LED, Fluorescent, Incandescent?

[rcronk]

So incandescent lights will be outlawed in the U.S. by 2014 and are energy inefficient. It may warm the planet. Ok.

Fluorescent lights contain mercury. If a fluorescent light breaks, there are specific cleanup instructions that involve leaving the room for 15 minutes with the windows open and then you put contaminated materials in a sealed glass jar. If I have an infant, it is recommended that I consider cutting out the carpet in the breakage area and removing it. Ok.

LED lights are getting better and supposedly they are finding ways that will be ready for mass production in three years or so. Ok.

I have a mix of incandescent and fluorescent lighting in my house - trying to move to something more energy efficient mainly for the purpose of saving some money so I can go blow it on candy bars.

But now I learn that my cool new fluorescent bulbs are a hazard to my family and ironically, the environment. Some of them have burned out long before the promised 4 years or so of life so now I have the choice of going back to the old incandescents, replacing the hazardous waste fluorescent lights or look into LED technology that isn't optimal and is expensive. Or I could leave the lights out and live in partial darkness while I wait for LED's to catch up.

Oh, and I don't like the government forcing me to switch even though I would do it anyway. The market would (and is) delivering cheaper and more efficient bulbs without the need to outlaw the old kind - especially since what they want us to move toward is hazardous to my health. Can't people leave each other alone?

What are your plans for switching over? What are your views on legislating incandescent bulbs into extinction? Do you know of any really good normal-looking decently priced LED household lights? Oh, and I just decided to add a poll just for kicks.

 

[Fnord]

What are your plans for switching over?

Since nearly all of the lights in my house are fluorescent anyway, the next logical step would be LED.

What are your views on legislating incandescent bulbs into extinction?

Too much government, too little choice.

Do you know of any really good normal-looking decently priced LED household lights?

No. I'm waiting for LED lamps that include individual adjustment of the red, green, and blue (RGB) elements, OR for preset LED lamps that duplicate more closely the "warmer" tones of incandescent lamps.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Halogen lights.

Is there a problem here?

DR

 

[rcronk]

Halogen lights.

Is there a problem here?

DR

Dang - I knew I forgot something. I haven't heard halogen in the news a lot so it slipped my mind. You can just pick the government sucks or something. Are you using halogen? If so, how is that working out for you - perhaps that will be a good interim solution until LED's get better?

 

[rcronk]

P.S. Those who are choosing to go fluorescent, please describe how you're considering the hazardous nature of these bulbs in your decision. I think those arguments would be helpful to me in my decision. Thanks.

 

[Graham Jackman]

Incandescents are cheaper to manufacture but relatively inefficient. Halogen lights are more efficient but still produce a lot of waste heat. Some installations must present a real problem for airconditioning. Fluorescents are more efficient and the amount of mercury in the tube is being reduced. They are best used where the lamp remains on for long periods. Life seems to be limited by the number of switching cycles as well as tube aging. LED's are getting better and I'm just building adaptors to use high intensity white LEDs into my outside lighting. It won't be as bright as the incandescents or fluorescents but is adequate for the purpose. Each array will use about 2 watts of energy. The comment about being able to adjust the red, green and blue elements of the white LEDs is not likely to come to fruition, since the white LEDs use a UV diode and a phosphorescent coating to produce white light - much like a fluorescent (phosphorescent) tube. One big advantage of the LEDs is that they can he dimmed easily by duty cycle modification without changing the intrinsic colour.

 

[Dr. Trintignant]

I largely use fluorescent lights in my place. The only exceptions are certain fixtures that don't look good with fluorescents.

But you know what? I hate them. They take time to warm up (yes, I'm using the new quickstart kind that do not take as long). The CRI (color rendering index) is poor. The color balance even changes as they start up. They don't do as well in the cold. They are more sensitive to power problems (they "blow" more frequently than incandescents when on the same circuit as a laser printer). Sometimes, particularly when starting up or when they are near the end of their life, they make buzzing noises.

Their power efficiency is their only saving grace. It is substantial, and I am cheap, so I use them--particularly in the kitchen where I like to have a lot of light (500 watts of incandescents vs. ~100 of CF). But they are a compromise at best, and I certainly couldn't recommend them in any situation where color quality is an issue. This goes far beyond a basic RGB balance--it is the spectral emission qualities of fluorescents that is flawed; light that appears equally "white" when emitted form the bulb does not appear the same when reflected from colored surfaces.

LEDs could improve this in principle. Although an individual LED (without a phosphor) is nearly monochromatic, several of them could provide a good simulation of incandescent light. Unfortunately, most "white" LEDs are instead just blue LEDs with a phosphor, giving a spectrum with a large blue spike and a broad yellow spike--not very good at all.

All in all, the new technologies are certainly a leap forwards in efficiency but a leap backwards in quality and other features. I wish that progress could be made in both areas.

- Dr. Trintignant

 

[Dr. Trintignant]

P.S. Those who are choosing to go fluorescent, please describe how you're considering the hazardous nature of these bulbs in your decision. I think those arguments would be helpful to me in my decision. Thanks.

Over the lifetime of the bulb, the amount of mercury saved by not burning as much coal exceeds that released by crushing the fluorescent bulb. And the fluorescent only releases mercury if it is not properly disposed of.

This argument would be different if the US was not so dependent on coal power, but the fact remains that we are.

- Dr. Trintignant

 

[El Greco]

Halogen lights simply suck. Too much heat and they burn out too quickly. Fluorescent should be better. I can't find too bright ones and color temperature is rarely mentioned. But I like the cool operation and power saving. LEDs will be the preferred choice in the future. At this point I feel like I have switched from Win98 to Millennium while XP is not out yet.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

LED FTW!!!

(Agh, it won't let me do it all caps, except now it does that I've added this. Weird.)

 

[JWideman]

You don't have to call a hazmat team if one breaks. There's less mercury than in a thermometer. A broom, dustpan, and plastic bag is enough. Just... don't handle the broken bits with bare hands. It's not like dropping it on a rug is going to cause it to shatter, either. If that DOES happen, vacuum.
To get full life out of them, you HAVE to leave them on for AT LEAST 15 minutes at a time. Incandescents win out there - even compared with LEDs and halogens, making this bit of legislation very short-sighted.

 

[Zeno]

Incandescent lights are going to be gone in Canada before they are in the United States, I think.

 

[casebro]

So how about if you stick a couple red LEDs in you lamp with all those blue/phosphor ones?

 

[Dr. Trintignant]

So how about if you stick a couple red LEDs in you lamp with all those blue/phosphor ones?

You would need to rebalance the blue/yellow mix (the phosphor is basically yellow), but yes, you could do that to increase the color rendering qualities. However, it still wouldn't match incandescents. Perhaps if you mixed 6 or 7 colors (equally spaced on the spectrum), you could come pretty close.

One thing that I wonder about with current LED fixtures is how they deal with the AC input. Done in the cheapest possible way, you would get a 60 Hz flicker, which is unacceptable to me (incandescents don't flicker, despite also being AC, because the filament doesn't cool significantly in that time). In a slightly less cheap manner, you would get a 120 Hz flicker, which is much better but still barely acceptable. Really, you want an AC->DC conversion for good results (or an LC filter at the very least).

On a related topic, is anyone else distracted by LED taillights on some cars (particularly some Cadillacs)? They can't be modulated at more than 40 Hz. They flicker horribly in my peripheral vision and break up into multiple afterimages (like a strobe light) when I shift my vision.

- Dr. Trintignant

 

[IXP]

[disclaimer]
I own stock in CREE, look it up.
[/disclaimer]

There is no doubt in my mind that LED's will dominate in 10 years. The combination of high efficiency, no toxic waste, and life that will exceed most humans is unbeatable by any other known technology.

Though the prices seem high today, they are not that bad when you take into account the useful life and lifetime energy savings, and this will improve.

IXP

 

[IXP]

You would need to rebalance the blue/yellow mix (the phosphor is basically yellow), but yes, you could do that to increase the color rendering qualities. However, it still wouldn't match incandescents. Perhaps if you mixed 6 or 7 colors (equally spaced on the spectrum), you could come pretty close.

One thing that I wonder about with current LED fixtures is how they deal with the AC input. Done in the cheapest possible way, you would get a 60 Hz flicker, which is unacceptable to me (incandescents don't flicker, despite also being AC, because the filament doesn't cool significantly in that time). In a slightly less cheap manner, you would get a 120 Hz flicker, which is much better but still barely acceptable. Really, you want an AC->DC conversion for good results (or an LC filter at the very least).

On a related topic, is anyone else distracted by LED taillights on some cars (particularly some Cadillacs)? They can't be modulated at more than 40 Hz. They flicker horribly in my peripheral vision and break up into multiple afterimages (like a strobe light) when I shift my vision.

- Dr. Trintignant

Switching power supplies can achieve AC-DC conversion with over 90% efficiency. These exist now at about a cost about $20. Built into a light fixure, that is quite cheap.

IXP

 

[Dr. Trintignant]

Switching power supplies can achieve AC-DC conversion with over 90% efficiency. These exist now at about a cost about $20. Built into a light fixure, that is quite cheap.

You can do it a lot more cheaply than that--but my question is whether current LED "bulbs" actually do anything like that. And upon further research, it seems like some do, like this one:
http://www.theledlight.com/gb605w.html

It has a 100-240 VAC input range, which is a sure sign of a switch-mode power supply. I'll bet, though, that many of the cheaper "shower-head" style lights don't have that kind of circuitry and rely on the string of LEDs both for handling the voltage drop and the rectification.

- Dr. Trintignant

 

[biostudent]

You can buy LEDs for your house?

I'm stuck with a house full of fluorescents for like the next 10 years.

 

[IXP]

You can buy LEDs for your house?

I'm stuck with a house full of fluorescents for like the next 10 years.

Don't worry, they wont last that long!

IXP

 

[IXP]

Dr Trin,

The cheapest ones do rely on a string of low power LED's and would have a 60Hz flicker presumably. The one you have linked to looks like it has 5 1W LEDs (from CREE yeah!) But the latest and greatest are 3 and even 7 watt single LEDs operating at about 3.6V. I have a 3 watt LED flashlight running off 2 C cells and this thing could blind you if you looked right into it. The better flashlights actually use a DC-DC converter so that the light does not decrease rapidly as the batteries die, i.e. it keeps up the required volatage as long as it can.

IXP