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Nanotech Could Make Incandescent Light Bulbs As Efficient As LEDs (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Thomas Edison would be pleased. Researchers have come up with a way to dramatically improve the efficiency of his signature invention, the incandescent light bulb. The approach uses nanoengineered mirrors to recycle much of the heat produced by the filament and convert it into additional visible light. The new-age incandescents are still far from a commercial product, but their efficiency is already nearly as good as commercial LED bulbs, while still maintaining a warm old-fashioned glow.
Lightbulb more important than recorded music??? NO WAY~!
I can't wait to get back to the days of changing each light bulb in my house a couple of times each year.
The point of the point of the invention is to reflect the infrared light back at the filament, so the warmth should be pretty much absent if they succeed.
What's the lifetime of the new incandescent bulb? Do they still burn out as fast as they used to? Or does recycling the heat cause them to take longer to burn out. The major advantage I find in LEDs is that they last a long time. And with the plummeting prices (picked some up for $3.50 a piece at Walmart last week), It's going to be hard for incandescent bulbs to compete. If this was such a good solution, it could probably be used for LED lights as well, since they throw off a non-negligible amount of heat as well.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Interesting acheivement, though I wonder at any help for lifespan. I'd rather put in LED bulbs that will probably outlive the rest of the house...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Thomas Edison didn't invent the electric incandescent light bulb, he developed an electric incandescent light bulb.
Thomas Edison would only be pleased if he got sole credit and a cut of the profits.
They did legislate efficiencies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So if they can make an incandescent that meets those requirements, who cares. Now go make another grievously uninformed post.
Aside from questions of longevity, I honestly much prefer the availability of light color options that LEDs provide. After getting several LEDs that are substantially cooler in color than normally available incandescents/CFLs, I never want to go back. Add to that the fact that I can GET warmer colored LEDs if I desire, and the fact that I can use LED lights that package other abilities into their package (like wireless speakers), and I just don't see the consumer draw other than some rose colored glasses. (Maybe for dimmable bulbs, which I know LEDs struggled with for awhile but they seem to have overcome that also... This also ignores the brightness of the lightbulb, as LEDs have just generally been brighter [a good thing imo] than comparable incandescents and CFLs in my experience. Maybe the new tech solves that, but still probably not worth it as a consumer is my feeling.)
The question isn't just whether they'll be as efficient as LEDs. The question is whether they'll last as long and cost as little.
Frankly, for most people, what they liked about incandescents was their cost. I seriously doubt that anything that requires "nanoengineered mirrors" will cost $2.50 for a pack of 10.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
There are some crazy innovations happening in LED lighting. To the point where stock on shelves is becoming obsolete in a matter of months.
All white LEDs are essentially florescent lamps. - A blue-range LED excites a phosphor that makes white light. You can tune the phosphor mix to get whatever color range you want. "Warm" Led lights are completely indistinguishable from incandescent, and in may cases can be "Warmer"
So basically you have an emitter with a glob on tob.
In the past everyone was focusing on getting the emitter more powerful, and putting one or two in a light.
That approach is completely obsolete - Too much heat in a tiny space, extremely high drive current requiring more expensive power supplies, light comes from a single point source. (Single emitter is good for some applications but for home lighting its not great)
Now they've developed chip-on-glass techniques that lay down lots of tiny LEDs on a strip of glass which are all then wired in serries, then are covered in a soft polymer that contains the phosphor. The polymer both protects the chips and their wiring while providing a large surface area to emit white light.
The strip arrays are cheap to make (completely automated) and guess what happens when you power a bunch of strips in series (About 80-200 chips at a time)? You can drive it at like 60-100 volts. At that voltage the power supplies are CHEAP because you're only drawing a few hundred ma. Everything gets cheaper and more efficient.
Meet the new bulb. Same as the old bulb.
They could have legislated minimum efficiencies but NO
They DID legislate based on efficiency. The law states that future incandescents can come to market if they are more energy efficient. Wikipedia
So let us give these guys a well deserved PhD or Masters as the case may be and move on...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Incandescent lights were not banned, efficiency standards were passed that rules them out for most uses. They would be allowed for general lighting if they could be efficient enough, and they are still being allowed and used for some applications like harsh environments, certain decorative uses, heating, etc.
If you make an incan that is more efficient than LED, it will get itself unbanned quickly.
Depends on the state and/or country. Many states/countries banned incandescent bulbs. California almost did, until they were excoriated by environmentalists and economists, saying that only efficiency levels should be regulated.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I've had multiple led bulbs die in under two years.
Stop buying them from the Dollar Store reject sale bin.
id wager most are
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You can still buy them everywhere. The only difference is the wattage is lower and its a smaller halogen bulb inside the larger glass.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Paid $10 for a 60 watt equivalent at Home Depot. Supposed to last 10 years it claimed. It was about as bright as a 25 watt incandescent and stopped working after a month. It was in a normal table lamp so airflow was not a problem. The warranty said I needed my store receipt. I shouldn't have to keep and file away store receipts for something as ubiquitous as a fucking light bulb. Into the trash it went.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The right-wing blowhards on the radio will still complain about having to use them.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Incandescent lights were not banned, but the laws that were passed effectively forced the closure of all U.S. manufacturing plants, and the equipment has already been exported to other countries. So if this technology ever does make it to market, it will be of no use to citizens of the USA. Oh, we could buy cheaply made foreign bulbs that are imported at extra cost and priced sky high, but it is a tough call between that and the many disadvantages of crappy CFB's that brighten slowly (bad for use in closets or stairways) , or die much faster than the packages claim. I have yet to have one last over a year in my kitchen overhead light, which uses three at a time and seems to constantly need changing. I don't even bother to change the bulbs any more until two of the three go out, and I'm still replacing bulbs every year, as fast as I was with 25 cent incandescent lamps. Oh well, at least these bulbs let me throw away mercury into the landfills. (Don't tell the hazmat people about the one that broke in the baby's room!)
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
In every case I know, you can still get the incandescents - they just can't be 'general use' bulbs. 40W appliance bulbs are still available for environments like your oven. Short of halogen bulbs(which are actually a variation on incandescent), no other lighting technology can withstand the heat well enough.
Otherwise, you'd have to get fancy with a light pipe or something in order to keep the light generator cool enough, and even then you might have problems during things like self-clean cycles. In the end, it's just not worth it, the light isn't on that much, and most of the time you're heating the inside with electricity anyways, so it's not like bulb efficiency really matters.
I don't read AC A human right
Since this is real science Edison wouldn't know anything about it.
He would however steal the idea, patent it and make money from it while the real inventor will die a poor man's death.
Edison should be known for the thief he was.
In most areas, they aren't really all that banned. Because the standards(in most areas) were written to demand a certain efficiency, if you produce a more efficient bulb, it's automatically allowed.
Even without tricks like the German 'heating device with built in safety light'. ;)
I don't read AC A human right
> I don't even bother to change the bulbs any more until two of the three go out, and I'm still replacing bulbs every year, as fast as I was with 25 cent incandescent lamps.
It's called "value engineering".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Not all governments passed the same law.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Probably because fire is typically reddish (unless you were a blacksmith) and the moon was white at night when it was cold. History is hard to overcome.
while still maintaining a warm old-fashioned glow.
Is this old fashioned warm glow really better, or is it just more familiar? (much like the "warmer" sound from vacuum tube amplifiers that some people prefer)
I've used CFL's for over a decade, and started moving to LED's about 2 years ago, and I really have no problem with the LED light - I use "warm" 2700K LED's almost everywhere and they are fine. I still have a rarely used desk light with an incandescent, and I don't think it puts out any better light than the LED's.
> LED bulbs are superior to everything else, prove me wrong. (you can't)
They are, at this time, for most applications. (There's a reason "hard use" incandescents are still made.) But wait a few years, and LEDs will be "value engineered" down to crappy lifetimes just like CFLs were.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
LED bulb nerds should checkout bigclivedotcom's channel on YouTube. Where he does teardowns of LED light bulbs purchased on eBay and from his local "pound shop" and other assorted cheap Chinese crap.
Here he does a teardown on what sounds like your "chip-on-glass" LED bulb. He approves of it.
If it puts out a lot of light, doesn't flicker or buzz (at least undimmed), and works in the cold, it'll have a good-sized niche.
Just like those cheap Christmas light strings from years ago.
Except a lot more expensive.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
My wife's theater group has a closet/shed just outside the house they use for their activities. In order to keep it reasonably warm and hence reasonably mildew-free, she collected a huge bunch of 100-watt incandescents and keeps one of them on 24/7 (which also increases bulb life because the bulb temperature stays pretty constant.) The electricity costs a bit, but having to replace mildewed period costumes would cost hella lot more.
From The Fine Article;
... ultimately improved the efficiency of the bulb to 6.6% ...
6.6% is 45 lumens per watt.
Pardon me while I yawn.
This tech might lead to something interesting, but so far, not so much.
The commercially available Cree soft white 4-flow A19 bulb is 12% or 82 lumens per watt.
There are LED modules for sale that are over 200 lumens per watt.
In the lab, 303 lumens per watt (44%) has been achieved.
He didn't invent the light bulb, and he didn't invent that, either.
He and his team invented a long-lived, high-impedance, incandescent lamp that could be wired in parallel --
as well as developing a complete and commercially viable system for safely electrifying your home our shop. Including the training of a new generation of electricians.
This is good news for those guys at sideshows who eat light bulbs: I can't see how the new LED bulbs could possibly be as tasty or nutritious.
Because he is dead and will not be able to falsely claim credit for it's invention. http://www.cracked.com/article...
Bullshit. Do you have receipts for all of the bulbs that you have bought? And have you tried to get a replacement? You can't get the store to honor the manufacturer's guarantee, you are told to send it back to the manufacturer at your own expense. The only one making money with that scam would be the post office.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Name names! Some companies make complete junk products, others don't.
Lights of America make complete and utter junk.
Cree (in addition to being huge in the actual LED elements) makes bulbs in a very nice form factor, and they do put off a very nice color (for emulating incandescent) and I think a comparable amount of light. Unfortunately they seem to be the golden child of tech reviews that circle jerk about how great they are. Downsides? I see higher than average failures from real-world reports, yes they have a 10 year warranty, but you have to pay shipping, and they buzz like a mofo on a dimmer.
Phillips. I still have a Phillips CFL from 15 years ago (with three arch tubes) that hasn't died yet. Well I doubt their new product line has the same longevity, I'm reasonably satisfied with them as a brand. The Philips "SlimStyle" seems to be a good low end LED light. It looks strange but has decent light distribution, OK color, fewer failures than Cree from field reports, and a good price. Downside is they buzz in dimmers too (though not as bad as the Cree), but seem silent in normal lamps.
Good thing too. Regulation can drive innovation as in this case. I seriously doubt this tech would have been pursued if government hadn't mandated more efficiency. Still, it's not a good idea to regulate to the point of picking 'The Solution' and imposing it on everyone.
Even if efficient incandescents take off, it will now just be one choice among many. LEDs offer so many advantages that they're going nowhere. Even the bulk of the people who tell pollsters that they 'prefer the warm glow' of incandecents are not necessarily going to go back. People prefer what they were use to. Once a switch is made, many will decide that the new way is what they now prefer and will kick and scream just as hard with any further change.
LED bulbs are superior to everything else, prove me wrong. (you can't)
I put an LED bulb in my Lava Lamp. Now the goo just sits there on the bottom.
Have gnu, will travel.
Confirmed! The Incans got permabanned in the 16th century, and the descendants were ravaged by disease by the early 17th century.
So this will be as big a success as etching ordinary bulb filaments with a laser,which also was meant to make old "ordinary" bulbs much more efficient,but seems to have Totaly failed to ever appear anywhere. Bulb stories are like the next battery tech,none of which ever seem to make it as far as the shops shelves,one a week..
Why would anyone prefer warm yellow light? That was a byproduct of incandescent light, not a design choice. I for one hate the way it made everything look dirty and yellow. Give me white light (3500-4000K) any time.
I mean, by the time you've gotten your infrared reflector photonic crystal tungsten ribbon rectangular emitter Rube Goldberg thing perfected, it's bound to be a lot more expensive than current incandescent bulbs, and probably more expensive than LED bulbs. Plus, it is still working by getting a thin piece of metal hot enough to glow brightly. That inevitably means limited lifespan.
Personally, I buy cheap LED bulbs when I see them on sale, and I haven't had one fail yet. Other than the older silicone-rubber-over-glass Cree bulb which I dropped. It still works fine, actually, but with electrically 'hot' bits exposed, I'm not running it.
I don't know from spectrum, but I got a lot of pushback on installing CFLs. This has not been an issue with the LEDs I've gotten; they seem to have a good WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) whatever their "spectrum" might be.
The big problem with LEDs might turn out to be they just don't die. Once everyone has replaced every bulb with an LED, who's going to be buying bulbs?
What I'm wanting to see is more fixtures that are built with LEDs, rather than assuming people are going to have to replace bulbs constantly.
Pretty sure it was a Cree. LEDs are an amazing technology but the failure point is the power supply. Until the supplies run cooler I won't be buying any.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Depends on the state and/or country. Many states/countries banned incandescent bulbs. California almost did, until they were excoriated by environmentalists and economists, saying that only efficiency levels should be regulated.
No, California banned the Edison socket. More precisely, any light with an Edison socket is treated as low-efficiency lighting, presumably on the theory that someone could screw a low-efficiency light bulb in such a socket. It's really stupid to have done so, because now many people are stuck with lighting that only accepts compact fluorescent and the like, while those who have Edison sockets can easily upgrade to the latest and greatest LEDs. There's a loophole, as Edison-socketed lighting is permitted in rooms other than the kitchen, so long as a dimmer switch is in the circuit. This can be even worse, because many high-efficiency lights that fit in Edison sockets are damaged by poorly-designed dimmers.
Phillips. I still have a Phillips CFL from 15 years ago (with three arch tubes) that hasn't died yet.
They would probably like to buy it from you so they can figure out what went wrong with it not dying, so they can prevent it happening again...
No, California classifies any light with an Edison socket as low-efficiency, not matter what bulb you put in. They're banned in kitchens completely, and only allowable if you put in a dimmer switch that will damage some high-efficiency lights that would otherwise work in an Edison socket.
Sibling comment covers the brand issue. I've had similar experience with CFLs, all though these days I can easily find them for $1 per bulb. I'd say my mean time to failure is about 5 to 6 years, more or less depending on whether there's a roommate in the house who never turns lights off after leaving a room. The bulb lighting up the room I'm posting from is going on 7 years old.
I don't have experience with LEDs outside of the tiny red ones found in electronics kits and LED flashlights, but I would recommend at least a 17 watt CFL to replace a 60 watt incandescent. The 13 watt CFL 60 watt "equivalents" are way too dim for lighting a room. Bump up to 23 watt CFL if replacing a 75 or 100 watt incandescent (in general bump the actual wattage up one size over the recommended "equivalent," all though 23 watt is bright enough for me at least for 100 watt replacement). It sounds like the same thing may apply to LEDs and should be classified as a marketing failure*, not a technological failure. Remember to select a warmer temperature for lights meant to be used in the evening, while cooler ones are best for vanities.
* Note: Different brands can't seem to agree which actual wattage should replace any particular watt incandescent, either. Imnsho they never should have tried to be substitute incandescents.
Barely-on-topic ramble: It's a lot like garden burgers. The ones that try to be substitute meat universally suck; however when buying a garden burger for what it is, a vegetable patty, there are some quite good flavors out there. Disclaimer: I'm far, far from being a vegetarian--there's no way I'm giving up nuclear chicken wings, ribs, or bison burgers! Some days I just want a veggie burger instead of meat, not that veggie burger is healthier or significantly cheaper than meat either. (They aren't, check the nutrition info, might actually be more unhealthy than meat!) That reminds me; I've been meaning to try to locate an insect burger just to try one out and see if they're more amenable to bbq sauce and bacon than veggie burgers (protip: definitely go for bison here along with thick-cut smoked bacon and Jack Daniel's original recipe sauce if you don't make your own--your arteries will hate you but your taste buds will love you).
A similar method was reported here back in 2002.
It would be good to have a light source that gives a full, even spectrum again.
As others have commented here, I also wonder about the longevity.
I believe that current incandescent bulbs fail mostly as a result of heat. These new bulbs, if they do run cooler would need to be designed with a completely different impedance model, since traditional incandescent bulbs run a delicate balance using heat and the resulting impedance to maintain some kind of equilibrium. This is why they most often fail immediately after being switched on - the bulb is cool (low resistance) so for a brief moment there is a large amount of current flowing through the filament before it heats up enough to reduce the current to a safer level. If that spike happens to coincide with a peak of the AC waveform then the filament, already weakened by many heating/cooling cycles, stands a good chance of burning out.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Also here's a question for everyone. Why is 1800K "warm" while 5000K is "cool". We should really work on the way we talk about colors. Blue is hotter than red, yet for some reason people associate blue with cold and red with hot. Why haven't we fixed this?
FWIW, if you want to learn some interesting things about how humans name colors, the results of the World Color Survey back in the 1970's are the primary source of information used by researchers the study any color language association theories.
Outside this basic information, several subsequent associated studies of people and language, "warm" colors are associated with fire and heat, "cool" colors are associated with water, sky, and shadow. Several studies also correlate the so-called "cool" color with "dark" and association with lower temperatures. Many researcher believe that because we don't have experience with the colors emitted black body radiators at high temperatures and those colors only appear in "cooler" context within the experience of those people that created our languages that is why we associate those colors with "cool" and not "warm".
On the other hand, blackbody radiation correlated temperature is really a bogus thing to measure anyhow. Forcing it to further correlate with "warm" and "cool" and "hotter" doesn't generally make sense in many contexts.
You can have a "warm" greeting and a "cool" greeting and it has nothing to do with any temperature.
You can perceive color from a reflective object or a transmissive object that is not a black body radiators, so there is no "hotter" in that case.
On the other hand, if it simply bothers you that 5000K is "higher" than 1800K, then just measure your color "temperature" in Mireds...
Isn't this just like an HIR headlight bulb? it reflected IR back to further heat the filament and increase light output without increasing wattage.
On a related subject, I've often wondered if the inside surface of the anode of a vacuum tube could have a reflective coating to direct radiated IR back to the cathode and so reduce the power needed to maintain it's temperature. Somewhat late with this idea of course.
Check your facts.
If this was such a good solution, it could probably be used for LED lights as well
No. Incandescent filaments have to be hot to produce light, but with its entirely different mechanism, reflecting infrared back onto a light-emitting diode will not help it produce more light. Heat is NOT good for the diode. LED bulb designs actively do the opposite of these nanomirrors: they transfer heat away from the diode. (You may have noticed the fins on some LED bulbs. Their purpose is to radiate heat and keep the diode cooler.)
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Although the retailer claimed that my bulbs have a "warm" light with about the same color temperature as incandescent, I still notice that they throw a distinct bluish cast into the room. For me, it's not a very comfortable light.
They are "dimmable," too, but their "dynamic range" -- the spread between maximum and minimum brightness -- is not nearly as good as incandescents.
I will wait for a few more years of improvements before giving LEDs another chance.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
No, California classifies any light with an Edison socket as low-efficiency, not matter what bulb you put in. They're banned in kitchens completely, and only allowable if you put in a dimmer switch that will damage some high-efficiency lights that would otherwise work in an Edison socket.
You keep saying this, but I cannot find anything to support that idea. This mentions only efficiency requirements, not socket type:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
As does this: http://www.ledsmagazine.com/ar...
If in fact you can provide me with a reference to this supposed ban on kitchen edison sockets I would be interested to see it.
Oh I spoke too soon - I found some. This is a reference that seems to support your statement: http://www.title24express.com/...
"According to the Title 24 energy standards a high efficacy luminaire contains only high efficacy lamps or high efficacy LED lighting, and must not contain a socket which allows any low efficacy lighting system to be used. For example, any luminaire containing a medium screw base socket is classified as low efficacy, regardless of the type of lamp installed into that socket. Typically, high efficacy luminaires contain pin-based sockets, like compact fluorescent or linear fluorescent lamp sockets, though other socket types such as screw sockets specifically rated only for high intensity discharge lamps (like metal halide lamps) light emitting diode (LED) luminaires (dedicated LED lighting fixtures that cannot use incandescent or any other type of lighting technology) may also qualify as high efficacy."
It does seem like a bit of almost pointless legislation since low efficiency bulbs can be found for various pin-based socket systems.
LEDs are now $3.40/bulb.
If you are still buying incandescents at this point. . . I doubt you will ever switch from incandescents or trade-in your horse and buggy, for that matter. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
This is why I have trouble giving much weight to those warning about an LED rebound effect. I read somewhere that the authors of a paper on the LED rebound effect had to push out their prediction date (from 2015 to 2030).
:p
The thing is, in 15 years we will be replacing old LEDs (which get around ~80 lumens/watt) with new LED technology (theoretically, ~300 lumens/watt). The impact will probably be comparable to replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs today.
I suppose in 30 years we will just have engineered our eyes to work flawlessly without any artificial lighting . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I know OSRAM released a line of efficient dichroic halogen lamps in the late 90s.
Yep: 18 year old technology is new again - once you hang the "nanotech" label on it.
Another, somewhat more recent, and somewhat more clearly "nanotech" approach also made incandescent bulbs about as efficient as compact fluorescents: A nanotech-textured filament that acted as an antenna that selectively emitted in the visible range. (That was news about the time the "ban incandescents / put a limit on how inefficient lights can be" legislation was starting to come out.) Don't know what happened to it, though. (I'd guess that it was too expensive and/or the texturing didn't keep working correctly as the filament gradually evaporated with age.)
LEDs, though, have the potential to approach perfect efficiency at converting electricity to light. They're already ahead of essentially anything else suitable for home lighting. (At streetlight-to-athletic-field-or-larger sizes they haven't quite taken the efficiency lead, though they also have other advantages that is starting to make them the choice for street lamps.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The push to make more efficient LEDs has been going on as long as LEDs have been a commercial product, about 45 years now. Government pressure has sped up the process for useful LED home lighting somewhat, but basic LED efficiency not so much.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
And I take it - it is not full of mercury so when you break one, you must call in men in hazmat suits. Sounds like a step in the right direction!
Your point is valid, but the hand-drawn spectrogram you cite is well out of date. This is closer to the state of commercial art. http://www.designingwithleds.com/review-hands-cree-linear-led-t8-fluorescent-replacement-lamp/
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I bought a bunch of LED bulbs just over 3 years ago when moving to a new house (previous occupants took all the bulbs), i bought reasonably expensive ones instead of the cheapest available and none of them have failed.
Last year i bought 2 new lamps, and 2 cheap LED bulbs to go with them. Both of those bulbs failed within 6 months, and have since been replaced with more expensive ones.
Bulbs vary massively, it's not worth buying the cheapest available irrespective of the technology and probably more so for the newer tech.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Given the ignorance of your comments I have to assume you're not an American.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
They don't "look" right, and if you have more than one batch in a room you end up with this weird pastel disco lighting - pinks, greens, blues, yellows. I paid a good bit extra for 95CRI lamps for my kitchen and they are nearly indistinguishable from the 50W PARs they replaced t full power (dimmed is another story). I wouldn't mind CFLs so much but their CRI is generally 82 for the best, and in the 70s or lower for most economy brands.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
i endorse big clive.
I love the Cree LED bulbs......5000K seems to be the sweet spot for me.
True white light but not too far removed from the soft 2700K glow of incandescents.
As others have said, the yellow glow makes everything look dingy in comparison to some nice white light
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
I assume you're more geeky than your wife, in which case do her a favour and buy a cheap heater and thermostat. Or install a electrically heated towel radiator (on a thermostat). Or one of those IR lamps used for keeping chicks alive in hen houses.
Panasonic, Mitsubishi (Verbatim) and Toshiba bulbs are all good. IKEA seem to be reasonable but not the most efficient. Clas Ohlsen own brand were very good too, but I have not tried recent models.
Sylvania are absolute rubbish. For light use the recent Poundland efforts are actually pretty good. I took one apart and it's well designed and made. Took them a few years to get there but I guess the technology is mature now. They only go up to about 6W though.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Paid $10 for a 60 watt equivalent at Home Depot. Supposed to last 10 years it claimed. It was about as bright as a 25 watt incandescent and stopped working after a month.
Sounds like it was broken before you plugged it in, and producing about half the expected output. No wonder it died so fast. You should have taken it straight back for replacement.
How many lumens was it rated for? Normally "60W" bulbs are about 800lm, which is more than a typical 60W incandescent.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
EOM
If people weren't so fucking stubborn and ignorant about switching to more-efficient technology ("they can take my bulbs from my cold dead hands" etc) then there would be no reason for government to take any action. If that action takes the form of a comprehensive, multiple-solution format, people would bitch about how complicated the law is, no matter how clear the actual format. If the action takes the form of a simple solution, people would bitch about how it's one-size-fits-all and doesn't work very well in a lot of cases, and talk about how incompetent government is. People are going to complain in all three cases: 1) voluntary replacement (good fucking luck), 2) comprehensive government solution, 3) simple government solution. At the end of the day it's a lot simpler to just shut up and replace your bulbs, but we can't have that, because "hippies suck" as far as I can tell. They'll probably bitch about mercury, or Chinese labor, or expense, or some other bullshit when they should be shutting up and changing their damn bulbs as the incandescents burn out.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Perhaps if you spent another fifty cents to get a bulb that wasn't made by "Bob's Lighting and Bait Shop", then you'd get better results. It's really simple to buy the cheapest shit you can buy and then complain about how they failed sooner than expected. It gives you a nice justification for your stubborn, contrary, I-don't-care-about-anything-but-myself attitude.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
There you are. Title 24.
Thank you for the post. Wish I had mod points.
Both links were well worth a look. Much appreciated.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I originally started out with the ge led bulbs but found they didn't last so since then ive been buying walmarts great value brand they have held up a lot better than the ge led bulbs which is suprising since they are cheaper and ge is a well known name brand. (however my electrition likes to refer to them as good enough) I also have several cree 100w equiv bulbs because I haven't been able to find any other brand that can make a 100w equivalent that will fit in the globes in my house. The designer must have had one in his house because if it was a mm wider or a half inch taller it wouldn't fit. I don't really like the sticky shatterproof coating tho.
I always buy the non dimmable versions when available because its about $2 cheaper per bulb and I don't happen to have a dimmer in my house and often the non dimmable versions are rated to use less wattage.
I have a couple of 60w equiv great value bulbs flashing in a marquee sign probbably been about a year now. No issues. My first attempt was with a couple of ge cfls (40w equiv leds wern't available yet) but they only lasted one day. After that I switched to a couple of 40w equiv ccfl bulbs I forget the brand. They lasted over a year. By that time they burnt out led bulbs were available for a fraction of the price of the ccfl bulbs.
Also be very careful with old style rope lights they get hot and melt where they touch together. The led type rope lights however operate very cool even on a spool.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Well, at least the fluorescent tube fixtures can be converted to LED pretty easily. I did that recently. Basically open the light fixture up, bypass the ballast, and put new "tubes" in that are actually a strip of LEDs in, and done. They make some LEDs that will work off the ballast so it's a simple bulb replacement, but ballasts nowadays are so crappy that I'd rather rewire the fixture so I don't have to worry about the ballast failing later.
CRI is only guaranteed to 90 according to the SPEC sheet http://api.icentera.com/v2/get...
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Right. Put a space heater in a closet stuffed full of flammable cloth. The light bulb serves two purposes in one easily-maintained unit. 1. Lighting. 2. Heat.
And the bulb is never near a costume.
Have a look at this