LED, Fluorescent, Incandescent?

[rcronk]

I shall say zis only vonce...


FLU (as in "over the cuckoo's nest) orescent.

(I just googled "flourescence". My god, can nobody spell this?)

Indeed. I think it's a spelling conspiracy that all forms of lighting discussed here have been forced to be difficultly spelled, well, except for LED. Perhaps we should pick LED lighting simply because it's easier to spell. Well, Halogen isn't too hard, but those suck.

 

[richardm]

Interesting timing, this.

Our kitchen has two halogen light fittings in it, and if we're eating at the table then it can become unpleasantly hot under them. So with that in mind - and in the interests of saving some cash since the halogen bulbs drink electricity like there's no tomorrow - I've just ordered some LED replacement bulbs to see how we get on with them. I've enough to fit one lamp - I'll leave the halogen bulbs in the other to compare and contrast.

Elsewhere in the house we still generally use incandescent bulbs, although when they die I am replacing them with fluorescent ones. The newer generation are definitely quicker to light than the old ones by a good margin, but they're still not as good as incandescents on that score. This puzzles me slightly, because I'm sure that I remember fluorescent tubes coming up to full brightness extremely quickly, after a couple of seconds of flickering anyway. Why are these little twisty tubes different?

 

[IXP]

Great comments all! Thanks!
So - what do you suggest for normal 65W incandescent equivalent LED home lighting? Is there something decent out there right now? If so, link to it. If not, when do you think it will be decent. Decent meaning good efficiency, long life, good price.

For a normal incandescent 60W bulb, there is really nothing comparable on the market today.
For recessed lighting, this one looks interesting, though I have not seen it, so I am not recommending it.

http://www.besthomeledlighting.com/product/PAR30-120-E27-W-7W-W

And for a 40W fluorescent replacement, this one looks interesting, but same caveat.

http://www.everled.com/everled-tr/?

I am betting that we will start seeing viable product within a couple of years and they will be the norm within 10 years.

IXP

 

[IXP]

I have to say, I'm always confused in threads like this when people comment on the lifetime of flourescent bulbs. When I was still living with my parents, we started switching to flourescent. Something like 15 years later, not a single one has died, while every single other light in the house has been replaced, usually more than once. Are some types of flourescent much worse than others, do some people buy really cheap bulbs that aren't worth the glass they're made from, or have my parents just been incredibly lucky?

Either that or I have been very unlucky. I installed 5 CFLs in my basement / workshop about 2 years ago. One was DOA, and 2 have died in that time period. These are major brand: Sylvania not the cheap ones that I gave up on a long time ago. I have had better luck with the 48 in fluorescent tubes, they don't fail completely, but they seem to lose light output over time.

IXP

 

[Soapy Sam]

I put three Sylvania 240V halogens in my kitchen - oh, must be 8 or 9 years ago.
Two failed within days. I sent one back to Sylvania who sent me three more from a different batch and an apology. Of the remaining 4, three still work and the fourth is still in its box. I think they sold me "ordinaries" first time, but sent "NWO Illuminati" bulbs as replacements.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I guess everyone's talking strictly about household lighting and not other applications.

I use a number of different illuminated juggling props. For a long time I used this lighted wire stuff. It's a central wire coated with phosphorus surrounded by a spiral of two extraordinarily thin wires. You pass an alternating current from the thin wires to the central wire and the phosphorus lights up like a TV screen. I used those for a long time, but they were heavy (batteries PLUS a voltage inverter), and the solders on the thin wires were extremely fragile.

The newer LEDs are great for this use except they just eat up batteries (and the batteries aren't cheap). One of my lighted clubs, for instance, has two separate LEDs one at each end with a molded plastic focuser/diffuser so that the translucent club body is fairly evenly lit up. Each LED takes a stack of 4 LR1130 watch batteries. These things cost like $3 each retail. On-line I can find them as cheap as 5 cents a piece in bulk, but those are really bad (usually old, often already leaky). They give me about 5-10 minutes of good light, then dim noticeably and are pretty much shot after about 20 minutes of continuous use. Even with retail batteries (from my prop vendor, I can get them for something like $3.50 per set of 4), the best I can do is get one hour's use before I have to change them. (Those at least stay at the dimmer light for a longer time before really going bad.) I got the silver oxide version (SR1130), and they did only slightly better (not enough better to justify the price).

 

[biostudent]

I just replaced one of my halogens in the kitchen. Seriously, all halogens I've ever owned just don't last. Anyway, it flickered last night, but kept working. Anyone know why it would have done that? *worried* Maybe it's loose. I'm hoping it's just loose, lol. I'll look at it later. Stupid expensive things that only last a few months...

As for my fluorescents, we have the older style ones in the kitchen and laundry room, and have installed the compact types in all the regular (i.e. originally intended for incandescents) light fixtures, including outside. I managed to find some that are rated as acceptable for outdoor use in enclosed fixtures, and they seem to work nicely. Anyway... I bought all the same stuff for our previous house, which we lived in for 6 years, and not a single one burned out and in fact as far as I know, the current owners are still using them. They made ugly light, though - kind of greenish.

I'm highly dissatisfied with the set I bought for our kitchen ceiling fan, though. I decided to try some of those newer ones that are, in fact, meant for things like ceiling fans (as in, they have the appropriate shape and so on). They SUCK!! They're like the older compacts, which have to be on for several minutes before they reach full brightness! I swear, I haven't seen that kind in like 10 years. I thought the industry had moved beyond that. Well I'm stuck with them, now... The things were expensive, too. All our other compacts turn on with full brightness within seconds of flipping the switch.

 

[fuelair]

Great comments all! Thanks!



According to the EPA, if a fluorescent bulb breaks:

Before Clean-up: Vent the Room

1. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
2. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces

1. <LI value=3>Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
2. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
3. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
4. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug

1. <LI value=3>Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
2. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
3. If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
4. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.
5. (From Maine's study: Suggesting that homeowners consider removal of the area of carpet where the breakage occurred as a precaution, particularly in homes with infants, small children or pregnant women

Disposal of Clean-up Materials

1. <LI value=7>Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
2. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
3. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Vent the Room During and After Vacuuming

1. <LI value=10>The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
2. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

Remove the carpet? You mean like cutting a hole in the middle of my room? I'm sorry, but that's just completely insane and I don't want this stuff around my kids - just in case. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I'll trust a scientific study (quoted above) before trusting anyone's suggestions.


?

That actually is not a scientific study, nor does it say anywhere I spotted that it was based on a scientific study. And I am pretty darn sure no scientific study was involved in generating it - but you might want to ask them. I would not heat mercury in an enclosed room with kids around and I wouldn't give it to any kids to carefully experiment with (thanks to the current scare, not because I am concerned with the danger). That does not change the (obviously anecdotal) experiences of my life and I have in no way exagerated them or downplayed any results of them.

 

[Prometheus]

I'm thinking of just painting all of the interior surfaces of my house with this stuff.

 

[DRBUZZ0]

I already switched to (mostly) led use except a few fixtures which still need to be replaced. The initial round of LED's I bought were rather crappy and ended up dimming significantly after a short period of time.

I've actually been working on building my own LED lighting system which is going to use an internal rectifier and capacitors to give some good smooth DC and then I'm using some solid state relays to control the brightness and color temperature by having several arrays of different led's.

 

[Dan O.]

One of my lighted clubs, for instance, has two separate LEDs one at each end with a molded plastic focuser/diffuser so that the translucent club body is fairly evenly lit up. Each LED takes a stack of 4 LR1130 watch batteries. These things cost like $3 each retail

Wouldn't it be great if you could run the whole thing off a single cheap 1.5v AAA alkaline or rechargeable battery?

http://edusite10.tripod.com/led3/onetran/single_tran.html

 

[Graham Jackman]

I guess everyone's talking strictly about household lighting and not other applications.

I use a number of different illuminated juggling props. For a long time I used this lighted wire stuff. It's a central wire coated with phosphorus surrounded by a spiral of two extraordinarily thin wires. You pass an alternating current from the thin wires to the central wire and the phosphorus lights up like a TV screen. I used those for a long time, but they were heavy (batteries PLUS a voltage inverter), and the solders on the thin wires were extremely fragile.

The newer LEDs are great for this use except they just eat up batteries (and the batteries aren't cheap). One of my lighted clubs, for instance, has two separate LEDs one at each end with a molded plastic focuser/diffuser so that the translucent club body is fairly evenly lit up. Each LED takes a stack of 4 LR1130 watch batteries. These things cost like $3 each retail. On-line I can find them as cheap as 5 cents a piece in bulk, but those are really bad (usually old, often already leaky). They give me about 5-10 minutes of good light, then dim noticeably and are pretty much shot after about 20 minutes of continuous use. Even with retail batteries (from my prop vendor, I can get them for something like $3.50 per set of 4), the best I can do is get one hour's use before I have to change them. (Those at least stay at the dimmer light for a longer time before really going bad.) I got the silver oxide version (SR1130), and they did only slightly better (not enough better to justify the price).

The problem here is not the LED but the battery. Incandescent bulbs at the same brightness would use up those batteries even faster. The watch batteries usually deliver 1.5 volts so you should be able to run them off the same number of alkaline or even NiCd or NiMH cells.

 

[devnull]

My new laptop is LED backlit. It hasnt arrived yet, so I hope that it doesnt mess with my eyes the way that fluoro lights do.

 

[luchog]

Right now, CFLs are keeping me alive and functional.

Something LEDs couldn't manage to do.

I have SAD fairly bad. Getting a 105 Watt (roughly the equivalent of 400-450 incandescent) full-spectrum grow-light hanging right over my bed has done a huge amount to help with that. Not as good as real sunlight, but effective enough. Not something I could do with LEDs. LEDs are far too limited in their frequency range to put out the kind of light I need, even if I spend several thousand dollars to get an equivalent intensity.

I like incandescents. They have a beautifully warm colour balance, and are very easy on the eyes. Fluorescents, even the best CFLs, are just too hard on my eyes, the light has too much green, not enough red/yellow, even in the warmer variants. And the flicker is bad. It's not really visible on a CFL like it is on an industrial fluorescent, but I can still feel it in the quality of the light. I haven't met too many people who could feel it the way I can, though. I guess that being a migraineur, I'm more sensitive to that kind of thing (industrial fluorescents will almost invariably trigger migraines).

Ideally, I'd like to get a good full-spectrum 5500K or 6300K 500W metal halide rig for my indoor lighting; but the heat would be a difficult thing to deal with in the house. Best light balance, second best light pressure per watt, even light without the fluorescent flicker. And the cacti would appreciate it. It's just the heat that's a problem, so I probably won't manage. Plus they're far more expensive, 10-20 times as much as an equivalent CFL. They do age, and eventually would have to be replaced since the colour balance would shift; but they're more stable and age slower than CFLs.

I don't see LEDs taking over from either one, unless they're improved dramatically, and come down even more dramatically in price. I typically use a balance of CFLs and fluorescents; and for now reserve the metal halides for the tropical reef tank.

 

[Smackety]

We live near an airport and our lightbulbs go out constantly due to the vibration from planes taking off. A couple months ago we spent the extra money for two 8 packs of the compact flourescent bulbs, thinking they would last longer. They don't. They are all burned out already. Waiting for LED to improve I guess.

 

[biostudent]

I seem to have been spared having to buy yet another halogen bulb. Yay I guess. I switched it with another bulb from a different fixture and they both seem to be working now. Woohoo, I saved the 5 or so bucks it would have cost to replace it, lol! (I get grumpy about that simply because it gets annoying to have to do it every 6 months when the same money could get a CFL that lasts 5 years or more)

 

[Almo]

Flourescent lights flash. They suck. LED for me, provided they feed them DC. 60-cycle flash in lights sucks.

 

[MRC_Hans]

So, the ideal light source:

1. Has low power consumption
2. Lasts a long time, even when frequently turned on and off
3. Provides instantly its full brightness
4. Doesn't flicker or make noise
5. Can be used with dimmers
6. Is relatively cheap to buy

7. Has a reasonably linear spectrum.

Hans

 

[Cuddles]

I shall say zis only vonce...


FLU (as in "over the cuckoo's nest) orescent.

(I just googled "flourescence". My god, can nobody spell this?)

No. No we can't.

 

[Dan O.]

I've been trying to find a case for LED lighting based on cost. By pushing the cost of electricity up to $.25/kWh, assuming the bulb is on continuously and the cost of capitol is only 2%, I worked out that you can save $2 per year for each CF bulb replaced by LEDs.