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60% of Americans Unaware of Looming Incandescent Bulb Phase Out
Lucas123 writes "Even though production of 75W and 100W incandescent lamps were phased out earlier this year, many U.S. consumers remain blissfully unaware of The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, an energy efficiency standard that requires an initial 30% reduction in energy use for screw-in bulbs. By 2020, the federal standard requires bulbs to use 65% less energy. According to a new survey, only 40% of Americans are aware that incandescent bulbs are being phased out. However, the federal regulations are about to impact the most popular bulbs of all — 40W and 60W lamps. As of Jan. 1, 2014, the bulbs will no longer be produced. A significant portion of those who are aware of the phase out have been hoarding the bulbs in anticipation of the ban."
If you have a brain, you got rid of those fucking things more than 5 years ago.
LED light bulbs have low cost and no flicker. If you need a specific lighting profile there's plenty of sites that'll sell it to you. I find it hard getting upset that incandescents are going away. It's not like we're going to pay for the power infrastructure to support them...
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That we're in the dark about it..
Because that's what is behind the opposition to the phase-out, which I guess means it's a good thing they really didn't do much.
Hey, did anybody else here Michelle Bachmann isn't running for re-election next term? Maybe that means she'll have more time to spend on this issue rather than be distracted governing the country.
I'd say it'd be reasonable to assume that a similar percentage of American's are unaware of the differences in available bulbs, other than price and hue perhaps, which is why there's a law instead of further choice.
right wanna check again led are getting cheap. seen them as cheap as 5$. the real cost in led bulbs is the converter to 12v that has to be installed in them for home use. 12v led can be gotten by the case for 5$ lol.
It is fun to watch.
I have three Lava Lamps at home. I like them. I don't want to lose them.
Is there an alternate LED/Heater I can use to replace the bulbs?
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LEDs are cheaper. But some basic understanding of math and economics is required to see that. People that fail at that may get to conclusions such as yours.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
They aren't banned, as you can still buy the rough service bulbs. Newcandescent among others sells them for $2-3 a pop, and they have a 10000 hour life instead of the 1000 hour life that normal bulbs claim. They are cheaper and the light is easier on the eyes than any of the alternatives available at this time. Go rough service, I have a whole case on order and they should last me for decades.
... off my incandescence!
We have been going through this phase out (Switzerland) and while I was using "neon" tubes and halogens I am switching to LED's. They are awesome. Low energy, last forever, very bright, and do not generate any heat. IMO LED's have come a very long way in a very short time.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Because when a lightbulb goes off in our head we'll have nothing to replace it with.
What is the best way to buy some in bulk?
try . . .
1000bulbs.com
bulbamerica.com
mylightbulbs.com
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They actually generate a lot of heat. Not as much as incandescent, but they are still not all that efficient.
And no, LED bulbs are not more expensive, but you need to be able to do basic math to see that.
Which is why, in a comment to a previous Slashdot story about, mtrachtenberg and I suggested including the estimated lifetime energy usage in the sticker price of each bulb, along with a rebate certificate that can be mailed to the power company for a discount on one's electric bill over the expected life of the bulb. Think of it like bottle deposit.
The EISA should be called the "GE Payment for Services Rendered Act of 2007"
Same shit, different day. Large corporations help politicians gain power. Politicians return the favor by enacting legislation favorable to the bottom line of said companies. A story is invented to help sell the fleecing to a gullible public, and most of them are happy to be taken hook, line, and sinker, "Well if they say it's better for the environment then it obviously must be true. Think of the children!"
Yeah it looks like they might be more like fluorescent lamps than we thought.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I've slowly replaced all the bulbs in my house with CFL's and I have no complaint.
However, I know they have mercury in them, and there doesn't seem to be any process in place for properly recycling them.
Forcing people to switch without such a process in place just seems like a recipe for poisoning ourselves.
No, actually, LEDs don't generate any heat worth thinking about. The heat issue is from the AC-to-DC conversion necessary. Given the large number of household appliances these days that require wall warts, bricks, and various other forms of AC-to-DC adapters, I really wonder why they don't start outfitting homes with 12v circuits with a single high-efficiency converter at the breaker box.
I tried using an fluorescent bulb over a shower with a dimmer on it...oops! It flickered, and I read up about it. I think using the wrong bulb with a dimmer can be dangerous. I got into a minefield that I can't figure out. I got far enough to see that, at least the fluorescent bulbs should only be used with a dimmer that matches that particular bulb. (I rent; I'm not about to change out the switch on my own, and the landlord is slighlty whacko). I need the equivalent of 75W incandescent light. Also, few of the new bulbs are rated safe in a wet environment. It's above a bathtub with a shower head added on. This is an old bungalow, probably from the 1920's.
I don't know about the LED's Help!
"Even though production of 75W and 100W incandescent lamps were phased out earlier this year, many U.S. consumers remain blissfully unaware of The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007
They will happily swap the burned out bulbs with whatever is available in the store and most of them wouldn't notice much difference. Couple will find that some of the stuff they bought does not work with dimmer switches or some bulbs tend to be a bit bulky and don't fit in certain very tight enclosures. All of those will be swapped for free back in the store with suitable replacements. So what's the point of preparing in advance for the switch or knowing about it?
Now, the people hoarding incandescent bulbs are a bit more puzzling. Some of them probably have a get-rich-quick plan kicking into action and all I can say is good for them. The ones that are actively trying to avoid switching away from incandescent bulbs are completely different story. WTF people? What's the point of massively inconveniencing yourself with the storage of fragile items only to pay higher electric bills.
A battery powered LED lamp would be about the safest thing in that environment. Ikea sell little lamps which stick on to a surface with double sided tape.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
They are designed to drain our precious bodily fluids.
Thirty percent of U.S. consumers indicated that they plan to buy a lot of traditional light bulbs while they're still available and will continue using them.
I'll bet the percentage that actually does it will be much smaller.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
How is this surprising?
60% of Americans not keeping up with nation politics? Heck didn't 60% not even bother voting at some point? Don't 60% still think the world was made by an omnipotent being in 7 days?
Leaving overseas manufacturers free to flood the market (until the round of tariffs screws us out of them for good)?
Seriously, honest question.
I've got 12 of these units scattered around my house. They're all good lamps from the 1980s up to 1996- most of them cost more then $100/piece. Most of them are considered large or grand size, maybe 20" tall and 6" across at the widest point. They take standard incandescent 40w bulbs that screw into the base.
What am I supposed to do with these now? Throw them out? Put them away?
If the government is honestly going to sit there and say "No, you can't have your nice things anymore, it's bad for the environment"... Well, fuck the government, and fuck the environment too. I don't care how wasteful incandescent lighting is. It works, and it works exceptionally well. I'm paying for my power bill, so I fail to see why anyone would care what I'm spending my power on (unless I was running a drug op of course).
PS: I'm well aware of the small production run Mathmos did for their Smart Astro units, which were basically the digital equivalent of a lava lamp- PWM controlled heating coil, with the goo lit up by a bunch of large LEDs all powered off a 12V DC wall wart. They didn't make many of these, they're not making them anymore, and I already have two. They look nice and work reasonably well, but they don't compare to a good old unit with a 40w bulb in the bottom. The LED's aren't bright enough and AFAIK Mathmos had issues manufacturing them due to the complexity involved.
Take a look at the size of a heatsink required for a 20 watt led array chip. Its as big as most modern CPU heatsinks
Easy Bake Oven(TM)?
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Go to lowes or home depot and look for dimmable LED bulbs. I have had better lick with those than with dimmable CFLs, which indeed require you to upgrade the dimmer switch. Having said this unless you insist of having dimmable light in your bath, I would suggest just to get a 70 cent light switch and replace the dimmer.
its safe to dim a led just get one that's made for a dimmer.
At home the light switches have a dim blue light to be visible in the dark. It seems to be rigged in series with the circuit, so it lights up only when a lightbulb is in the socket. If fluorescent bulbs are installed, they (the bulbs!) will flicker all night long. Also the fluorescent bulbs installed in the bathroom die out very early from the moist. LEDs may be a good solution, but I've yet to find ones that give out enough red tones.
Forgot about the dimmable halogen bulbs, which may be a better fit for you than LEDs.
My wife hates incandescents and LED are still too expensive.
I think you meant to say that your wife only likes incandescents, otherwise the incandescent ban won't affect you.
If she really wants to stick with incandescents, you could use energy efficient halogens that are still incandescents and are around 30% more efficient than traditional incandescents.
Switch to a halogen bulb: -less Watt for same Lumen -good colour temp. -just as fast as W filaments
Check out Home Depot. Best prices so far on LEDs. typically $10/$15 for standard 40/60 watt equivalents. Still not as cheap as CFL, but ZERO MERCURY and typically VERY hard to break.
My only beef is the glaring lack of "high output" (>100W) and decent candelabra wattage (40-60)
I have a bunch of ceiling fans that all take that new fangled specialty bulb. And the fan industry seems to have hopped on the CFL bandwagon with this new two post bayonet style bulb. Really pisses me off that I cant run LED in quite a few of my fixtures due to either VERY limited, underpowered choices, or no choice at all.
Hmm. 1000bulbs.com
A 60W equivalent LED bulb. $36 each.
A 60W equivalent CFL enclosed bulb. $12 each.
Hmm. Menards.com
A 60W Incandescent: $4 for a 4-pack.
Yeah. Sure. Cheap.
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My previous apartment had a bathroom without conventional heating.
You could still make the bathroom warm enough with the lights above the mirror though.
Six bulbs of 60W gave me a nice and cosy 360W heating, which is actually not that bad in a small bathroom.
If you remember to turn on lights an hour before your shower (in the winter), you would be fine.
My new place has heated floors in the bathroom, so I no longer care.
But for some people, 60W bulbs are nice.
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because larger lines are required to transmit the same potential power rating with low voltage high current. Its all about the power. Your house circuit is set to provide 15 to 20 amps at 110(ish) volts which would be roughly 1650 to 2200 watts and can be handled by a 14 to 16 guage wire, depending on the lengh of the line. the same potentail power in a 12 volt line would be 125amps and require a cable of about OO gauge for short runs. You end up way past the point of diminishing returns in the cost of copper to run that line. Basic electronics theory. Yes one could theoretically run a 12 guage wire through the house on a single trunk-line, but people want to be able to plug their devices in where they want to. It is cheaper to provide the required minimum conversion where it is needed from a higher voltage sourced feeder trunk. Thats also why a 220volt line is feeding your house but 120volts is feeding your appliances, and a much higher voltage is feeding the transformers on the corner that supply your block.
Incandescent technology is far superior to LEDs for electrothermal conversion efficiency. LEDs waste too much energy as visible light.
I don't think you could have sourced a more expensive place for 60-watt replacements. I just bought a 4-pack of CFLs at Home Depot for under $4. And that's the good Phillips brand. The fancy GE enclosed CFLs with the starter halogen inside go for about $5. The Phillips 60W-equivalent LED is $10, with the Cree going for slightly more.
I'm not arguing that the phase out is a good thing, but let's be realistic about the price drops.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
And lets not forget the AC benefits in transport and safety over DC.
1) The EISA passed both houses of Congress with a veto-proof majority, one of the last times the Democrats and Republicans agreed on anything. Y'all were fer it before you were agin' it.
2) B. Hussein Osama was part of that veto-proof majority. So yeah, he's marginally more responsible than george w. bush for takin' yer light bulbs.
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.. so there is no looming "Incandescent Bulb Phase Out" only a phase out of incandescent bulbs that are woefully inefficient at creating visible light.
I presume you meant fluorescent, not incandescent...
As for purchasing them in bulk, might I suggest going to a store with a large shopping cart? During shopping hours, of course.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
> LEDs also have better color rendition capability than CFLs.
It would be hard not to.
To some people having a nice warm spectrum from a bulb doesn't matter to them. But to others, inhabiting in a space lit by these new bulbs is like living in a morgue. Where I live it is dark 16 hours a day this time of year and usually overcast during the daytime. To me, the increased energy cost is worth it to live in a space that doesn't make me want to jump out the nearest window in despair. I am glad halogen bulbs will still be available because they are the only acceptable option right now.
Given enough time everyone will have heard they're going away from surveys.
Where are you getting your prices from?
Lowes has:
60W equivalent CFL 4-pak - $14.98 or around $3.75 each
The enclosed CFLs are slightly more, but $12?
Not at Lowes: http://www.lowes.com/Search=cfl?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=cfl#!
Not at Home Depot: http://www.homedepot.com/s/cfl+light+bulbs?NCNI-5
LED bulbs at Lowes are closer to your quoted price: http://www.lowes.com/Search=led+bulbs?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=led+bulbs#!
But still there is a 75W equivalent for $19.95.
LED bulbs, however, are "out of this world" at Home Depot: http://www.homedepot.com/s/led%2520light%2520bulbs?NCNI-5
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Good grief. Turn off some lights when you're not using them man! Your drop in price for changing bulbs more than doubles my total monthly electric bill.
Of course, the fact that people who do not pay so much for electricity will not make the money back so quickly might suggest why some do not upgrade so quickly. Different circumstances result in different calculations. (I note this even though I myself moved away from incandescents years ago.)
CFLs last 5 months tops (here in the north). LEDs are so dim, you might as well be blind. With no replacement, people need to start hording these. Idiotic government,
It's also worth noting that LEDs last for at least 50k hours. The failure mode is that they get dimmer, not that they fail completely. Whereas that $1 light bulb will last for about 1000 hours. Maybe more, maybe less, depends on the setting and the individual variations in manufacture. So a $1 light bulb is actually quite a bit more expensive than a good-quality LED light bulb. Don't waste your money on the cheap ones. If you're desperate to continue using incandescent, get halogen bulbs—they produce good light and consume about 70% of the power doing it. But we're using Cree bulbs and loving them. The really cheap ones have lousy color rendering, but the Cree bulbs do really well.
So if you're paying below market rates, you might as well use less efficient light bulbs? Sounds like a classic market failure. CFLs suck—don't waste your money. If you are poor, get halogen or cheap LEDs. If you can afford it, get more expensive LEDs. Volume will bring the price down.
Yeah, well, try to explain that math to your kid when the bulb burns out in her Easy Bake oven, or the countless other schlubs up north who now have to build a fire under their engines to keep the oil warm.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I bought an adapter to allow the two prong style fixtures to accept a screw-in traditional bulb. look for a gu24 to e26 adapter. I bought some for about $2 each from a huge online retailer. They work great for adapting to the common screw bulbs until the new style is more available.
But visible light is an inefficient way to produce heat because light is lost through windows, etc.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Only incandescents can be used as an RF load for testing amateur radio transmitters in the HF range 1.6-30 Mhz. I picked up a case of 100 watters just for that purpose. The other issue I have is that when evaluating photographic prints (that I just printed), almost all CFLs and Halogens don't have the correct color temp and almost all consumer LED bulbs don't have a good CRI (Color Rendoring Index). So it does end up costing me quite a bit of money for bulbs that fulfill this purpose.
Bullshit, outlay of $200 to replace all bulbs in house,
That's in fact a lot of money for the majority of people. Although it would cost me wayyyy more than this to replace all bulbs in this big ol' house with unsubsidised LED-based bulbs.
electric bill dropped by about the same in the first month.
If you're spending $200/month on household lighting, your usage is atypical. Thanks for your unrepresentative anecdote.
Unless you're running in and out of the room, flipping the lights off and on; its not a problem.
Which I do often, when getting something from a particular part of the house. Although sometimes it's a matter of checking something for a few minutes, e.g. a book, and I don't want to actually have to wait before I can do that. If I need the bathroom when it's dark, I want all the light immediately, not an atmospheric brightening glow while I urinate.
I know this is less of a problem now we're moving from CFL to LED, and when LEDs are priced in the sub-dollar range (well, GBP - UK) I used to buy incandescents for, or CFLs when energy companies were required to subsidise their cost for a few months, I might consider moving to them.
More bullshit, a variety of color profiles are available,
Eh, when I stocked up on CFL, none of the subsidised ones were coloured like incandescent. And now I can't find any comparably priced LEDs.
Even throwing bulbs in the trash releases still less overall mercury into the environment than your crappy incandescent.
What? Since you're talking about mercury, are you referring to CFL? Your argument is that trashing a mercury-containing CFL releases less mercury than trashing a mercury-free incandescent? Ohhh, I see, you're going to guess that my energy is coal-derived and that inefficiency over the lifetime of the bulb releases more mercury into the environment, right? Nope - local plants are hydro, FWIW.
D- must try harder.
Using electricity for heating is stupid to begin with.
Fortunately, halogen filled bulbs are "energy saving" enough to pass the environment police. Same form factor (though the actual halogen "bulb" is encapsulated inside), same incandescent principle, slightly more light per watt, still warm and dimmable. They do cost a pretty penny, but at least they provide the technology that does not cause me migraines (unlike both CFLs and LEDs). So - no loss here, move along.
I do understand that problem. But continuing to waste energy and money is not the answer, hence the phase-out.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Good CFLs are fine, as long as they are not too old. There are a lot of bad CFLs on the market though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Simple - DC at 12V would run a huge amperage, which would melt the nice wiring job in your house. Higher voltage = lower amperage = wires not so melty. While I'd like to run a 12VDC circuit in my house for emergency lighting from some deep-cycle batteries, and perhaps run a ham radio or two and some equipment, I'm concerned about the fire potential, and if I install it and it catches fire, my insurance company will have my head mounted on a pole.
. Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
But if I have my lights on for 5 hours a day in the evening, that 50k hours becomes nearly 30 years.
Yes, LED's are cheaper in the long run, both in capital and running costs. But the payoff periods are pretty long. You may get better value for money buying incandescent bulbs and investing the money saved in power companies.
Yup, I was thrilled to see Cree finally come out with a bulb! Decent light distribution, not very heavy, and the 60watt is actually too bright for many places in my home. I have a bunch of these and a bunch of all th eothers too that I've been buying for a good while now to play with. The Cree aren't uber sophisticated but they work wonderfully well! To date I've only had one LED give me issues and it was part of a pack from Costco that was dirt cheap and flashed at me. Every other I've bought in the last 2 years is still going strong. They use peanuts for power too :-)
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Depends on what you are looking for. A couple years ago, I bought a bunch of 12 volt LEDs for my RV, a buck each from eBay, with free shipping (although it took a few weeks to get here). Said lights, though high on the color temperature scale, are still going strong, and use 1/7 as much electricity as the normal filament bulbs, which is very useful when boondocking.
Since most LEDs are made overseas anyway, one might be able to find a no-name Taiwanese provider who sells the same bulbs as a name brand, but for far less.
Here in Canada we skipped CFL and went strait to LED. The mercury in CFL's is not good for all the fresh water we have up here. Home depot sells some nice LED at 850lums = 60W and dimable too. I do prefer the old style of LED bulbs with the 2 half moons over the full shield. It's just marketing and it reduces the light output.
I'm using some of the LED floods from that Home Depot page as well as some Cree and the ones with the yellow phosphor on them. The floods use maybe 20watts apiece and replaced bulbs drawing 120watts apiece. They dim fine, they throw a ton of light, and I know they don't get hot although outside I could care less. The packages on that page are multipacks but when I first started buying bulbs single bulbs could be as much as $40 - they're still running 2 years later. I've swapped out a ton of the older bulbs and many of the fluorescent ones too. So far no LED have burned out on me and they light well. I no longer feel the need to keep a bunch of bubs in the closet - I don't ever need replacements. I couldn't say that before!
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You have no clue. Neither of physics, basic math or economics. And you are completely unaware of that.
Electricity is by far the most expensive way to generate heat. The other thing is that LED costs something like 15-20% of a classical bulb over its lifetime. If you assume replacement of a classical bulb costs 5 minutes each time including shopping, the bulb costs $2 and keeps 1000h, and you can earn $5 per hour, then classical bulbs costs $240 over the lifetime of a comparable LED bulb. Accident risk on replacement not included. Energy savings not included. Pretty stupid to insist on historic technology under these conditions. But well, we have already established that you are stupid. Please feel free to disgrace yourself further.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Stupidity always has unpleasant consequences. The problem is not the individual manifestation of stupidity, but the stupidity itself. Your examples are pretty stupid. there are LED-based replacements even for the bulbs in an Easy Bake oven. Heating engines up with incandescent bulbs is extremely dangerous, don't do it. There are safer alternatives for that.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
They are 28% more energy efficient than the "old" incandescents, and they help heat my house during the cold winter.
Using a light bulb for light and heat is inefficient for both.
If you want to use electricity to heat your home, use a heat pump..
How about using devices for heat that are INTENDED to produce heat? You think it's the same as a baseboard heater? The one that's temp controlled and placed correctly? Why the hell would you want a baseboard heater? Most of the world lives in those climates? Really? How about we use light bulbs for light, block heaters for warming oil, and high SEER devices for producing circulating warmth in a home instead of being an idiot trying to justify an inefficient lightbulb?
BTW - specialty bulbs are legal for things like hen houses, they will just cost more. Why not shop here http://heatball.de/en/ for the silly warming bulbs?
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I have replaced some incandescent bulbs I was using as plant lights (they burned out - again) with LED bulbs. Before I did this touching the housing was likely to remove my fingerprints, now with the LED I can grab the bulb bare handed and unscrew it if I want - no problems. Yes, LED produce some heat but nowhere in the ballpark of what incandescent did.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Wish i had mod points, that was really helpful! Thankfully my only issues are some of these fixtures that take small base bulbs - yuck!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
I had been wanting to try an LED light in my living room lamp that is on a lot of the time. So Friday evening I stopped by HD and picked up one of the newest Philips 100W equivalent lights (2700K). They are a tri-lobe design like the older ones but these new ones have white diffuser panels instead of the amber color of the older ones. Much better if the light can be seen and isn't hidden by a shade. It replaced a 100W equivalent CFL.
Long story short, I was so impressed with the light I went back to HD Saturday morning an purchased 4 more Philips LED's. Another 100W for the bedroom and 3 60W for the bathroom fixtures and lamp in the den. The 60W are a more conventional looking bulb, not the tri-lobe design of the 75 and 100W. Even better looking and more "normal" than the 75W and 100W models. Although I was never a CFL hater like a lot of people, the dim start-up issue in cooler weather and apparent lower light output (to my eyes) always annoyed me somewhat.
After using these new LED's for a few days now I absolutely love them. Instant start-up at full brightness, nice light color, no buzz that I can hear and they put out significantly more light than the CFL's they replaced. In fact I wanted a little more light in the den so I initially went from a 60W CFL to a 75W LED. After installing the LED, I realized the 75W was just too bright so I exchanged it for a 60W which is still much brighter than the 60W CFL that was in that lamp and is just right for the room.
The only down side I can see for my use was cost. The 100W were ~$32 and the 60W were ~$14. From an economic standpoint they don't make any sense over the now dirt cheap CFL's. They do use slightly less energy and should last about 2.5 times as long which defrays the cost a little but still doesn't come close to making up the difference. For me, the better user experience of the LED makes the cost worth it. I'm in a position that laying out $110 for light bulbs isn't going to break the bank but for most people the cost is still way more than they would be willing to pay. But hopefully, they will continue to come down in price.
I think as the costs come down and more people can afford them LED's will continue to capture more of the market. In my eyes, the lack of inherent flaws the CFL's have is enough for some people to pay a premium, just not as much as it is currently. But enough people that I know hate CFL's that the new LED's should be an easy sell. And HD around me are stoking them in all wattage's so they must be selling a least a few.
The great use of "Incandescents" for me is to use them to heat the dog and cat houses in the yard when it is -30C.
Who needs looming incandescent bulbs anyways? I prefer them more demure.
Thet manufacturers specify incandescents -- maybe, maybe, dimmable CFL's for LED's won't burn the house down. So there is a place for inefficient incandescents -- in very low duty apps such as these motion detectors, that take advantage of their tolerance of being switched on and off a lot?
These fixtures have saved large amount of electricity as their use is only a couple minutes per day. But I suppose into the landfill they go and I buy new fixtures?
About 6 years ago I switched over to CFLs. I dealt with the crappy light quality, flicker, and high failure rate. Then my wife broke a CFL literally inches from my 2-year old's face. I'm thinking "meh, I played with mercury thermometers as a kid. big deal". But then I read about vaporized mercury (yes, it goes to solid dust when not pressurized but still) and visited the EPA website which, at the time, recommended I replaced the carpet in the bedroom. Not cool. My wife was in a state of panic over the possible mercury inhaled by our 2-year old. We obviously have no idea about how much mercury he was exposed to. I know that eating several fish is probably equivalent to the same amount of mercury, but there is a difference between inhaled dust and food digested by your stomach. At which point I switched the entire house back to incadescent. And I bought a shitload of 75W and 100W bulbs (probably a 10 year supply). Now granted nowadays I'd just buy LEDs, but cheap LEDs weren't available in 2009-ish. After that experience and given my stock of incadescents, I'm going to keep using incadescents until my stock runs out. I can afford it and I don't a flying fuck about what others think. I do far more to reduce carbon emissions in other ways. That said, I'll only buy a small stock of 40W / 60W. LEDs are good enough nowadays that I see myself switching to those (but you never know when you want a cheap lightbulb for a cheap temporary lamp or something).
Instead of spending the money buying 5x as many incandescent bulbs as you need at the moment, why not spend that money getting a head start on replacing them with CFLs? I mean, light is light, it mostly doesn't matter how it's produced as long as the bulbs produce enough of it and of an acceptable color. The problem is the cost of a single bulb, and if you have enough money to buy $15 worth of incandescent bulbs per socket you have enough money to buy $15 worth of CFLs per socket (which is more than 1 CFL bulb per socket, so you aren't coming up short anywhere).
Frankly in the whole "Hoard now!" pitch I keep waiting to hear "And I've got a special price just for viewers of this ad, but you have to call and buy in the next 5 minutes!".
I have a stash of incandescent I bought last year. I was unhappy with the CFL options, for several reasons. I bought the incandescent bulbs so that I would have the option to keep using them until satisfactory options were available. Yes, LED bulbs are getting better and solve some of the CFL's shortcomings- I'm testing one now.
I just don't like some far away bureaucrat telling me what's best for me. I'll switch when I'm good and ready. Until them, I know what I like- and I've made sure that's an option for me.
A really good gas furnace is 96 percent efficient.
So if you have some spot application, where maybe you don't want the pipes to freeze but you don't want to dial up the thermostat for the whole house, you may come out way ahead on CO2 emissions. And maybe even cost.
You're a mean one, Mister Grinch..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
No. The electricity is certainly wasted if it's being spent to turn electrical resistance into heat. Any HVAC guy can tell you that electric heat strips are a terribly inefficient way to produce electricity and that it's actually FAR, FAR more efficient to suck heat out of the freezing air outside using a heat pump than it is to generate heat using electrical current through a metal filament or even heat strips designed to generate heat (as backup or extra heat for use in addition to a heat pump to heat things up quickly).
You are not correct, electricity is NOT the most expensive way to generate heat, IF you do it through a heat pump (which generates 3X the heat per dollar of baseboard which is cheaper than all other forms of heat, and a heat pump fed by geothermal, ie ground source is best of all for the majority of the US except the deep south). Resistance based heat on the other hand is often the most expensive source of heat, though if I'm not mistaken oil based heat is pretty close in much of the country (electric baseboard heat is nearly 100% efficient and oil is 80% or less). I'm studying HVAC at the moment though my background is in computer science and I love the geeky side of the field. I am strongly considering converting a huge commercial building and my own home to goethermal (ground sourced heat pump) due to the incredible efficiencies.
Look up marine wiring and the American Boat and Yachting Council wiring regs. Annoying complex but very clear about how to string 12 - 24 volts around in difficult conditions. You will have to get used to a different color code and they've not heard of Anderson Power Poles (wonderful connectors) but applicable to land use as well.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That cost the same or less? There is a driving force that denizens of Slashdot seem to overlook. Long run cost savings only apply to people who can afford the initial starting cost. Willful ignorance aside, for people living paycheck-to-paycheck on a regular basis, the "right way" advocated for by the hiveminds of the web is well outside the realms of affordability. A block heater is around 70 dollars which if buying new lightbulbs is going to break the bank, is well outside any realm of affordablility.
I need bulbs with the same SPD curve and color temperature as incandescents or candlelight.
I need color temperature of 1900K and almost all of the color concentrated in the red and yellow.
People are all like, incandescent this, and cfl that, and led this and flourescent that and I'm just like, pass me another candy cane ..
Rich idiots in privileged settings come up with this crap and force it down the throats of the rest of us,
Nothing like a bit of ad hominem in the morning. Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the 1:4 efficiency difference and is a conspiracy by rich people to cram "crap" down the throats of us "common", good, hard-workin' innocent folk.
The whole reason this has been legislated is that people refuse to buy compact fluorescent bulbs because they're stubborn and hate change. So they say "they give me headaches" and "they're not as bright" and so on. Even "they cost too much", after you've gone blue in the face showing them the VERY basic math that a 3rd grader could do, showing they pay themselves back within a year or two, AND practically give them away with rebates.
Please help metamoderate.
Hate to break it to you Mr. Free market hater, but people are paying lower rates because of government intervention, so blame them if that causes a "market failure"
An extremely simple and reliable 100W incandescent bulb is a far superior solution. The sickly white-ish/blue-ish highly-directional weak light from your "battery powered LED lamp" is a joke as well as being extremely toxic to the environment (compared to the trusty-old bulb). There are two advantages to the LED "bulbs": One is lower power consumption (so politicians and power companies can sell you less electricity at higher rates - less for more! whoo hoo!!) and the other is higher profit margins. G.E. (one of the nation's big crony-capitalist organizations with an aversion to paying any taxes on their billions of dollars) used to make a thin profit off each bulb they sold, and all the patents had long expired so they had lots of competition pushing prices down and quality up..... but once they got the government to ban those, the replacements they put on the market cost over ten times more and had a higher per-item profit margin.
big-government Democrats and big-government Republicans joined together to implement the bulb bans over the objections of the voters/consumers because their campaign donors demanded this
Your suggestion of the battery powered LED lamp as a serious light source has me wondering if you'll be recommending do-it-yourself surgery kits to people who have trouble with Obamacare....
My wife was in a state of panic over the possible mercury inhaled by our 2-year old.
I'd say the probability of neurological damage is significant. Your kid will probably become one of those nanny state enviro-wackos who get their panties in a bunch if they can't find something to ban.
Have gnu, will travel.
No it doesn't. Imagine that - they saw your idea coming. Duh...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Uh, you don't save any money buying incandescent bulbs.
That's like buying 99 cent fast food every day and investing in medical technology with "saved money". How do you think that will turn out?
People need to use more logic instead of rationalizing their goofy decisions.
IMO, it's as much about anchoring as anything else. For the same reason shops put a $5000 handbag in the window to make $300 bags inside seem appropriately priced, the price of traditional bulbs leaves people outraged at the cost of LEDs. Even if they're a different product that lasts longer and costs less overall. And even if they put the $30 LED bulb in a $200 light fitting. Personally, I suspect that some people wouldn't willingly switch until light fittings can come with LED bulbs built in, designed to last the lifetime of the fitting (or at least as something designed to be replaced just a few times).
More bullshit, a variety of color profiles are available, you just have to know how to read. In addition I have trouble finding ones that aren't profiled like the nasty yellow incandescent bulbs.
Congratulations on being a liar.
Go here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/tests/incandescent-vs-compact-fluorescent-vs-led-ultimate-light-bulb-test
Compare the SPDs of incandescents and LEDs. Not a single LED has the same SPD as an incandescent. They all have too much blue and green and not enough red. I cannot tolerate blue and green light.
Look at this SPD of an incandescent: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cm/popularmechanics/images/B4/lightbulb-wars-03-0911-xln-60091526.jpg
Now look at this SPD of a LED: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cm/popularmechanics/images/Dg/lightbulb-wars-16-0911-xln-56866400.jpg
Both bulbs claim to put out light at 2700K, but the SPDs are completely different. The LED has an intolerable amount of blue and green, and it has way too little red.
Nah, try using an ultracap-powered LED that uses a dyno attached to a hamster wheel.
Ultracaps have better cycle life than batteries.
I await the kickstarter =)
Sure, many bought-and-paid-for beltway Republican politicians voted for the ban over the objections of the voters "back home" (the voters were NOT "for it before being against it") but its ALSO true that lots of Democrats (including Hillary Clinton) voted for the war in Iraq and all the NSA spying on Americans.... so by your reasoning all democrats were for these things before being against them? It just doesn't work that way. Washington DC is a cozy little political club where Democrat and Republican politicians get together far too frequently to help each other do what lobbyists and international "experts" want done with no regard for what the population wants.
I'd suggest Caylume sticks. Pretend you're SCUBA diving.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I think the kid is probably just fine. You, on the other hand, seem to have bitten a mouthful off of the batshit crazy tree.
I still have and use incandescents (reminds me...need to get some bigger ones), but its mostly for quick start and overall light quality. They don't make 95+CRI CFLs and the last 95CRI LEDs I purchased were $30/ea for 10W (50W equiv) R20s. They're good (unbelievably good at full power, actually), but they do cast an odd light at low dimming, and there's an "on" limit of about 10% of the max light output (okay, that's a guess, it might be 5, but it's a sudden-on).
Where I need lots of light, I use CFLs, where I need lots of great light I use LEDs, where I need really good dimming or instant-on-brightness-and-short-burn-time I use incand.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"LED bulbs are out of this world at Home Depot" Those prices are for 4- and 6-packs. Read your own search result. At between $10 and $12 for a Cree LED bulb at Home Depot, the price is right, and I'm VERY happy with equivalent light output, color temperature and performance with my Z-wave dimmers. No CFL or LED bulb so far has matched them. I've had to return one Cree bulb so far because it shipped with the glass envelope loose. Been perfect otherwise (4 bulbs installed for trial, roughly 6 months in). Full disclosure: I hold 100 shares of CREE. And this is my actual experience using the bulbs in my house.
how a $30 LED bulb that cannot handle a bad local power system and therefore burns out in a week is superior to a $1 Incandescent that lasts for years in that same environment (a simple glowing wire in a bulb handles power fluctuations very well with extreme reliability and simplicity)
You clearly have an alternate definition of "cheaper", and your math education must have come from one of those new common core books where the wrong answer still gets you points....
I have a basement office. I need artificial light in it. I have some ceiling mounted fluorescents, but I don't use them most of the time because of the glare.
Instead I have 3 freestanding standard lamps that are 3-way 50,100,150. I typically run them all at 150 all the time.
What LED bulb would work in those and not cost an arm and several legs? I don't want any more CFLs around. So, I'm open to LED alternatives. I have an LED already in an outside spot - just fine - but too "blue" (even if it's meant to be white / yellow).
Would appreciate any helpful suggestions here!
I remember how fluorescent lights were supposed to last longer than incandescent bulbs. But I've noticed that the voltage regulators in the fluorescent bulbs quickly fail in about as long as it takes for an incandescent bulb to burn out. It's planned obsolescence, people. They are engineered to fail so you have to buy more light bulbs. LED bulbs _should_ be cheaper in the long run. LED technology is very durable, but the light bulb manufacturers will figure out some way to make them fail.
I detest low color temperature bulbs which make the room look like a torchlit cave. Worse yet, CFLs and LEDs typically have an awful CRI. Any there any options for those of us who prefer a spectrum at least somewhat reminiscent of of sunlight?
Um, no. Find me a warranty for 50,000 hours for a reasonable cost. You'll find that most warranties don't extend past 5 years, and those that do typically have a time limit to the hours burned. Ex:
(from Home Depot)
Cree: 10 years (5 years for downlights/inverted use)
EcoSmart: 5 years
Philips: 6 years, limited to 3 hours/day (6000hours!)
Sylvania: 3 years @ 4300h/yr or 5yrs @ 2160hr/yr
Many will claim a lifetime, but will only warrant for a short period. Also realize that these warranties are limited to the life of the lighting subsidiary. For Philips and Sylvania, probably not a worry. For EcoSmart and Cree...will they even be in the residential lamp business (directly) in 5 or 10 years? Will you still even have the receipt? I point this out because I've replaced every single CFL (15) in my home office area in the past 24 months, some of them twice. The manufacturer is no longer in business, the vendor just shrugs - not their problem.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I think you missed my point. A subsidy that someone is receiving does not change the benefit of an energy saving measure. It simply changes who benefits from the savings. If the beneficiary in the subsidy case doesn't also subsidize energy efficiency, they are just being stupid.
And not that there's any point in assuring you of this, but I'm not a free market hater. There is no such thing as a free market, of course, but markets are a very useful way of driving commerce. If you intervene in markets through the use of subsidies, you should do so in ways that are effective, not in ways that are ineffective.
Just ignore the fact that breaking CFCs leads to mercury poisoning, the higher cost, lower quality light, etc.
This is a beautiful example of too much government by idiots. What the city slicker politicians and neo-econazies don't understand is that the 100W bulbs are useful. I use them for the combination of heat and light they produce on our farm. They are lower power than the 250W bulbs and thus safer so they're less likely to cause a fire while still providing heat in a creep setting for baby chicks, ducklings and piglets.
In my home I all of my light bulbs are LED, because I want light. But in the sheds in the winter the heat of the incandescent bulbs is useful.
If you don't want to buy them then don't. But no need to outlaw them. The law is plain arrogance and fascism.
You should use LEDs where you have lights on all the time, and halogen in places where you hardly ever have the light on. 5 hours a day is ~1500 hours a year, so figure 90kwh/year per light bulb that you're running five hours a day. That's ~$2/year at typical current rates. That's not going to pay off in a year, but it'll pay off. Plus, remember that at that rate you're probably buying a new incandescent every year, so that's another $1/year in savings per bulb.
The warrantee is for the power supply, in case it has an early failure. The LEDs will last forever—they just get dimmer over time, and they reach the end of their lifetime when they are 70% as bright as they were when new—that's what the 50k hour figure refers to.
If you have a brain, you got rid of those fucking things more than 5 years ago.
Well how nice that Slashdot is accessible enough for the blind to make use of it!
Because anyone who can see hasn't given up on incandescent bulbs for a number of uses because the alternatives are REALLY expensive still, or look like crap.
Some of the LED stuff is looking pretty good now but costs quite a lot more than a "real" bulb. None of the CFL stuff looks good at all, and the cheapest stuff doesn't even last that long when hooked to most people's real electrical lines.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The best idea is to stock up a few years of incandescent bulbs now, and plan to buy LED bulbs now.
The reason is once everyone else is forced to buy alternative bulbs, you give them about a year to figure out how awful light from CFL bulbs is, then another year after that to buy LED bulbs in large numbers. At the end of two years the cost of good (high CRI) bulbs will probably have halved, saving $15-30 - way more than you would have saved in electricity over that time buying a more expensive LED bulb now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And of course if you start installing bus-bars for the current then there's the danger of Joe home renovator accidentally melting a spanner across one. Now *that* would put a spanner in the works!
(thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Try the shrimp)
I was president of a condo association for 5 years. I made the costly mistake of replacing all outside incandescent lights with CFLs:
- all CFLs, regardless of brand, failed within two years. Outdoors CFLs don't last as long as the cheapest incandescents, despite all caterwauling to the contrary. Please don't tell me about your special brand: I've tried it and it failed prematurely.Please don't tell me to return them to the store under the 3-year guarantee: if I did that all my time/gas would be spent driving to/from Home Depot/Lowe's/Light Store and changing bulbs.
- CFLs were frequently stolen. This was an unanticipated cost.
LEDs are even worse: thieves can spot an LED from 100 yards away and will stop at nothing to steal them (since they're so damn expensive). Great to spend $300 replacing a weatherproof floodlight receptacle and the electrical tubing because a thief tore it off an outside wall to get a $50 LED floodlight.
After 3 years I gave up and went back to incandescents, which we will use forever. Savings due to CFLs low electrical usage are not recovered when you include failure and theft in the equation. In fact, incandescents are cheaper even when you include the cost of the rugged models.
There are good reasons why incandescents have been used for so long. And, as others note, you can heat the chicken coop, keep pipes warm, and do other useful tasks with incandescents. CFLs were a political solution to a non-problem.
Most of the energy output of an incandescent is *not* light (about only 5% is light).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb
So at present time in Montreal (-20C), my incandescent lighting is not wasting that much energy...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Who can generate electricity at 100% efficiency? Electric is 100% efficient only if you ignore the inefficiency that comes before it enters your house.
"Bullshit, outlay of $200 to replace all bulbs in house, electric bill dropped by about the same in the first month."
HOLY CRAP!!! You must have had a zillion lights running 24/7!!!!
No matter where you go, there you are.
So, if 12 volt is so difficult to move, how does the dinkiest little wire get all that power to my hard drive that gets so hot I could heat my lunch on it?
You've confused wants with needs.
It depends on what you run on it. LEDs wouldn't require that much of a load. This isn't a server farm with racks for 1 kW servers, it's a house.
I await ultracaps in practical energy storage ranges (think, car battery power to weight to space ratios). When they come, likely they'll be pretty high voltage, so we're looking at more electronics yet to run LED bulbs from them.
I have LED lights everywhere in the house now -- big house -- and spent an average of about $14/bulb. I'll get paid back for that, most likely, if they don't undergo a spate of infant mortalities the way CFLs did. Now CFLs... *that* was a boondoggle. Should have waited a few more years before jumping on that bandwagon. Hope I'm not saying the same about LEDs in five years.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
My lightbulb went off in my thirties, and hasn't come back on since then anyway, except maybe just to flicker once or twice.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Look, the energy costs to manufacture any bulb are included, plus profit, in the cost of the bulb. It's not a factor you need to figure in again.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
And why am I batshit crazy? Because I had a bad experience reading EPA websites about CFL mercury and had a significant emotional response to my child's possible exposure? And because I bought a dozen packs of 75W and 100W bulbs and just plan on using them? My house is solar equipped anyways.
so figure 90kwh/year per light bulb that you're running five hours a day. That's ~$2/year at typical current rates.
Only if you can get your power at 2.2 cents/kWh. In most places, it would cost $9 to $12 per year to run a 60W incandescent that much.
and when all your like thinking neighbors are forced to finally switch, your power delivery problem will be resolved. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Does anyone seriously think an LED or CFL could possibly withstand the temperatures inside an oven? They would melt the first time you used it! Only incandescents will work in there, so what do you do when the one in your oven now burns out? Feel like roasting a chicken by flashlight?
Perhaps they'll make an exception for appliance bulbs, but if they do then all we need are lamps with about 3 or 4 sockets so you can get a decent amount of light with a few appliance bulbs. Game, set, and match.
Nice try at being a smartass, but you fail it. It's not cheaper. The lightbulb costs much more, and once you replace a lightbulb that gives off 1000 lm of light and 100W of heating with a lightbulb that gives 1000 lm of light and 5W of heating you'll have to turn up heating by 95W. Or do liberals think that this energy comes from unicorns?
No, but a lot of liberals know the laws of thermodynamics, which essentially say that chemical and thermal energy go into one bin, and electrical and mechanical energy go into another. These two bins can not be compared directly the way you did in your conservative rant.
Halogens are a type of incandescent bulb, thus the incandescent bulb is NOT being phased out, only the conventional incandescent bulb. Halogens will still be available.
Crappy rental wiring seems to kill every one of those expensive bulbs I've bought in less than a year.
Just for future reference--saying "LOL" in a comment never inspires confidence.
A $1 incandescent bulb that lives in the downstairs storage room or closet of my house will only get used 2-3 hours a year at most. With a little luck, it will last a decade or two. There is no rational reason to replace it with a CFL or LED.
To some people having a nice warm spectrum from a bulb doesn't matter to them. But to others, inhabiting in a space lit by these new bulbs is like living in a morgue. [...] I am glad halogen bulbs will still be available because they are the only acceptable option right now.
Me also. I grew up in yellow afternoon sunlight choose to bathe my home in smooth afternoon sunlight because blue-heavy spectral light and/or any hint of flicker gives me an instant headache. Even book-reading is unsatisfying without a warm yellow page.
Technology has afforded me a choice and that is my choice. I dimmer my lights and wear Winter clothes inside to save energy (which is same thing as money) and I have only a brusquely-thrust middle finger for those who do not think it would suffice to suggest CFL/LED bulbs, anything else must be destroyed.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
How are you breaking chlorofluorocarbons?
It's about not having to upgrade the power grid to meet the increased demand from all the new users. There are just more people using power. We need to either generate more power or use less of it. Banning incandescents is one way to use less. There's also a big push for more power efficient set top boxes that was mentioned on /. a few days ago. Basically you're damned if you do or don't. If you don't use less power then you're going to start having brown outs or you're power bill is going to triple as we burn more oil to generate enough power to meet your needs.
The grandparent's point is that rather than throwing up our hands and saying "fark it!" we should be looking for solutions. I'm inclined to agree. The assumption is we're always broke, but I don't see a lot of evidence of that. What I do see is the 1% hoarding cash.
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I bought 100 boxes of 100 watt light bulbs last year. Now with the 60 watt phase out I've already bought 500 boxes of the 60 watters--- I'm debating buying more. This is completely insane that they are being phased out...!!!
I don't have any incandescents in my house and haven't for ages. That said they have basically been un-buyable in Australia for quite some time.
Spend a pittance and replace your old horrible light fittings with flush mount LEDS. Get more light, less heat, no flicker and instant on. I live in the country so have fairly ordinary power quality. Every day my UPSes will beep and whinge about power level fluctuations but because I now have a small transformer on every light I can no longer see it.
I do not for a second believe that people are that concerned about a couple of dollars to get their knickers in this much of a bunch about the price of a couple of bulbs or fittings. I bet most of you buy your food as you need it as opposed to planned bulk buying. I bet you all waste hundreds of dollars on useless crap.
Do yourself a favour. Get rid of your incandescents where you actually use them, fit a load of LED fixtures and ask yourself how you ever lived with that dull light for all those years. Stick the bulbs you pulled out in a cupboard and when that loft or cavity light doesn't turn on in the stupid one in a million usage case that people are arguing you have a stack of spare bulbs you can use in it.
India uses a lot of FL & CFL. FL was predominant years before the CFL was invented.
I bought the 10 pack here for under $5/bulb, delivered. The 15W bulb is about bright as a 70W incandescent, and they are fully dimmable without buzzing. Given they will last, very conservatively, 20 times as long as an incandescent, they will end up costing me the equivalent of $0.25 per bulb.
I like them because they last forever, and I'm not so worried about the cost of electricity, but living down here in Southern California, it's nice to cut the amount of heat output from the bulbs - keeps the house cooler, and I'm not having to run air conditioning at all.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
My bulbs have a 5 year warranty. If you're only getting 1000 hours at 8 hours a day that's 125 days. You're bulbs should still be in Warranty. Don't toss them, make the manufacturer replace them. If you have a Costco nearby they will take the return for you, regardless of when you bought it :)
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Just like you can't fucking comprehend that the realist is that 95% of LED bulbs -do- last long enough to pay for themselves. Take your right wing agenda and shove it up your ass. And go ahead and waste your money hoarding incandescents and bullets. I'm laughing all the way to the bank
>Indeed. US-Americans are however famous for their combination of ignorance and stupidity.
>And no, LED bulbs are not more expensive, but you need to be able to do basic math to see that.
You also need a gullible belief in the claim the LED light bulb will last 10 years. it' wont. I've been testing these things for quite a while and they do burn out. Usually it's sort of an infant mortality however. I think the main problem is when put in standard enclosed fixtures they can suffer a heat death. They also likely don't handle voltage spikes as well. Other's may not like dimmers. Those are my guesses, but they burn out prematurely.
I've been testing the phillips, the cree, the insignia, and a few other lesser known brands for their suitability as replacements. The bottom line is the phillips is by far the best in terms of color and noise and failure rate. But the cree, which costs far less is so good that id you never had a phillips you would not know what you were missing. the cree is a warm light, almost as good as the phillips and doesn't make noise. It dims pretty well too. So in terms of price the cree wins. The main problem I've had with the cree is that the cree is fragile. I've had ones with their glass unglued in the package. The phillips are a brick. you could drop them on concrete and they would likely survive. But the phillips are also longer so they often stick out of recessed fixtures. Personally, the cree price wins in my house.
After those two, there's no point at all to any other bulb I've tried. They are all harshly bluer than either of those. This is especially noticable when side by side. But the real problem is the noise. These things can make noise. Why would anyone want to live with that?
No buy a phillips if money is no object or buy a cree and hope you don't break it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I like lighting my house with a dozen, 15W bulbs rather than a dozen, 70W bulbs. The heat radiated into my house is considerably less and I don't have to turn my AC on down (note: I do live in Ventura, CA).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Avoid CFLs and try FLs. They last for 7-8 years easy.
But those same bulbs, down here in Southern California, would force me to turn on my AC much more than I do... Situations change, and having a selection of bulbs for different situations works best. Once again, we see the "one size fits all" solution that is often foisted on us by Federal Governments simply doesn't work.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I can buy fluorescents and LEDs to replace 40 and 60 watt bulbs, but there is still no good replacement for the 100 watt bulb. The "100 watt equivalent" fluorescents are nowhere near as bright, and are so large that they don't properly fit in some fixtures.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
You can find them for under $5/each - delivered - from Aliexpress.com - I bought a dozen and they've been working great.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I have been actively switching to CF for a while now, they last longer in my ceiling fan (it's a rental unit and the fan shakes incandescent lamps to death) and I can get them for a buck
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
There is simply a requirement for modest efficiency improvement. It's market driven and lights with your prefered price, longevity and color temperature will be available before long. Bush, the most anti-environment and "pro-business" president in US history signed the law!
There is simply no rational reason for backlash or hoarding old bulbs. The right thing to do is to still offer them, but for the same price as LEDs, with additional profit donated to environmental and charitable causes. Voluntary taxation at its best!
I'm actually interested in an explanation of why a 100W bulb that runs at 5% efficiency is not creating 95W of thermal energy. I'm not a conservative on a rant, I'm honestly curious about the physics. kthnxbye
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
You're better off heating with a heat pump—it's about three times more efficient than resistive heat, which is what you get out of a light bulb. Of course, if all you have is resistive heat, you're right that it makes no difference, but people who live in cold climates typically don't use resistive heat because it's so bloody expensive. We use oil, or gas, or heat pump, or wood, or some combination of these.
Hey that's interesting. Could you run me through the physics of how a heat pump does that. Naively, I was thinking that to heat 50 degree air to 72 degrees requires the same amount of energy no matter how you slice it. Now I'm wondering what I'm missing. I could imagine that there's a loop hole but i'm not spotting it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Yeah. The power supply goes.
In the mean time, I need to go out and get a new bulb.
Why the hell would any sane person fight with a company for warranty replacement?
Oh yeah! Because the bulbs are so stupidly expensive now!
In the mean time, you STILL have to go out and get a new bulb! Warranty or no!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Were LEDs actually mentioned?
I don't think so!
I want your power price!
Mine 27 cents per kwh.... So using your own example 90kwh per bulb per year is $24.30 or roughly the price of a complete LED replacement fitting per bulb per year....
Even taking the price out though I am really really glad I have got rid of incandescents. I have gone to "daylight" 6000k bulbs and fittings throughout. Now when I go somewhere with yellow light I find it dim and also gives me the impression of being dirty...
The bulb in an easy-bake oven is actually used as a heating element, not for illumination.
If I need X joules of heat for my house, I can burn natural gas, use resistance heat, or use a heat pump. They're all equivalent.
On average, to deliver that 95W of thermal energy to your house, about 175W of thermal energy is wasted up the cooling towers and smokestacks of the power station. This is due to the thermodynamic losses involved in converting heat energy to mechanical energy. (A few high-tech power stations are somewhat more efficient, but electricity is a fungible commodity that is freely traded, so it doesn't really help if you happen to live near one. And hydroelectric dams, which don't have these thermodynamic conversion losses, are nevertheless environmental disasters in their own right.)
In contrast, a modern gas furnace can waste as little as 5W out the vent to deliver that same 95W of thermal energy into your house.
How much amperage do you think your hard drive draws? (and also you might want to look at your case cooling if your hard disks are running that hot).
Only idiots use 1000bulbs.com
aliexpress or alibaba for direct-from-manufacturer. Try 9w LEDs 3x3W for $0.20 each, lot of 100, you can buy some, sell some to recoup your costs instantly, and still ave plenty leftover for replacements or 'warranty'
$20 for 100 LEDs that I am personally using and they work.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
" For EcoSmart and Cree...will they even be in the residential lamp business (directly) in 5 or 10 years?"
Do you even know who Cree is? They're the only company out there with an LED that exceeds 200 lumens per watt.
I have several of them (the MK-R.) Three light up my fish tank. One (and only one) is used for video recording/broadcasting. One is used in my 10x10 outdoor canopy, and that one is only driven at 6W instead of the maximum rated 15w.
That company will be around for a LONG time. They are *THE* industry leader.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
CFL and LED lighting aren't even close to efficient enough for me. They don't put out enough heat, and cast this annoying glow that competes with the friendly cheer from the sperm oil lamps.
All of those sites are expensive.
Alibaba or Aliexpress.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Why don't you just pass some more laws, and make those decisions for them? People have way too much freedom in this world.
Sometimes I wish slashdot had it's own like button. :)
Mechanical switches don't detect zero crossing, so they can arc depending on when they happen to be thrown. Semiconductor switches may detect zero crossing, but they don't have an arc mechanism because they don't interrupt current flow be separating physical conductors in a gaseous ambient, which is what forms arcs. Nothing to do with DC vs. AC, everything to do with the switch tech.
It's also worth noting that LEDs last for at least 50k hours. The failure mode is that they get dimmer, not that they fail completely. Whereas that $1 light bulb will last for about 1000 hours. Maybe more, maybe less, depends on the setting and the individual variations in manufacture. So a $1 light bulb is actually quite a bit more expensive than a good-quality LED light bulb. Don't waste your money on the cheap ones. If you're desperate to continue using incandescent, get halogen bulbs—they produce good light and consume about 70% of the power doing it. But we're using Cree bulbs and loving them. The really cheap ones have lousy color rendering, but the Cree bulbs do really well.
If only my experiences with LED bulbs matched your statement, I'd be happy. But at around $50 for anything approaching the brightness of my 90W incandescent floods (and I use "approaching" very generously here), I expect better than a 50% mortality rate in the first 18 months. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met.
there's a chance you've confused legitimate medical complaints with whining..
Over here in the UK 100W incandescent bulbs were phased out around 4 years ago and 60W bulbs not long after. As a result my house now has a mixture of old incandescents and newer CFLs, as well as a halogen bulb or two. The halogens give a harsh light and the CFLs make the room look like it's lit like a multi-storey carpark - not exactly a "homely" look. The living room still has two 100W incandescent bulbs but due to the ban they're becoming really hard to source; there's a loophole where less-efficient 100W bulbs can be sold (as "rough service") but they only seem to last for a few dozen hours rather than 1000 or so. Whether that's because they're cheap Chinese tat or whether it's because they genuinely aren't made to work indoors I couldn't say.
Thankfully old pre-ban bulbs are still available on eBay etc so I've stocked up with a couple of years' worth... hopefully by the time they run out alternative lighting will finally have caught up with the quality of light you get from an incandescent.
Not in the long run.. they pay the difference eventually, plus all that bureaucratic overhead.
http://www.1000bulbs.com/product/3511/IN-LS4255.html
Typical "dim"wits like yourself assume a light that generates heat is wasting energy.(Hint: stop believing the MSM) Wrong. At least 2/3rds wrong
I'm living in Alaska; my electricity prices are such that heating my house with electricity is approximately 3 times as expensive as heating it with oil. Plus, no AC but it still gets hot in the summer. As such, electricity efficient bulbs are very handy.
So no, while I'd have to discount the 'waste' heat by about a third, it's still costing me money if I use incandescent bulbs.
I don't read AC A human right
Hmm. 1000bulbs.com
A 60W equivalent LED bulb. $36 each. A 60W equivalent CFL enclosed bulb. $12 each.
Hmm. Menards.com
A 60W Incandescent: $4 for a 4-pack.
Yeah. Sure. Cheap.
1000bulbs is great for incandescent and halogen stuff. Ridiculously high prices on cfl and led there. Both CFL and LED are far cheaper at local home improvement stores like Lowes or Home Depot.
I don't see how geothermal heat pump illustrates anything about the efficiency of electric heating.
I have had an electrically powered heat pump, and would not recommend it for anyone, at least in my climate. When it gets cold outside, so will you.
If you want a yellow CFL or LED, you can buy one. They're labeled with color temperature nowadays; just buy the color temp you prefer. 6500K or "daylight" gives you essentially white light (which indoors often perceptually comes across as blue-ish or harsh), lower color temps give progressively more yellow colors. About 2700K or so, also marketed as "warm white" or "soft white", will give roughly the same yellowish color as an incandescent.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If freedom to you is about the kind of crap you can buy in a store then the chains that keep you bound are between your ears.
But, what will we do with our easy-bake ovens? How will America's future home-makers make tiny cakes?
In the mean time, I need to go out and get a new bulb.
Which is part of the reason why I think LEDs should be parts of fixtures, not stuffed into individual bulbs. Go with the long tube flourescent model - have a seperate power supply. While you're at it make it modular so you don't have to mess with wirenuts and such.
This also gives you an advantage because the ideal lighting patterns between incandescents and LEDs are quite different. I'd rather see a fixture designed with them in mind, especially given that with regular usage most LED bulbs would be the life of the owner/longer than most renovations. Still, make the bulbs replaceable with nothing more than a screwdriver
I don't read AC A human right
And those damn ugly CFL's too, LED's are far superior.
IF you do it through a heat pump
Irrelevant in this case when we're talking about the 'positive' of inefficient bulbs generating heat when it might be wanted because incandescent bulbs aren't heat pumps.
Matter of fact, if you have a home that obtains it's heating and cooling from a heat pump you want energy efficient bulbs precisely to gain that 3X advantage when heating IS necessary and avoiding the extra cooling. A light bulb can make sense in a limited spot to prevent freezing, but the proper answer there is probably more insulation, or failing that some heat tape which will only turn on when necessary and last years vs months.
Also, oil boilers can be over 80%. Down south I'd think more would be on natural gas/propane. As mentioned above, while electricity might 'technically' be 100% efficient inside the house, that's disregarding the 60% efficiency of the generation plant, or the ~10% losses in the transmission lines getting to you. If you're using a (geothermal) heat pump it's more efficient than burning in the house, but only if you're doing that. If you're using resistive heating, then it flips back because resistive heating is ~3 times more expensive than heat pump, with oil/gas heating somewhere in the middle of there.
I don't read AC A human right
> LEDs are cheaper
Unless you're talking about outdoor light fixtures in Florida... where the atmosphere is maybe two or three steps less-corrosive than the atmosphere of Venus insofar as light bulbs with active electronics are concerned. LED and CFL bulbs in a porch light have a lifespan measured in MONTHS here.
It's not even the endless rain per se... it's the dew that condenses inside the bulb just about every night/morning. People who've never lived in South Florida just don't "get" how quickly and completely stuff here gets destroyed when it's left directly exposed to outdoor air, even in a sheltered location that doesn't get directly exposed to actual rain.
Depends on what you want in a light bulb, if want one with less wattage, a incandescents would be the wrong choice!
CFL bulbs, containing mercury, and lasting nowhere near what they're said to, suck and are overpriced. LED bulbs, while expensive, are amazing. I have some 10W and 7W LED bulbs by topin, which I got half price on ebay from someone who imports them.
I can't tell much difference in light output, but the fact I'm burning so much less power makes it all worth it.
You never stood a chance with your farm, sell it to the Corporates!
How many of you geniuses properly dispose (recycle) your CFLs? Probably none of you. That shit is leaking goddamn mercury into the landfills, getting into the water and making your children autistic. Congrats on replacing incandescents, "for the environment," with these. And, don't give me, "oh but LEDs," no one buys LEDs cause they cost a fortune. I just invented assholites for you, it's a combination of words asshole and acolytes used to define elitist pigmongers who think they know how to save the world who make imbecile choices that actually harm it. For example, when the Roman's thought they were being clever by eating off of lead plates / drinking from lead chalices meanwhile poisoning themselves and going mad. The sad thing is that they didn't know any better back then, however today we're well informed and simply choose to completely ignore reality. No matter how many people I mention the mercury in CFLs too, no one cares. They say, "of course I'll recycle it," but I ask them a few years later and they admit they tossed them right in the trash bin out of sheer, "do not care - do not remember," reflex. It's only going to get worse because your kids are going to be morons.
Bingo. I'll readily admit the inadequacy of 60(etc.)-watt bulbs to the task of lighting. Hence why I've moved away from the things for lighting purposes. But for a few tasks, they're really well adapted.
This is exactly why I don't toast regulations against things like 60-watt incandescent bulbs. It's too simplistic and showy a solution to a complex problem. And such are often the solutions we get when we try to achieve good ends on a federal (or higher) level. When we simply outlaw things, we fail to take into account the possibility that people on the most local level might have found a good use for them on that same level. We assume that we, in the center, know everything and have every solution for the rubes on the periphery. Besides being hubristic and presumptive, this is bigoted.
Would that more should realize the value of subsidiarity! Sometimes people on the most local level do not need people a thousand miles away to make decisions for them. Sometimes people on the most local level know a thing or two. Sometimes, they think local, act local, and it's good for the globe.
The politician's solution is always a solution to one problem: How shall I get re-elected? Once upon a time, enough pols concluded that going after incandescents for the sake of global warming would help them attain this end. I'm not about to deny that climate change is an immanent danger which ought to be addressed. But I rather doubt I'll find many politicians ready to go after the highly centralized industrial-capitalist system built and reliant on cheap energy.
Removing incandescent bulbs from the market is a showy and minimal sacrifice. This makes it perfect to the politician's end. For my part, I'll find another way to provide a balance of heat and light to cold birds whose ancestors originated nearer the equator. Really, it's little more than annoying. But I'll always despise the pretentious ass who acts like he's saving the planet by outlawing potentially useful tools while supporting an ever centralizing system that itself relies on cheap oil, coal, and gas.
Long distances mean reliance upon fossil fuels and that includes long distance solutions. You want to save the world? Spend less time outlawing incandescent bulbs in D.C. and more time with chickens (or buying eggs from the nearest person who has them).
Fuck! You had me almost wet and juicy thinking about the wonders of having .. a bunch of these and a bunch of all the others too until you brought up the peanuts. I'm allergic to Peanuts you insensitive clod !!!!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You obviously didn't spend christmas re-soldering led christmas lights. And my strands are only a few years old, used for a month or so per year. (360h per year)
CFL's are supposed to last 10 years. If you have any in your house, you know that's a completely ridiculous, borderline fraud, made up number. Leds are no different. Built by the lowest bidder with the cheapest parts.
PS, have you seen how fancy bars and clubs are starting to get fancy incandescent bulbs to decorate with? Isn't that always the way. Make something rare and the rich eat it up.
-
We are talking about a light bulb here. I understand why you wanted solid guarantees when you had your addadictomy, but are we really that worried about the chances that we'll get our money for the cost of a light bulb back after 2 or 3 years of successful photon excitation? Wouldn't it make more sense to be concerned with of our pollution fingerprint? Wouldn't it make sense to stop thinking of yourselfr and start thinking of everybody?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I find it interesting that the inefficiency stops in your house. Your house is clearly magic. In all the other houses on the planet you can't ignore inefficiency on premises either.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Except a better bulb. At least for some of us.
Even Montreal has a summer, and there are much more efficient heating methods than light bulbs even for the winter.
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*Bullshit, outlay of $200 to replace all bulbs in house, electric bill dropped by about the same in the first month.*
Bullshit, it doesn't cost me that for 2 months in winter including heating and running 2 computers 24/7
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Good luck trying to convince a north American who receives hugely cheap electrical power about the folly of electrical heating - They just don't have an incentive to care.
In Europe, where electricity costs 10x as much, people would think you were insane to propose electrical heating :-)
Even as heaters they suck. The heat is generated at the top of the room, about the worst place to do so. No convention current to distribute it. Most of that heat is going to escape through the ceiling rather than be of any use the the room's occupents.
You save money beginning the day that you forget to turn the switch off and leave your incandescent light turned on continuously for weeks until it burns out.
I can't see whether the bulb is on from the entrance to my crawlspace. I now have a CFL in there (and the off position on the switch is now clearly labelled) to try to avoid that mistake and not use so much power if I do forget to turn it off again.
So you say it is wiser to pay $35 at begin and then have low watt consumption than paying $.45 at begin and have multiple times higher watt consumption and you need to use both for 5 years in normal consumption (8 hours a day) until your prices does meet up?
Do you know what is the stupidiest thing?
1. LED bulb light dims out after two years, so you either live in much dimmer room or then you buy a new one.
2. Light burns out (both has same rate of failure on stable socket installation, so you don't have a swinging cable and end of it a light) more likely after 2-3 years so you need to buy a new one.
3. Most homes today are heated with electricity and having original light bulb means you as well add that consumption to heating and it is so on off from that (not so good ratio but still).
It is logical to use a original light bulb than buy a LED bulb in most situations. In some situations the LED bulb is a better choice when you need very low power consumption (like boats, cars, battery powered etc), small size (tight places, small installations with small or no mounting needed) and better protection against impact (not so fragile).
You need to consider every lamp is it worth to be used with LED bulb or original light bulb.
Electricity is by far the most expensive way to generate heat.
so obviously you think we should ban electric heaters too then? you know, for the good of all those people wasting all that money and electricity..
Stop buying the crap CFL's from Menard's and/or Lowe's. I've been in AK for 4 years now(moved from ND), and brought a bunch of CFLs with me. I'm still running the same ones, other than a 4 pack I bought from Menards that all quit in about six months. Bought better ones, long life.
I don't read AC A human right
LED bulbs do NOT last 50K hours. They will last until the minature inverter fails, and right now, none use tantulum electrolytics. If you live in a cold climate, they will last longer, in a hot place - a lot less. Figure 50% longer than CFLs.
If you have power spikes, say from a nearby smelter, less. Leds also put out much less light at cold temperatures like
-4 and below. I had one failure where the inverter 'cooked' the leds in overvoltage - which tells safety parts have been omitted from the circuit.
The ban will also kill people. Electrical repairmen use 100w lamps in series to catch a dead short on flatscreen TV's.
Students use them in dorms for heating.
Sounds like you could use one of these. BTW, this unit will also help protect the expensive electronics in your home, above any power strip type surge suppressors you might be using(IE add up their protection).
I don't read AC A human right
Most of the energy output of an incandescent is *not* light (about only 5% is light).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb
So at present time in Montreal (-20C), my incandescent lighting is not wasting that much energy...
Yes You are... You could save a lot of energy by switching to some other heating source but that would require an investment.
Your excuse is faulty: I use both the heat and the light so I do not waste energy.
At least the CFL didn't emit a four inch jet of flame, melting the casing and scorching your ceiling.
Yeah. Had that happen to me. Never again. Thank the gods LED lightning sucks much less than it did even just a year ago.
Funny how most of the anti-bulb people are using bulb vs LED lifetime as one of the reasons why bulbs are bad. The problem is, that bulbs are made on purpose to expire at about 1000 hours. Have a look at a documentary on the issue: Pyramids of waste. Or if you don't have the time or interest, read this nice article Planned Obsolescence: The Light Bulb Conspiracy. If you don't have time for that, I'll write in couple of the key points: There is Centennial Light in Livermore, California – an incandescent light bulb manufactured back in the 19th century. The world’s longest lasting light bulb still shines today uninterrupted after a century of use.
The industry standard for light bulb is 1000h, it used to be 2500h, but the manufactures lowered the limit to increase the consumption. that happened in 1940s. My guess is that with modern manufacturing methods it would not take much to be able to have the standard at 10000h for light bulbs. Just that there is no money to be made on that, the bulbs would be too cheap and they would last too long.
Energy efficiency is close to 100%, i agree. But, if you would that energy to run a heatpump instead, you would actually be able to achieve 300-400% efficiency (COP), so you are wasting good electricity compared to that situation.
The fact that LED bulbs get gradually dimmer over time is a huge failure point in their design. With incandescent or CFL bulbs, people buy the brightness they want, and when a bulb goes out, they replace it. No harm, other than a bit of cost in the replacement. On the other hand, do you REALLY want people to wonder why their having trouble reading, even with all the lights on? Having bulbs get gradually dimmer over time is a great way to make people visit the eye doctor, wasting hundreds of dollars on insurance, and even more if they end up getting new glasses more often than they might really need to.
No problem. "Warm-white" LEDs have been available for a while now.
eg. http://www.ebay.com/itm/220865905075
No sig today...
Wow, that means you might need a bit more than two months to regain the loss instead of one.
The warrantee is for the power supply, in case it has an early failure. The LEDs will last forever
Lets convert this to a computer analogy.
"The SSD warranty is for the capacitors and controller, in case of early failure. The flash will last forever"
Come back when you have an argument that involves the device continuing to work as intended.
"His name was James Damore."
Maybe he's running a Bitcoin cluster. :P
Unfortunately because human eyes aren't linear you'll be walking into furniture when the LEDs reach 90% brightness after 1000 hours.
yep there getting better people who got them 3 and 4 years ago paying 70$ a bulb only to have the mini transformer fail just still feel the sting. rember when cfl where overpriced and nobody told you they can die from heat.
60W light bulbs for sale on Ebay! Just $50 dollars a pop!
Muhahahaha....
amazon has 75w equivalent led for 5$.
Yeah, lay off the crazy, buddy. What the fuck was your wife doing with a light bulb two inches from your infant child's face? Even with incandescent light bulbs, I stay the fuck away from them when I'm installing/replacing them. I know they can explode/crack at any time, and I handle them appropriately.
The FLs I am talking about aren't bulbs. Bulbs are CFLs. I am talking about linear fluorescent tubes which exists since before I was born.
The modern switching ballast that would work for this bulb wattage/setup is wired completely differently in the fixture, so I can't just wire the new ballast in where the old one was. It was less hassle to just replace the entire fixture for a new one with the ballast pre-wired (only cost about $10 more than the ballast alone)
It's not complicated to change - we swap ballasts regularly at work, a lot of the old ones are magnetic, but it is somewhat complicated until you know the wiring.
I don't read AC A human right
There is a political and cultural phenomenon in the US known as the "limousine liberal" -- otherwise well off people supporting agendas, often environmental ones, which have a a high financial cost which is trivial to them but expensive for other people.
Examples of this include pushing hybrid cars, organic and free range foods, and apparently light bulbs, too. There are other more political examples, like higher taxes to support social welfare programs or higher gas taxes.
None of this is to suggest that these individual items aren't without sound, rational arguments, but there is a good argument to be made that people with resources want to force things with greater costs and in many cases less desirable qualities on people with fewer resources.
Part of the subtext is that the affluent also have greater political influence because of their affluence, making the debate somehow less fair. There's also an element of ideology, as elements of the rational arguments in favor of these proposals aren't always grounded in a completely sound scientific basis or have contradictions (like the heavy metals in CFLs).
As for lighting, I've been a big user of CFLs and have found them frustrating and with weird reliability. Strangely, I get great life out of them in outdoor fixtures where CFLs aren't supposed to work well, at least in the Minnesota climate. Indoors they have been less reliable, to the point where I pick "reduced wattage" halogen-type bulbs (current favorite: Philips Halogena) in recessed can fixtures. I live in an older house with a lot of older built-in fixtures and my principal motivation has been less about environmentalism than getting more lumens out of fixtures only rated for 60w bulbs by using 75 and 100w equivalent CFLs.
I bought an LED at Costco on a lark and have been pretty impressed with it, although I don't see many bulbs with lumen ratings matching 75w and or 100w bulbs. That, cost and my history with CFLs has led me to be pretty unwilling to dive into LEDs.
You have a standard power conditioner unit installed next to your electrical service panel inside your house. It will also protect your TV and computer and other electronic equipment, which are all apparently under a dire threat of zapping out even as we speak.
I'd just go with a whole-house surge surpressor that can be had for under $100. A power conditioner is much more capable, but also far more expensive. One sized for a whole house would probably be around the size of a washing machine, and cost well over $1k.
For example: Eaton Powersure 700
240V*200A=48kVA, so we need the 50kVA unit - it's 66.0 x 29.0 x 35.5 in inches and weighs 1176 pounds. Runs around $19k.
I don't read AC A human right
If she hates incandescents, why are you so worried about them being phased out?
Doesn't matter, since Montreal is powered by Hydro, which is basically free energy.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I have neurosarcoidosis; it is a degenerative autoimmune condition. Like many others with NS, many people with multiple sclerosis, everyone with macular degeneration, many with Lupus, and even some with conditions most do not associate with light sensitivity such as rheumatoid arthritis -- I am highly sensitive to certain spectrums of light. With Lupus, and NS there are often issues with natural sunlight as well. I have special glasses that filter out parts of the blue spectrum, IR, UV, and most the red spectrum. They are similar to shooters glasses, but about 5x as expensive due to the IR coating requirement still being limited to NOIR. Some of you who work with higher powered lasers are probably familiar with NOIR. Lowbluelights is another company that makes specialty filters for things like smart phone screens, and has a few (but expensive) LED fixtures for those of us with special frequency needs.
Right now I can buy amber incandescent lights for $120 for a case of 40. I can buy a single 7w low-blue LED for $35... In terms of dollars its going to be an expensive proposition when I can't buy incandescent bulbs anymore, even if I have to shell out more for amber bulbs as it is.
There is one maker of laptops that will work with people with custom needs, and that is Toshiba. They were willing to put in custom LEDs in my laptop to make it tolerable when they learned it was a disabilities issue. I wish Toshiba was as accommodating for TV's and computer monitors with the same issue (in fairness I haven't tried to get a custom back lighting TV from them yet, but I did try to purchase custom back lighting monitors from them without success.) I had to void the warranty on both of my ASUS monitors to get the back lighting correct as ASUS was not any more accommodating. The custom frequency LEDs exist (although they still tend to emit IR), but the demand isn't enough for the big makers to notice the need yet.
The challenges can be overcome switching to LEDs, but its not going to be cheap for those of us with needs for non-blue, no UV, and no-IR lighting. The market is at least two million people who have conditions like myself that benefit from them. People don't realize that the issue also includes: smart phones, tvs, monitors, laptops, flashlights, and light fixtures. I wish some of the larger appliance makers would wake up to the issue and I could just go buy a TV without having to make a parts swap. There is a growing body of evidence that it might be in everyone's interest to demand LEDs in those nicer frequency ranges: http://www.livescience.com/31949-led-lights-eye-damage.html
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
For me, too much exposure to fluorescent lighting seems to trigger migraines. I use incandescent desk and floor lamps at work and keep the overhead lighting turned off. I only hope the LED bulbs don't also trigger excruciating, crippling neuropathic pain. I guess I'll find out soon enough :(
Uh, you don't save any money buying incandescent bulbs.
That's like buying 99 cent fast food every day and investing in medical technology with "saved money". How do you think that will turn out?
People need to use more logic instead of rationalizing their goofy decisions.
In some cases one does.
As a renter, fixed-fixtures don't get good bulbs or I have to replace (move) them when I move. I am NEVER going to leave an LED bulb behind. So, when I arrive, I pull all the bulbs, replace them with good ones, and put the old ones back (or replace with super cheap) ones when I leave.
During the winter, I want the extra heating anyway, so I have swapped out bulbs seasonably as well.
Putting an LED light in a recessed bathroom light will never ever pay off for me, unless I am moving them with me. So I either won't buy LEDs, or will carry them with me. Incandescent bulbs are still cheap enough to leave in place. CFLs, sort of are, and usually are because they are slightly risky to insert / remove. (I have had more broken CFLs during replacement tasks than any other type of bulb. Those things are super fragile.)
MIniature inverter? That's how they are built: http://homemadecircuitsandschematics.blogspot.in/2012/03/how-to-make-simplest-1-watt-led-driver.html
Tantalum isn't exactly the gold standard for reliability either ... and they have nasty failure modes.
Have you seen people that had a plain old incandescent implode inches from their face? It's not pretty.
Here in southern Ontario its chilly (24F or -4C) and the snow is around 8 inches deep and still coming down. Radian heat from lights inst always "wasted" and I am sure people in the rest of Canada where its much colder or Alaska would agree.
Great, so when I'm 109 years old I won't need to buy a new bulb for the kitchen, 70% will do.
Why not heat with a bitcoin miner? You'd help to cover the cost of the electricity. Or, do service for boinc. http://boinc.berkeley.edu/
I'd be happier if my early experiences with LED's were positive. But the first couple I bought (at $30 each) burned out in less than 6 months. I know, I know, early technology curve bugs. But still, kind of made me mad.
And to those of you saying that they're not a good source of heat: most of the energy becomes heat right from the bulb. The portion that becomes light hits the walls and floor, is absorbed, and becomes...what? (Very little leaks out the windows as light.)
I buy supposedly good quality CFLs and they keep losing brightness ridiculously quickly. So much so that in the same light fixture that contained both CFLs and incandescents, I had to replace several CFLs before any incandescents ever burned out. So much for longer life.
Unfortunately, Halogens will not make the 2020 cut.
Heat pumps have one serious problem. When it gets cold, your house needs more heat and the amount of heat that a heat pump can deliver goes down. Almost every heat pump installation uses resistive auxiallary heat to make up the diffrerence. You are usually better off using a little extra heat from either a small electric space heater or light bulbs in the rooms you occupy to bring them to a comfortable temperature than using the heat pump to heat the entire house to a constant temperuture.
its safe to dim a led just get one that's made for a dimmer.
I have a set. They're great, although it was weird not seeing them go yellow as the light got dimmer like I'm used to.
They use 1/4 the power of the bulbs they replaced, can be expected to last much longer, and the only real complaint I have is that the extrnal dimmer circuitry wasn't designed to smooth out power fluctuations (since filaments have thermal inertia that LEDs don't). So they flicker more often.
I see a lot of comments talking about fools and their money and how you must be bad a math/physics/economics if you don't buy the tech of the week bulb. Not everyone can spend a day shopping around Home Depot and looking on the internet learning about bulb color and finding the perfect replacement bulb. There is value to my time and for me its a very boring subject. I have nothing against buying LED bulbs but right now when one bulb needs replacement it isn't worth my time to not buy what works even with the long term savings.
People are acting as if you don't have fully optimized lighting in your house you are some fool. I highly doubt everyone has everything in their life fully optimized (ex: house size / wasted electronic gadgets / did you order the exact amount of food you needed for dinner), that doesn't make you a fool.
If freedom to you is about the kind of crap you can buy in a store then the chains that keep you bound are between your ears.
A truly free country would let you live on Love Canal with factories still running like it did in the 1950's.
That energy is better used in a far more efficient furnace system then as waste.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"That company will be around for a LONG time. They are *THE* industry leader."
Those statements don't correlate. The Technology pathway is littered with the dead husks of industry leaders.
Past results do not indicate future performance.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Seems they're quite in the dark about the loss of lights.
Cheap incandescents that use more energy and last only ~ 1000 hrs are THE SAME total cost as an expensive LED bulb that uses less energy but lasts longer for the average consumer.
In order for LEDs to be more cost-effective, you'd have to have the lights on 24/7 to get anywhere close to the near-term cost savings of cheap incandescents. And that is what the average citizen living paycheck to paycheck worries about - how much it'll cost THIS WEEK. Because they have to be frugal - they don't generally leave the lights on except when they need them - so their incandescents last pretty close to the full 1000 hrs AND their energy bills are reduced. Because the people living paycheck to paycheck HAVE TO. Liberal elitists (like Al Gore who had a $30,000 energy bill for a single month) don't mind about the added costs for purchasing LEDs because those costs are miniscule in comparison to their budgets. But because they get all warm and fuzzy over thinking they are saving the planet (while also making a ton of cash from investing in the companies that produce LEDs), they get lobbyists to have the legislators (who are also in their pockets) to force everyone else to have to buy light bulbs that they can't afford (and don't want). Gee - sounds just like another US gov't "making things better" train wreck known as Obamacare...
I had 3 of the 7 PAR30L halogens finally burn out in my kitchen and replaced them completely with LEDs. At a cost of $160 dollars for 7 LED bulbs. Many people can't afford $160 for light bulbs if they are living on a budget, but they can afford $8 for light bulbs. While I grumbled at the price, I can afford them. Many can not.
When you look at the prices for "standard" incandescents, the deltas become even more apparent - a 6-pack of 60W incandescents is $4.37 at Home Depot while a 6-pack of "60W equivalent" Cree LEDs is $77.82.
First, what waste? Clearly i stated I am paying to heat my house anyhow. Some people have electric heating so is that "wasted" as well? I'm not saying heat your house with them, i am saying the heat they release is not always wasted.
Flip side, what energy are we talking about anyhow "saving" anyhow the difference between a 60 watt incandescent vs the 13 watt CFL? So 47 Watts?
Going after residential lighting is sort of odd as it is not the biggest energy hog in an average house. I have gas appliances, but an average electric dryer is 4,000 watts which makes the 60 watt bulb seem pretty small.
For a while electric furnaces were the "in" thing, they use around 20KW so yeah, saving that 47 watts makes a HUGE difference.
The bill that phases out inefficient light bulbs was signed into law by George W. Bush. Whether you agree with it or not, labeling this a liberal law is ignoring basic facts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Independence_and_Security_Act_of_2007
Love Canal was a perpetual source of interest for me ten years ago and I did my homework. The Niagara Falls school district bears as much if not more responsibility than Hooker Chemical. At least namedrop something more like Bhopal or Times Beach. And go look up Love Canal on Wikipedia. It's an accurate encyclopedic article on the matter, and additionally it informed me of the unforeseen consequences of building the LaSalle Expressway on the old railroad right-of-way at the southern edge of the neighborhood, something I never even considered when writing those papers back as a teenager.
...try switching to an LED light bulb that has a 'color' of 3000k, and a light output of 800+ lumens (they are my favorite).
The 2700k 'color' LEDs look like a regular old school generic frosted light bulb.
The 5000k 'daylight' bulbs _I_don't_like_, because they seem too blue-ish, and make people's faces look ill.
800 lumens roughly is the same light output as a standard 60watt bulb.
Lastly, Consumer Reports recently did testing and a write-up on their ratings of recent LED bulbs and brands.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
...they are my favorite. The light looks 'bright white', not blueish, and 800 lumens is about the same as an old-school 60watt halogen.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Consumer Reports did an article comparing LED bulbs this year.
Go take a look at their findings, and see if you like their recommendations.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Where do you live where you can actually get anything above 2700K? I'd like for my living room to be slightly less yellow than the sunset murk of most incandescents, but all I can find are "warm white" 2500-2700K CFLs.
I live in Southern California, and the reduced head load of switching to LED bulbs is noticeable on my summertime electricity bill, when I have to run the Air Conditioner.
What the air conditioner needs to 'overcome':
Average person generates 100watts of heat.
My house is family of five. Two adults, three kids. So 500 watts of heat.
Ten 60watt old school bulbs: 600watts of heat.
That overcome energy load: 1.1kW.
Switched to all LED or CFL 60watt equivalent bulbs: they use 20watts each.
Ten 20watt bulbs: 200watts of heat.
Five people (500w) plus10 LED light bulb heat load (200w) is only 0.7kW of heat the A/C needs to overcome (plus the fridge, but wanted to keep this simple).
Now my A/C has 'four people less' to have to 'fight' to keep the house cool during the summer.
Lastly, both standard light bulbs and flourescents have little wire filiments that can break (burn out), with my family always flicking on-and-off the lights. The cool thing about LEDs is there is no filaments to burn out, since they are solid-state devices. Have had only 1 LED bulb fail so far, and it was 5yrs old (didn't get my money's worth on that one).
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
I really wonder why they don't start outfitting homes with 12v circuits with a single high-efficiency converter at the breaker box.
I assume it is because copper is expensive and does not grow on trees.
Here is a pix of my son's room with a 3000k 800 lumen bulb:
I think the light looks bright white, with plenty of light.
http://mrflash818.livejournal.com/142140.html
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
This is someone who is married to someone who managed to break a CFL inches from a 2yo's face.
Another fun fact: 50% of people are below average.
I think you just need some security for your premises because your story is bullshit.
Even fewer people are aware that incandescents aren't really banned. The consumer household bulbs, maybe, but keep in mind that "rough service" bulbs are not affected by the ban. Consider: Most automobile bulbs are still incandescent, and they're not going to suddenly vanish on January 1.
When I heard this, I did some checking, and "rough service" incandescents are available to consumers. I bought a packet of 12 100W bulbs recently to try out. One nice side effect is that "rough service" bulbs have a more robust filament (with extra bracing), and last significantly longer than commercial incandescents, bordering on the lifespan of CFLs, back before CFLs were value-engineered to their current pitiful lifespan. [1] At less than $3 apiece (Amazon) and with a 10K hour lifespan, I may save enough on rough service bulbs to pay for the extra electricity.
[1] I've been tracking the lifespan of the CFLs I've purchased since we switched to them in the early 1990s. Of the three original bulbs purchased, one is still in service today, almost 20 years later. Of the other two, one failed about 2005 and one was broken accidentally during a remodeling earlier this year. (Fortunately the base, not the tube containing the mercury.) However, lifespan started dropping significantly around the turn of the century, and now they don't last any longer than consumer incandescents used to, with significant infant mortality dragging down the average.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Also keep in mind that LEDs are far inferior to incandescent in color rendering and other variables.
The first part makes sense, your second part doesn't track well. Yes the Montreal guy is getting heat from the bulb for his home, but the production and distribution systems from plant to home that produces and delivers the electricity to power those incandescents is grossly inefficient. He might as well be heating his home with the windows left open. Half the energy has already escaped as heat before it event reaches his house. In both your case and his incandescents are wasting similarly.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
They're hardly what I'd call comparable. Using a 60 watt incandescent bulb equivalency: incandescent produces 85 btu/hr, CFL 30 btu/hr, LED 3.4 btu/hr. source For the energy of a traditional nightlight, you can get the illumination of a desk lamp.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Right, this is all wonderful in theory. In reality, these LED bulbs seem to have a high failure rate and thieves love to steal them costing me more in the long run. Everyone's theories doesn't take manufacturers defects due to lousy quality control and thievery. I've spent more money on LED's for my four warehouses than I have with florescent tubes or incandescent. I know manufacturers love to claim "50,000" hours, but I've yet to meet one to honor their warranty, considering the vast majority of them are from China who don't care.
You're not making any damn sense. If fire is a risk then you absolutely want to use a real incandescent bulb. The only failure mode I've seen is that the filament breaks and the bulb simply quits. With the several thousand CFLs I've installed in the chain of restaurants I work for, we've had nearly a dozen fires that I know about. I'm sure there's been more. The CFLs that catch fire are all upside down in an enclosed fixture with the electronics on the top where the heat collects. They fail in a much more dangerous way than a incandescent.
I have been switching bathrooms and other rooms where lights are cycled often back to incadesemt because they last longer than cfl. Bathrooms can kill 3 cgl bulbs a year in my house.
Would incandescent heating bulbs also be affected by this? (My turtle would not like to go without his heating or full spectrum UVa/UVb bulbs) Although it would force him to be in a sort of hibernation like state causing his activity to lower and him not to eat as much during the winter without the heat light...
Look, we're gonna keep using incandescent. We like them. Government be damned. So STFU.
You might want to try a lower lumen bulb (or suggesting to your son that supper with be forthcoming right after he cleans his room).
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
So hydro as a source of electicity weakens my argument? Huh?
The lights are on but no one is home.
The fixtures in question come on automatically for about 60 seconds when someone passes from the house through to the garage. The fixtures use about 2 W each in standby, so yes, I have checked. As to the "low tech" solution of simply operating the light switches, people forget to turn them off, and spouses don't cotton to being called names or being scolded as is the custom in Slashdot comments. The motion detector is convenient and energy saving, and it is a sad day when the "geeks on Slashdot" deride such an approach.
Yes, halogens are a (pricey) answer, and I will probably use halogens if they are available, but my experience is that halogens are only marginally more efficient than incandescents (they are a type of incandescent). They may not be available with the new regs.
I have had 100% FL and CFL in the house, with the exception of 3 of these motion detector fixtures -- the outside of the door, the garage, and the stairway from the garage. The manufacturers recommended against CFLs in these fixtures. Two of them make a click as if there is a relay contact, the third works with an electronic switch like a dimmer, but there are warnings against CFLs in all three. No matter how many times you flip your LEDs on and off, you are not flipping them on 120 times a second with a triac, generating a waveform rich in harmonics that will fry the electronic ballast in an LED bulb not certified for this use.
The argument against the ban is it treats homeowners like primitive peoples who don't know where "babies come from" (never proven -- many alleged primitives have elaborate cultures and rather "conservative" moral standards). A home owner is said to be clueless as to where their electric bill comes from and can't be trusted to make decisions about whether to reserve incandescent light bulbs for light-duty use such as motion detectors, closet lights, lightly used rooms, and so on.
Think of it this way - if incandescent lights last 1000 hours, at $1 a pop, and LED last 50k hours ,at $10 a pop, it will take 10k hours to reach the equivalent price, which is, at 5 hours a day, 2000 days, or 5 years. The next 22 years, you would pay $40 more dollars to keep buying incandescent.
Fact is, in the recent past, any other time the gov't wanted to change consumer behavior, they would have aeducational campaigns to "encourage" changes in behavior, rather than legislating the behavior, knowing that the latter causes real consumer backlash. This time however, they've chosen that (latter) path.. could a consortium of PACs, or worse, covert (although profitable) persuasion, have been applied instead? Smells funny to me....
100 watt "rough service" incandescent (which aren't subject to the ban) less than $3 each on Amazon. "Rough service" bulbs have greatly increased lifespan vs consumer incandescents.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Just to throw some more numbers in there, "rough usage" incandescents are rated at 10K hours and cost about $2.60 for one 100 watt bulb. For a little over twice the price you're getting an order of magnitude longer usage vs consumer incandescents. Moreover, I've noticed a tendency towards infant mortality on mass produced LED bulbs and CFLs, probably due to their complexity vs incandescents and that they're being built by the lowest overseas bidder, and this tends to make the average lifespan somewhat less than what it says on the box.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
um, incandescents are extremely cheap; so cheap that for a reasonable span of time (less than five years, say) it might be less expensive to buy the cheaper bulb and put part of the savings towards somewhat higher power bills. What's goofy about that?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
LEDs are cheaper. But some basic understanding of math and economics is required to see that. People that fail at that may get to conclusions such as yours.
Well, that sure convinced me.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Rough service lamps are still being made. Buy them I do.
It's not about what costs less to you
or saves you damn money, idiots.
It's about using less electricity.
So what if you calculate the lifetime
per each type of bulb, cost of each
type, cost of electricity used, etc.
It's not about the cost to you -- it was
a measure taken for the sake of
reducing power consumption.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
They are well ahead of anybody else. They have been pretty much since their inception, and with a track record like that, they're guaranteed to be around well after you and I are dead.
Given most companies are licensing tech from Cree, Cree isn't going anywhere. Cree is the IBM of LED.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I am a filament of your imagination . . .
This phasing out is sheer stupidity. In the end, homeowners will come to Canada for bulbs. Why is it stupidity? In the northern states and in Canada, we have winter. Any heat produced from incandescent lighting, replaces heat by other sources. If the other source is oil or gas, it still does not justify replacement with CFLs or LEDS.
CFLs have a high cost of manufacture, and contain mercury. The CFLs do not like cold temperatures, at around 10F or below, many fail to light, or produce inadequate intensity. The CFLs need special handling for waste disposal.
LEDs are low wattage bulbs, but they are also low voltage bulbs. This means that hidden in the base, is a small step down transformer, with rectifiers to produce DC. More expensive LEDs have a small integrated circuit in the base, a switching power supply to permit the LEDS to operate safely. There is quite a bit of heat produced to power the LEDs and this must be dissipated as waste heat.
LEDs are OK for outdoor cold temperature use.
Why am I saying "stupidity"? Here in Quebec we have hydroelectric water power generated electricity. 90% of our homes are all-electrically powered and heated. Incandescent lights displace the heat that baseboard resistance elements provide.
In summer, our dawn starts at 4am, and sundown is at 10pm. Incandescents, if used, will be on for about one hour per day.
And finally, my LCD tv produces much heat. The USA should make LCD tvs and monitors illegal. The benefit would be in the disposal of LCD tvs. When you legislate stupidity, include some intelligence with the decision.
Happy Holidays to all.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I've got 4 LED task/reading lights built the "new" way: the LED is built in, and the power converter is a wall wart that supplies a constant current (not voltage). If either craps out, I can fix it. The wall wart is probably less reliable than the LED, and easier to replace.
Right now you have #14 wire going to all your lights. One wire could handle 300,000 lumens of LEDs at 12 volts.
Just to nit-pick, every LED that I've ever seen is wire bonded. Wire bonding definitely has reliability failure modes, so the LED itself can fail.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I think the HDD draws a lot more than all the LEDs in my house.
Inefficiency for electricity is creating heat, so if you want a heater, you're just creating heat in a spot that you're not calling the heater.
This is a free country because I can buy 200 types of cereal with no nutritional value (or negative, for many of them) and 150 interchangeable types of toothpaste.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
This is clearly a plot by the liberals to penalize those of us who are not blind, yet another pandering for minority votes.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The LEDs themselves under ideal conditions may last 50k hours but the whole bulb and especially the electronic ballast is subject to complete failure in a much shorter time frame. Where I live, they last a couple months before power line irregularities burn them and CFL bulbs out.
Your 4-pack of incandescents will last 4 x 8 weeks of use (in my experience)....whereas one CFL will last several years.....
Only boring people are ever bored.
Their skin sucks up all the light.
A more important problem for me is replacing all those burnt out bulbs. Enough 60 watt bulbs in your house and there will be a dead one every few weeks.
Yeah, the "60W equivalent" was way too bright. The 40W warm white bulbs are awesome, though .
I am making a concerted effort to avoid starting a flaming war in response to your characterization of LEDs.
First, we (the US) are banning incandescents HERE, where it makes perfect sense to do so-- NOT in Canada, where temperatures and daylight hours are, as you say, radically different! Fluorescents and incandescents are terrible problems heating up rooms whose A/Cs are struggling to deal with heat from multiple sources. We have NO issues with frigid temperatures causing CFs to malfunction here in Los Angeles, or in any of the lower 48 states, or most of our upper states either, for that matter, especially through most of the year.
Yes, LEDs DO create heat-- current passing through ANY device does so, but a far greater prrcentage of the current is actually expended on LIGHT, rather than waste heat! The proof is in the electric bills-- LEDs are far more efficient, the are far more robust-- knocking a lamp over accidentally does not result in broken glass and a mess as tungsten or CF bulbs do-- they are trouble-free, can be dimmed efficiently with dimmer switches unlike the bulbs you prrfer, and produce a far more pleasant range of the spectrum than incandescents. The smaller the wattage of an incandescent, the more of its energy is wasted as heat, unlike LEDs. After changing over to LEDs in my home (and my car!) several years before any of my neighbors, I can attest to just how much more preferable they are. I LOVE not having to climb up on ladders to replace incandescents in garages, hallways and other high-ceilinged structures!
Cheers for the LED, the new king! Keep your problematic resistance lighting, if you want!
I have problems when trying to post other than as "anonymous coward", so let me say my name is Bill Dale, in Los Angeles, and do not need to hide behind the anonymous title... I am quite comfortable defending any positions I take in Slashdot.
onse
I was looking at someones numbers. Suppose you are a real person, that is, a business. There is no meaniful savings around the stuff we have been talking about. There is however a real savings and that is you do not have to pay someone to climb up on a ladder and replace the bubs as often.
I figure the neutral side shows up because of the cost of money. No one here has mentioned cost of money or opportunity cost or the credit freeze.
The positive savings probably comes from OSHA, workers comp, and liability. The last is defined by your insurer in the policy. When is the last time one of us keyboard rangers were told to climb up 6 meters and replace 20 2 meter tubes? And then troubleshoot the ballasts. Mostly we trip when chewing gum. The division of labor argument is good but I think the liability argument is the winner.
I am making a concerted effort to avoid starting a flaming war in response to your characterization of LEDs.
First, we (the US) are banning incandescents HERE, where it makes perfect sense to do so-- NOT in Canada, where temperatures and daylight hours are, as you say, radically different! Fluorescents and incandescents are terrible problems heating up rooms whose A/Cs are struggling to deal with heat from multiple sources. We have NO issues with frigid temperatures causing CFs to malfunction here in Los Angeles, or in any of the lower 48 states, or most of our upper states either, for that matter, especially through most of the year.
Yes, LEDs DO create heat-- current passing through ANY device does so, but a far greater prrcentage of the current is actually expended on LIGHT, rather than waste heat! The proof is in the electric bills-- LEDs are far more efficient, the are far more robust-- knocking a lamp over accidentally does not result in broken glass and a mess as tungsten or CF bulbs do-- they are trouble-free, can be dimmed efficiently with dimmer switches unlike the bulbs you prrfer, and produce a far more pleasant range of the spectrum than incandescents. The smaller the wattage of an incandescent, the more of its energy is wasted as heat, unlike LEDs. After changing over to LEDs in my home (and my car!) several years before any of my neighbors, I can attest to just how much more preferable they are. I LOVE not having to climb up on ladders to replace incandescents in garages, hallways and other high-ceilinged structures!
Cheers for the LED, the new king! Keep your problematic resistance lighting, if you want!
I have problems when trying to post other than as "anonymous coward", so let me say my name is Bill Dale, in Los Angeles, and do not need to hide behind the anonymous title... I am quite comfortable defending any positions I take in Slashdot.
onse
I have a mixture of LEDs, CFLs and Incandescent lamps. LEDs are the most poluting in manufacturing. The machining of the base, the power supply etc, should be considered. I use LEDs outdoors, where they are oblivious to cold. I am also trying to get my city to switch from Sodium Vapor street lamps to LED ones. So, I am not opposed to LEDs. As for CFL's, though they are rated at 5000 hours, most do not last anywhere near that duration, the reason being, we turn them on and off several times per day. The filaments to warm the gas to kick start ignition, are too fragile. Make them stronger, and you need to redesign the power supply to supply more current after glow starts, shortening their life. As for the long florescents, we have converted to solid state switching supplies to replace the ballasts, and we use "Green manufactured" tubes. Outdoor signs and street lighting should definitely be of LED or similar construction.
I still say, incandescent lamps have their places. Halogens for example..
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Think about what a graph of powerline spikes etc would look like over the last seventy years. Ply some stupid math. Just as a guess I might ask when would some stupid math say the graph il go vertical. Perhaps that is what needs to be looked at, not the bulbs. Or maybe write your house with highly rectified 24 volt service. Curious, pre-silicon there was a story about everyone wanting to do that for the same reasons and the circle was not virteous.
Speak for your self, I as an American do not believe it makes any sense to ban incandescent and I too live Los Angeles. It is not right, I do not want some Chinese made overpriced LED or CFL bulb, a light bulb should cost a dollar not $20 or more. Before the ban light bubs cost me a dollar a piece now even incandescents are 4 or more apiece.
Seriously, you can get a 60 watt switch LED lamp bulb for $13 from earth LED. Switch has a residential lifetime, and a commercial 5 year warranty. philips has only a residential 3 years. The cheap chinese bulbs such as lights of America, feits and GE, will warranty for 5 years, but will not honor these. I have had 2 LEDs burn out and LoA and GE both said that I had to send in money to replace them, that was far more than what I paid originally.
Switch LEDs are made in the west, use philips LEDs and most importantly, are the ONLY ones that handle the heat properly. As such, these can go into not just lamps, but any light fixture. OTOH, none of the others can do that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You aren't looking at the same LED I am then.
Probably not, I was going off what the store had last time I looked. Mind you, the 'damned lies' are for their incandescent equivalency rating, not anything else. So maybe Cree aren't inflating their equivalency ratings, but it was rather egarious, so the point that somebody who simply picked up X 'wattage equivalent' LED bulbs, not knowing to check lumens, to replace their incandescents could end up in a situation where it's much darker than they really had, or want.
I'm going to have to check up on the cree bulbs, but this is what I'm talking about:
Standard 60W Bulb: 855
CFL '60W': 825 - 96%, within tolerances. (13W)
LED '60W' equivalent: 630 lumons. 74%, which is better than I remember, but still closer to a 50W incandescent, not a 60W. Now, it uses 7W, not 12 for the Cree.
It's the same sort of phenomenon as with ranges for wireless devices - 'UP TO XXX FEET!' when in reality you'll only get that range with no intervening objects/walls, with the antennas lined up perfectly, in a radio isolation chamber.
I don't read AC A human right
We obviously have no idea about how much mercury he was exposed to. I know that eating several fish is probably equivalent to the same amount of mercury, but there is a difference between inhaled dust and food digested by your stomach.
Relax. You'd have to break about 150 bulbs to get the same mercury dose that you get from eating one fish. The numbers are not hard to find if you look.
Personally I wouldn't bother replacing the carpet.
Find me a warranty for 50,000 hours for a reasonable cost. You'll find that most warranties don't extend past 5 years, and those that do typically have a time limit to the hours burned.
Osram CFL have outrageously long warranty (at least when you buy the "quick startup time" variants, the one with the silver border on the box).
But it's a German brand. I have no idea if its sold outside of Europe.
I point this out because I've replaced every single CFL (15) in my home office area in the past 24 months, some of them twice. The manufacturer is no longer in business, the vendor just shrugs - not their problem.
You're doing something wrong, that's quite a lot of replacements.
Some pointers:
- The thing that gets killed first with CFL is the driving electronics, specially the starter.
This get more quickly used up by strart/stop power cycles, rather than long burn times. A CFL that you constantly turn on and off is going to die fast. Better consider using LED lamps.
- Build quality: CFL and LED lamps have a much more complicated circuitry that the plain simple filament of classic light bulb (or the slightly better but more or less halogen bulb). The quality does matter a lot.
In my personnal experience:
Best quality for CFL:
Osram, the "fast start-up time" variants (with the silver border on the side of the box).
Best quality for LED:
Philips (absolutely best I've had), Osram (slight delay at startup, don't like the colour temperature as much as philips').
Last but not least: avoid no-name brands. Not only is it for reason of build quality. But because shit happens and a bulb could burn within the first 1-2 years. Given the technology, such a short life span IS abnormal and should be covered by warranty. But that requires the continued existence of some company able to honour the warranty.
Thus buy brands that won't become bankrupt tomorrow, from shop which will be able to handle warranty after 2 years.
And that perhaps the single somewhat justifiable uses of consumer tracking: if you've used a fidelity card and paid using a debit/credit card instead of cash, that means that the transaction can both be tracked from their and your history. Thus if you lost the receipt, you're still able to do something about it.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Incandescent light bulbs are heaters that also happen to emit light. (Look at the power/spectum curve for an incandesent bulb: it puts out more energy as heat than light.)
Incandescent lamps do have a few great qualities, cost effective accurate and consistent current limiting, in passive crossover and speaker / driver protection, test benches, transmitters, well head and regulator heaters,just to mention a few. they just suck for general lighting. Just hope the old government doesnâ(TM)t shoot us in the foot again
"In Every Life The Time Comes To Grab The Bull By The Tail And Face The Situation" W.C.Fields
My beef is not with the technology, but with the morons who feel they should legislate my behavior. I'm sure I'll get hammered about the effects of global warming for saying this, but it's none of your business how I light my house or office interior.
Batshit crazy tree? Look up what mercury does to kids, you ignoramus.
Here there are some 3100-4100's available, but the $10/unit city utility subsidy doesn't apply to them, so I'm stuck with the yellow-ass legacy of tungsten..
As per Wikipedia, the expected life of an LED bulb is ~30,000 hours. The expected life of an incandescent is ~1,000 hours. Obviously, if you're paying a dollar each for the incandescents and $20 for the LED, you're going to pay 50% more over time by using the incandescents.
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> Most homes today are heated with electricity and having original light bulb means you as well add that consumption to heating and it is so on off from that (not so good ratio but still).
Speak for yourself. Everything here is natural gas, which is probably actually better than the coal they're using to generate our power.
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FTFY. Insulation material is noncombustible. Fiberglass is, well, glass, and glass doesn't burn at nominal 60W-bulb temperatures. Cellulose insulation is chemically treated to be fire-retardant, and also won't burn at nominal 60W-bulb temperatures. Bare keyless light sockets like the ones typically installed in crawlspaces are usually ceramic, which also doesn't burn.
While I really appreciate your efforts to make all Canadians look like idiots, I'd rather rather you just identify yourself at from "quebec" rather than Canada.
The solstince was June 21st, 2013. In Montreal the sun rose at 5:06 a.m. that day and set at 8:47 p.m.. Your times might be accurate for some location dramatically farther north, but you can't arbitrarily add two hours of daylight in Montreal without me calling bullshit.
Your argument that "people will come to Canada for bulbs" might wash in the limited number of border communities but in the U.S. most of those have a limited population. Buffalo is a substantial drive from the Border; Seattle is a three hour drive. If you really believe that people are going to drive three hours to smuggle light bulbs over a border well, tabernac...have another beer my friend.
The amount of heat generated from your lightbulbs is doing *nothing* to contribute significantly to heating your living space. Here's a test--and since you have such long days of sunlight it should be easy. Live a month with no lightbulbs on and see what the change in consumption for your electric heat is.
The fact that Quebec has an abundance of hydroelectric power does not justify using all of that power for the sake of it. Hydroelectric power is relatively non-polluting but does entail significant environmental displacement and damage. Reducing energy consumption can lead to a reduction in demand for land and power generating facilities, preserving habitat.
I'm not sure how you get to this logical leap: "And finally, my LCD tv produces much heat. The USA should make LCD tvs and monitors illegal..." Your old CRT TV used to generate quite a bit of heat as well. LEDs will replace them over the long term as well.
That argument also sounds a bit like the OPEC countries saying "why bother making smaller fuel efficient engines? UAE has plenty of oil to refine." It's short sighted, narrow and ignorant.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
> LEDs are the most poluting in manufacturing.
Since you're typing this on a COMPUTER I'll resist the temptation to laugh. Manufacturing computers isn't polluting at all of course. (Look up the fines levied against silicon fabricators...)
Your comment in this case isn't incorrect but you're ignoring the fact that LED bulb manufacturing is young and there will be process improvements.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
I am an early riser. And have been for 50 years. Daylight does come at 4:10am and darkness at 10pm. Those extended hours are valid from May to end July. I am living proof of the extended hours.