED might be the way to go. I don't think that Philips nor other manufacturers are expecting a large-scale consumer switch from CFL to LED at these prices, but for the prices to get lower than these prices they need more research and more manufacturing experience, so they might as well bring 'em to market now and get the process started.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
For me the problem is using the bulbs with a dimmer. CFL's DO NOT DIM. Period! Even the so called dimable ones simply drop in output maybe 30-40% then flicker and go out. If you have a multi bulb fixture the CFL's don't dim together and usually go out at different settings. In the rooms of my house that require dimable fixtures I have to use incandecents. If the LED bulbs will dim with standard dimmers (I use X10 switches than can be remote controlled) I would consider switching to them. At some point I will try the 75watt LED bulbs in the bedroom or maybe the 60w ones in the family room and see if they work with dimmers. (If they don't they will go back to HomeDepot for a refund!). The LED bulbs should also be more vibration proof than CFL's so they can be used in ceiling fan fixtures.
I bought a Philips AmbientLED 17-Watt (75W) A21 Light Bulb over a year ago for $39 at Home Depot. The 17-watt puts out 1100 lm,, which is 64.7 lumens/watt, so the new bulb is more efficien at 73.0 lm/w. That good.
Still, it's too expensive to replace all the bulbs in my house. I used this on a hard to reach, heavily used tracklight fixture where the cost is appropriate given the pain of using a 20-ft ladder to replace the bulb every six months.
I recently put some rather expensive LED bulbs in my fridge (long story...) Anyhow, reaching in and pulling anything out freaks me out due to the flicker... it's like a strobe light or an old CRT... Is there a DC converter or are they still hitting the LEDs with raw AC?
So far, none of the Philips "Ambient LED" bulbs I've purchased has failed. I have several, in 40 and 60 watt equiv. The 60's (around 850 lumins) are not the latest prize winners, but are still quite efficient.
I --HATE-- the CFL bulbs. I have found them to be unreliable as well as uncomfortable to use for reading or working. These new LED bulbs, however, have a very nice color to them, a fairly wide spectrum, virtually no flicker at all, and as I said -- so far, I have yet to have one fail.
I actually prefer these new ones to incandescent bulbs for reading and lighting a room -- I would never have said that for any form of CFL or long tube fluorescent.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
The problem with LEDS (and CFLs) is not the bulbs, but the power converters inside. In every case, they produce a load of heat. One approach for the bigger bulbs is to add in a fan. Of course, many of those are being built by cheap low quality chinese manufacturers. A 10-30 year bulb will last only 1-2 years. IOW, they are PURE JUNK. This ESP. includes the GE bulbs (that are not even produced by GE, but simply re-labeled chinese junk). The phillips at least use Phillips LEDs which are of better quality, but not as good as say Cree.
So, what is the RIGHT approach for this?
Switch light bulb immerses the power in oil and then allows passive cooling. They have multiple patents on this. And will shortly have a 100 w bulb on the market. They are in final testing of it. These use the same Philips LEDs, but the passive cooling will allow this to actually last what is claimed. And all for under $30.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's odd. AFAIK, X10 modules generally use a relay for power switching, so there should be no leakage whatsoever. Maybe it has a bad relay.
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I'd be insane to be an early adopter with these, and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone for that reason. Unlike many I have CFs that have lasted for at least 5 years now, and are just as energy efficient as these $60 LEDs. I think I'll wait around for them to be competitively priced. $60 is just too much for a friggin' light bulb.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
As others have noted, you're forgetting the cost to power the bulb. Standard incandescent lasts 1000 hours, the LEDs should last 10K (some claim 20K, but we'll go with the lower figure). So for a 100W equivalent, you buy 10 incandescents for 20 cents a piece, or $2. Let's say the LED costs $60.
Next up is the cost of power. Over 10K hours, the incandescents consume 100W * 10K hrs = 1Mwh (1000 Kwh). The LED consumes 23W * 10K hrs = 230 Kwh. At 10 cents per Kwh (I pay about 12 cents; prices in the U.S. range from 8-25 cents), that's $100 to power the incandescents. And $23 to power the LED.
That said, a fluorescent would get roughly the same power cost as the LED, and cost less than a tenth what the LED costs up front. But they're not well-suited to dimmable fixtures, they require special disposal, and they frequently have a delay before they reach full brightness (and some claim they get less "natural" light). If none of that bothers you, then go with fluorescents. But if it does, then your fallback option would be the LED, which is cheaper over its lifespan than even 20 cent incandescents.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
$60.00 for a light bulb... $60.00 for a LIGHT bulb... $60.00 for a LIGHT BULB... $60.00 FOR A LIGHT BULB...! just keep saying that over and over again until it sinks in good and deep and then ask yourself, "am I now part of the sheeple that will purchase this?"
Since half a year now I have a 6x1W LED lamp (from IKEA) hanging off the ceiling in my kitchen. This thing fires 6 tightly focused beams at the walls, which makes 6 funny areas of bright white light to distribute around my kitchen (it has adjustable steel tentacles) . It's bright (where it shines), it's reasonable well designed, it's sturdy and looks seriously cool. It also consumes only a laughable amount of electricity.
And you know what? I happen to like that thing a lot. It eats 6 bloody watts and gives more than enough light everywhere I need it while generating a really nice light landscape. And yes, it does this while eating just 6 bloody watts of electric energy. It also fires up 100% instantly after switching it on.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with LED lights! Gimme more of those! How can geeks NOT like these things?
I have even thought of buying the cheapest LCD screens off ebay and making lamps from them. Hey, you spend how many dollars on gadgets and then you're mean on lighting? Why? Light is cool and LEDs are the next best thing after stealing fire from the gods (or nature or the OS of that particular simulation or whatever).
Stop complaining and invent BETTER LED LIGHTS! And make them cheaper! You will sell billions of them! You lazy, dumb, complacent idiots!
That's odd. AFAIK, X10 modules generally use a relay for power switching, so there should be no leakage whatsoever. Maybe it has a bad relay.
X10 modules have a local-on feature so that you don't need to use a controller to turn the device on. If you have a lamp connected to one, then turning the lamp off and then back on will trigger the X10 module to power on. It's a safety feature so a lost controller won't result in not being able to turn something on, like a light you need in the middle of the night.
That feature requires a continuous low level current through the controlled device to detect the actual switching at the device. This current is sufficient to keep a CFL blinking even after you turn the X10 power module (with the relay) off. Eventually the CFL cools down and the current isn't enough to flash the lamp and it stops. I'd guess it is also enough to keep an LED lit partially.
X10 modules generally use a relay for power switching,...
I forgot to add, the POWER modules use a relay. There are also LAMP modules that have TRIACs just like wall dimmer switches use. Unless you have a dimmable CFL, your LAMP module isn't going to dim your CFL. And both modules have the local-on feature so they both leak current to the controlled device.
Stay incandescent or halogen. CFLs/LEDs have power converters that need to have lower temps.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
hypocrite, you stare at a flickering monitor all day
If only these were made by Apple and not Phillips. There would be block long lines forming to buy the latest iBulb.
I haven't tested CFLs, but some time ago for an imaging project that needed very steady lighting we tested a variety of methods including high frequency solid-state ballasts with long-persistence phosphors. All of them still had a 60Hz cycle dimming overlaid on the high frequency output. So no matter what we did, we still had at least a 5% 60Hz (really 120Hz) flicker, albeit not the same as a normal fluorescent tube. At the time we found it hard to even get a UPS or power supply that didn't have at least some 120Hz flicker on a DC voltage. Of course things have changed a lot since then.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
People squawk about the price but consider these factors. How many light bulbs are left on more than an hour a day in most homes? Say living room and kitchen? Maybe a family room or office? Bedroom? Okay so we are talking four or five bulbs, the rest can be compact florescent. Even at $60 you are talking about $240 to $300 to replace all the important lights in the house. Remember nation wide lighting is a large percentage of the power used. In the average house it's 14%. Say you have a $100 power bill and your lights run $14. Let's be generous and call the florescents $4 of that so the LEDs would cost around $2.50 a month so the savings was $7.50. It would take 40 months to pay them off. That's assuming 5 bulbs with no discounting or rebates. If they last 10 years then you get 6.5+ years of saving $7.50 a month and that's conservative. The returns are better than the stock market. The speed of return would be higher if you just replaced the 2 or 3 most used bulbs but the savings are still impressive on 5 bulbs. Buy one bulb a year and in 5 years they are all replaced and by then they'll be cheap enough to replace the rest of the florescent bulbs. My mind is constantly blown when people complain about paying more now just so they can get cheap or free power later. If solar panels payback in 5 to 7 years you are talking 20 years of free power and people still complain that they have to spend extra money now. Most homes can cut their power bills in half with more efficient appliances and most pay a hell of a lot more than a $100 a month. If everyone got on board they'd save a lot of money and we could shut down some coal plants instead of building more. People keep calling it a rip off and the bulb companies are cheating you but how is saving you a ton of money cheating you?
I heard (cant find source) that LED efficiency drops off quickly after about ten watts of power (60W incandescent). Hence the DOE "L-Prize" of $10M (won in 2011) to push the envelope. They've reached the "reading lamp" level of quality, but not quite the overall indoor/outdoor lighting requirements yet.
Not at 60Hz or 120Hz. There is no noticeable flicker or pulsing even when dimmed.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
First off, CFLs suck, and always will. Ignore them.
The comparison is incandescent and LED. I did some figgerin' and those $40 LED bulbs at Home Depot actually are pretty cheap.
Inputs:
Midwestern US, relatively cheap coal power.
Overhead 60w floods. Unlikely to be damaged.
Energy use: 65w vs 9.5w.
Time on: 5 hours per day.
Time to payback: 2 years. Your milage may vary. Use half the light light, payback takes twice as long.
Once you pay back, every 2 years, it puts $40 in your pocket, per bulb. Bulb should last 10-30 years at that level of use. Don't think of it as a light source. Think of it as an energy farm that feeds on your waste and turns it into BitCoins and lower atmospheric CO2.
I've got 150 lux/w LEDs right now. Philips is NOWHERE near leading the industry. Cree is kicking ass with 220+ lux/w LEDs.
This is news, how? You can find superior lighting in China and South Korea right now.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
No, they don't need lower temps. Not at all. The LEDs themselves need lower temps for cooling reasons. I have no problems operating these LEDs out in the Mojave.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
EnduraLED/AmbientLED are the lesser line with lower efficiency and lower CRI (worse color rendition).
The Endura/Ambient series predates the L Prize bulbs by a couple years.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Don't buy shit LEDs using Pulse Width Modulation, and maybe actually do some research on LEDs before saying such stupid things.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Since I have 100W fixtures, and since the new bulbs use 23W to get the same brightness as a 100W bulb, why can't I get a 50W bulb that's 60-100% brighter than my old 100W bulbs?
Efficiency is good, but I want brighter lights.
Where did you get the idea otherwise? And LED emitters are not called "bulbs".
The Philips L Prize bulb (similar to this one) has been tested, heat isn't a problem. You can be quite certain of getting the rated life. They don't have a 100W version yet, maybe there is a heat problem as you say.
Under $30 sounds nice.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Maybe something about the refresh rate of the light vs the refresh rate of the display?
You're in a room with an incredibly old fluorescent light that uses the 'built-in' line frequency of 60 hz, instead of upping the frequency.
Or, sometimes, it tries to up the frequency, but the original frequency still makes it in. For example, it might provide a nice high frequency, except in that split second as the voltage reverses itself. (Which it does 60 times a second in our alternating current systems.)
Incidentally, these problems are provided by the 'ballast', not the 'light bulbs' tubes. It's that box at the end of the fluorescent light, and they rarely are replaced.
Fluorescent lights are basically a tube filled with gas that lights up when and only when, a current is run through them, instantly cutting the light off when the current drops below a certain level. Alternating current cuts off and reverses direction 60 times a second. Do the math yourself as to what happens when you hook those things together without thinking about this problem, which was the way they originally built fluorescents.
To be fair, fluorescent bulbs have a phosperous coating that is supposed to absorb and keep emitting light for a split second during all this...but that's just enough to keep the room from visibly falling into darkness, not to stop the flickering.
Modern fluorescent ballasts, including ones built into the base of CFLs, deal with this much better.
Incandescents, OTOH, produce light because they heat a filament up, and that filament stays heated up for a second or two no matter what the power is doing.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
There are companies other than Philips and GE that make light bulbs. I bought several LED bulbs on amazon that were under $25 and one even has a LIFETIME warranty. So far they all have worked great. I even have the 60 watt equivalent Phillips LED but I got it for under $25 as well.
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You're not going to get very good light if your filament is at 68 degrees fahrenheit when powered on.
4 4w regular bulbs for $3 or 2 0.25w LED bulbs for $5. All they need to do is throw in the nite light fixture because that's what it cost.
But how close does it come to the spectral quality within the visual wavelength range of genuine incandescent lights?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
A typical light bulb only weighs a few grams. The LED bulbs I've hefted are quite heavy in comparison. Hundreds of grams. So, will light fixtures be able to support them? I've got a somewhat precariously perched desk lamp. It has a weighted base. I'd like to try an LED in it but the weight differentials of the LED bulb and the current bulb got me to thinking about the impact of the LED bulb's mass on the system.
Been using CFLs for a long time and life has not been an issue. I have some that have not been replaced, I installed them when I moved in 8 years ago and they've not needed replacement (once that don't get used as often, needless to say). In my room, I have had to replace them, but due to brightness, not failure. I've since replaced them with LEDs, since I like the colour spectrum of the LEDs better, and they warm up faster (LEDs are instant according to my eye, CFLs take a bit). My whole house is CFL or LED too, since I live in warm climate and incandescents are double whammy.
So the people with all the failures all the time either have poor power (maybe shoddy grounds) or buy shit bulbs.
Philips does indeed say what their warranties are. I don't have that bulb, but I do have 3 AmbientLEDs. The warranty says "Philips warrants that this bulb will be free from defects in material and workmanship and will operate for a period of 6 years under normal usage..." and then goes on and on as such things do. They also state they expect it to last 15 years or more under normal usage and specify what that qualifies as (as in how many hours a day and so on).
Seems like they are willing to back it up. Philips isn't some fly-by-night company either, they've been around for quite some time, reasonable bet they are around to deal with claims, if they need to.
I'm willing to throw my money in on their bulbs. They look good, work good (they run in a regular dimmer no problem), are efficient, and so on. I'm fairly confident they'll replace them if they break, and I'm fairly confident they won't break so they are worth the money to me.
Not quite as good as an incandescent, but very well, down to 10% at least. I have 3 of the AmbientLEDs (the older model, got them a year or two ago when they came out) in my living room and I'm quite happy. Thy dim low enough for late night TV watching and all that, give plenty of light in full on mode, and it is just a regular old dimmer on the wall.
That was why I bought them. Had incandescents in there because CFLs wouldn't dim for shit. Hated them not only because of the energy waste but more because the damn tings needed changing once a year and that involves a ladder. These LEDs ought to last a decade or two.
Have a better way of dimming LEDs other than using PWM?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I don't know what the amplitude is but incandescents on a 60 Hz circuit do have a 120 Hz ripple. We are doing some lab work with infrared sensors and we can see the ripple when we point at incandescent lights; I can't tell what the percentage of the ripple is over the DC component since our amplifiers block DC. Doesn't work on fluorescents -- not enough IR output in the range we observe.
is a replacement for one of these. Newer houses/apartments put 'em in the bathrooms with 4 of them on the vanity. That's at least 160 watts. I'd like to cut that at least in half.
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Yea, limit the current. Works just fine. You only need place the potentiometer AFTER the rectifier.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Curious. A straight technical question I'm not quite getting:
We've long been told incandescent bulbs are barely 2% efficient - that 98% of their output is "heat" (meaning any electromagnetic energy not in the visible spectrum) and only 2% is "light" (meaning EM in the visible range). Kewl, fine.
So if a 100W-equivalent LED-based bulb consumes (for the sake of round numbers) 25 watts, it's four times as efficient as the equivalent incandescent, meaning 8% overall efficiency (4x2% = 8%), right? But I thought LEDs (the diodes themselves) were supposed to be 20-50% efficient, not 8%? I know there are supporting electronics and all, but why the huge discrepancy between the LEDs themselves and their instantiation in a consumer fixture?
Perhaps someone with actual experience in the field can enlighten (ahem) me on this.
What people aren't factoring is the depreciation of these light bulbs. If I buy a light bulb now I pay $60. Let's say it's $40 in a year. You have just lost $20 on your investment. If you haven't saved $20 in electricity in a year, you are better off waiting to buy the light bulb in a year.
You save $11 over one year assuming you run the light bulb 4 hours, pay 10 cents a kill-a-watt, and save 77 watts per hour.
But your depreciation cost would be $20, thus you would lose $9. You would be $9 richer if you waited to buy the light
bulb one year from now.
Government subsidies might be a good idea if society benefits from earlier adoption of LED light bulbs.
And yes there are places you can take your burned out CFLs to dispose of the mercury in them safely. The CFLs are supposed to last 5-7 years, and I'm sure by that time (assuming civilization hasn't collapsed to Mad Max scenario) LEDs will have come down in price.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Light bulbs are no longer a free market item. Once the govmint got involved in banning certain kinds, the freedom kinda went POOF!
Boo-hoo. Grow up, why-doncha?! Incandescent lamps are a joke... they're heat emitters that leak a little light.
Sometimes governments are necessary, sometimes governments get things right. They did on this one.
In a couple years, someone looking back in the Slashdot archives and reading your whining are gonna laugh at you (if they aren't already).
Ugh. Well, apparently it is fairly straightforward to disable the local control feature.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Philips' 100W-equivalent bulb will be available some time in the fourth quarter. Pricing has yet to be announced, but it will likely be well over $30.
Seriously? Well over $30? Okay, thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick to CFLs for most of my home lighting needs (with a few old hot bulbs where appropriate), for now at least. And to think, lots of folks still laugh at "expensive" CFL prices. I would love to transition to LEDs, but it has to make financial sense first. CFLs are just as energy efficient, and much cheaper.
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No, they can't do 208 lumens per watt from 120V AC.
http://creelighting.com/products/downlights/6inchdownlights/CR6.aspx
Cree's light replacements have excellent CRI and color temperature, and very long life. They are dynamite replacements for incandescent downlights (architectural cans). But they aren't as efficient as Philips' bulbs (60 lumens per Watt versus 94).
The Philips LumiLEDs emitters (aka Luxeon) are as good as Cree LEDs.
I own a couple excellent flashlights that use Cree LEDs. They aren't actually as efficient a the Philips L Prize bulb, but they do throw a ton of light and have very good battery life considering how much light they throw.
Also, a car headlamp isn't as bright as you think, it is partially so bright because it throws all the light in one direction. My Fenix TK35 uses a Cree LED and does appear to be as bright as a car headlamp. But it's only 820 lumens, a Philips L Prize bulb is 940. A car headlamp (or my TK35) appears to be so bright because it throws all the light in one direction. A normal house light bulb has to throw omnidirectionally, meaning it illluminates a much larger area. A car headlamp would cover less than one octant.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
A computer controlled power cleaner? Pah, in my day we used a washcloth and some soap! These kids today and their toys. Turning them all lazy!.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Phillips has these great 5 and 10 year warranties on their bulbs but they seem to me to last about the same as normal bulbs.
Anyone else have similar experience or do I have a problem with my wiring...?
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
No you haven't. There are brands that claim to be 90W equivalent bulbs but if you look at the lumen output it isn't equivalent to a 90W incandescent and/or those were CFL's.
Asuming the bulbs you mean are leds: these Philips leds have 1700 lumen. 90% of that would be 1530. I'd be surprised if they emitted 1000 lumen.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
One potential issue with LED bulbs that I don't hear people talking about... theft. It's pretty unlikely anyone's going to steal a $1 incandescent bulb, but when these things get over $50 in price, you're left with the problem of "securing" that investment.
Spending $50 or $60 to save money over time doesn't make much sense if the bulb keeps getting stolen.
The cheaper CFLs have electronics that can't handle the heat, when ppl use them the usual way with the screw (and electronics) up and the glass part pointing down, it fries them (heat goes up).
Want to have them last longer?, make sure they are the other way, with the screw down and the glass pointing up. When they are horizontal, the longevity is average. Incandescents don't care and can point down just fine.
Incidentally i have a couple of 10w Phillips LEDs, flood lamp style. They use 4pcs of 2.5w led each. Some people has had them burn out quickly when used in a typical enclosed flood lamp fashion, perhaps pointing down from above. I noticed they also have electronics that heat like crazy; thankfully mines are pointing up (their light is too strong for my room, opting for bouncing instead) and they are uncovered, with plenty of ventilation.
Even with bouncing, their combined strength is similar to a 100w incandescent.
I believe these leds are spending a lot in ac/dc transform. Perhaps if houses had some sort of dc standard, it would make implementation and longevity easier (a single ventilated transformer elsewhere instead of lots of small inefficient ones attached).
Btw with leds if the transformer doesn't fry, they also become dimmer with time. They just last much more than fluorescents, and no mercury or fragile glass is needed.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Well, you can also add in cold climate vs warm climate costs. In Texas, CFL or LED wins because your A/C runs less. I imagine if you live in North Dakota, the incandescents would win.
-l
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The white light is too harsh on the eyes.
I call bullshit. The AC just hasn't bothered to shop for the right phosphor mix to please his eye. The better brands have several options. IIRC, Phillips marks a blackbody-equivalent colour temperature on the packages of their CFLs. Others use terms like "warm white", "cool white", etc to keep you guessing.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Well, there goes any /. cred I had as a mindreader. Turns out LWD is a tyop of LED. But the point still holds. The "white" colour is a purely arbitrary mix of three monochromatic LED luminances, so just pick the one that mixes the way you like. Market forces will drive the availability of a few options.
Eventually someone will figure a way to make them colour programmable at next to no cost.
So: hardhacks anyone? Can we modulate these suckers for data transmission?
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
It's to force HARD WORKING AMERICANS to pay too much for light bulbs, and to make us needlessly fill our houses with failure prone "technology" designed by TREE HUGGERS that has a special lump full of electronics we don't understand, so that we won't be able to tell when the GOVERNMENT sneaks in and swaps 'em out for the kind that SPY ON YOU.
The cool blue glow from the computer screen and keyboard backlights. (Keyboard dims on inactivity - such as when I have a movie full-screen. It'd be nice if they'd open the driver to that so that the movie player could control the keyboard backlight, but I can't complain too much.)
Yeah, there are a few CFLs hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, but I rarely turn them on. I'm not sure if one of them works (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't). I try to just avoid turning them on because short on-off cycles are hell on CFL bulbs.
I'm the real Vorokrytin P. Winterbuttocks.
I grew up in a Dutch household, where I learned that Dutch pride in Philips is so strong, it borders on worship ;-).. If you have a satisfied Dutch customer, you have a customer for life.. in other words, the dutch are very loyal, and would never make a claim that could hurt the company that employs them..Now.. translate that into a company comprised entirely of Dutchmen (and er.. women ;-)..
If they say something's gonna work, you can BET on it.. I have absolutely no doubt that this new lightbulb will last as long as, and be worth exactly what they're claiming...
I don't actually *need* a light bulb now, though... ;-)
According to someone I know who works in windmill financing, the whimsical nature of wind subsidies in the US has been almost as bad for the industry as if there had been none. Wind projects, as well as manufacturing and deployment infrastructure (barges, trucks, cranes ...) are decades long investments. Congress let subsidies expire almost every other year; that's made it nearly impossible for financiers and actuaries to project the profitability of farms.
What makes lobbying so damaging is that there is a large multiplier effect. A $1 million lobbying effort would easily drive a $100 million profit.
Not really. Incandescents (particularly ceiling mounted) don't distribute their heat well, so you rarely get a one-for-one watt exchange. And they heat the house in roughly the same way the emergency heat on a heat pump does; in a wildly inefficient and costly way. In North Dakota, you're probably not using a heat pump (which is at least as efficient as the incandescent at heating, but not much more efficient in truly frigid climates), and would probably be better off (at least monetarily) with CFL/LEDs and a heating oil/natural gas furnace working a little harder.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Approximate a point source by masking the light source with a sheet of paperboard with a pinhole poked through.
Interesting. Hadn't really considered the fact they're usually on the ceiling which is kind of obvious. Still, one plus is that they heat (near) where you need it, like a space heater, versus burning gas/oil for a whole house (or worse, electric furnace). As you probably know, 4 75W bulbs plus a human body will heat a small room (10x10) in no time and since you want the heat, it's not a negative. I absolutely agree that one or two 60W in a large open floorplan is not very efficient vs central heating.
That gives me a crazy idea for a transparent laminate floor, heated with a zillion incandescent bulbs underneath. If I knew Blender, I might do a 3D scene of that just for fun.
I live in Austin, TX, and am just speculating about cold climates. Take it with a road full of salt.
-l
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As you say, slightly worse specs than the L-Prize bulb, itself with quality issues, and issues over how it won the US Govmt prize... http://dunday.com/2012/03/lots-of-public-money-for-doubtful.html The poor quality of the bulb on testing and how competition rules were skirted - as referenced with competition rules, patents, lobby finance records, the prize committee's own lab test review document and designated lab test reports
Never use (or be allowed to use) anything simple like a regular bulb, when a complex expensive alternative will do! ;-)