Thread: LED and Coiled Fluorescent Lamps

I'm seeing more and more LED products for sale. The automotive/truck forums are full of jabber about replacing light bulbs with them. Places like Lowe's has scads of familiar-shaped light bulbs containing them instead of filaments. Quite expensive, though.

The coiled fluorescents (CFLs) have finally reached a price even I can afford; I saw an ad recently at under two bucks each. Beware, they are available in quite a few "shades" of usual "white", and our first try in the fixtures on our new ceiling fans looked yellow. Most packages have a "temperature" chart or Kelvin number- the higher the number, the whiter and brighter they will appear. Personally, I like around 5000` (degrees) Kelvin, which is perhaps close to the old fluorescent lamp "cool white", which the Feds have outlawed. Despite that, the term "cool white" is still being applied to new products, misleadingly, it seems. They ALL have a bit of Mercury in them, and carry a hazard warning for "proper disposal".

Seems some newer cars have, I think, LED headlights. I saw one yesterday with a string of bright LEDs which surrounded the headlight cover and were illuminated continuously as "daytime running lights". LED taillights have been around longer. I suspect they use red LEDs behind a red plastic lens, which looks REALLY red! They have also found ways of "glossing over" the individual LED pinpoints of light where many are used side by side through clever lens effects. LEDs are, IMO, one of the best illumination innovations yet, for they consume very little power in comparison to the light produced, don't get hot, and never "wear out". They DO however require D.C., which is great in vehicular application, but no big problem anymore for "household A.C.", given diode technology. Cost of LED "light bulbs" seems to be about $20 each, which many folks likely can't really afford. Drag out the plastic!

LED "kits" are sold for car and truck retrofits by the shade-tree guys, who should be made aware of a few pitfalls. Standard "flasher" units won't flash LED turn signals very effectively; if they flash, it is at a very high rate. This attracts cops, as fast-flash is a designed-in feature of standard flashers for light bulbs aimed at telling you (and the cop!) that you have a burned-out bulb somewhere. Further, some of the kits have resistors to shunt across the LEDs to trick the standard flasher unit into thinking it's feeding regular light bulbs, but the resistors get HOT, and of course defeat the lower power requirement advantage of the LEDs. jocular

Originally Posted by jocular

I'm seeing more and more LED products for sale. The automotive/truck forums are full of jabber about replacing light bulbs with them. Places like Lowe's has scads of familiar-shaped light bulbs containing them instead of filaments. Quite expensive, though.

The coiled fluorescents (CFLs) have finally reached a price even I can afford;

I think you might mean "compact fluorescent" lamps, not "coiled"... or are you limiting your comments to coiled tubes only?

Originally Posted by tk421

Originally Posted by jocular

I'm seeing more and more LED products for sale. The automotive/truck forums are full of jabber about replacing light bulbs with them. Places like Lowe's has scads of familiar-shaped light bulbs containing them instead of filaments. Quite expensive, though.

The coiled fluorescents (CFLs) have finally reached a price even I can afford;

I think you might mean "compact fluorescent" lamps, not "coiled"... or are you limiting your comments to coiled tubes only?

Ah! I thought the abbreviation applied to the coiled babies specifically. Yes, small fluorescents have been around in desk lamps and such for longer than I can remember: that's a helluva long while! jocular

DID the LED's in my remodeled bathroom in Hawai'i I love them...did the strip ones....

<a href="http://s410.photobucket.com/user/mjgovednik/media/ToFromRemodel-1.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp181/mjgovednik/ToFromRemodel-1.jpg" border="0" alt="RemodelFromTo photo ToFromRemodel-1.jpg"/></a>

don]t know if this will work

trying this one

Carpet in a bathroom makes me cringe, but I DO like LEDs.

I am still using my 8 year old compact fluorescent bulbs, but I would certainly upgrade to LEDs if they ever burned out. I hate filament bulbs. They're so last century.

jocular

Part of the problem with LED bulbs, besides being very pricy is it's hard to find the any that produce even the standard 100W output. The standard LED bulbs are 40 & 60W comparable. If I want to read I like a lot of light. I also like lots of light in kitchens & bathrooms.

While generally LED's are not as hot as incandescent lights, they do run into heat problems as you try make them output more light. The heat problems are in the fixture that powers the small LED bulbs, and heat is not good for LED's, it cuts down on their useful life time. So the higher output LED's cost even more, and tend to loss their brightness much faster than their lower output counterparts.

On the bright side, progress is being made. Prices are coming down and the heat problems are being resolved. Just not enough for me to switch from fluorescents yet.

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

jocular

Part of the problem with LED bulbs, besides being very pricy is it's hard to find the any that produce even the standard 100W output. The standard LED bulbs are 40 & 60W comparable. If I want to read I like a lot of light. I also like lots of light in kitchens & bathrooms.

While generally LED's are not as hot as incandescent lights, they do run into heat problems as you try make them output more light. The heat problems are in the fixture that powers the small LED bulbs, and heat is not good for LED's, it cuts down on their useful life time. So the higher output LED's cost even more, and tend to loss their brightness much faster than their lower output counterparts.

On the bright side, progress is being made. Prices are coming down and the heat problems are being resolved. Just not enough for me to switch from fluorescents yet.

Thank you for the LED downsides. I favor them for their basic technical superiority, but am not privy to actual application problems such as you mention. Your input makes me feel I started the thread for worthwhile reasons! jocular

Originally Posted by jocular

Thank you for the LED downsides. I favor them for their basic technical superiority, but am not privy to actual application problems such as you mention. Your input makes me feel I started the thread for worthwhile reasons! jocular

The biggest downside is how much they still cost and while they burn a few less WATS than florescent lights, they aren't beating them by very much.

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Carpet in a bathroom makes me cringe, but I DO like LEDs.

I am still using my 8 year old compact fluorescent bulbs, but I would certainly upgrade to LEDs if they ever burned out. I hate filament bulbs. They're so last century.

I would NEVER have carpet in a bathroom!

EVER!!

YUCK it's GROSS!!!

That is marble, not carpet! *L*

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

jocular

Part of the problem with LED bulbs, besides being very pricy is it's hard to find the any that produce even the standard 100W output. The standard LED bulbs are 40 & 60W comparable. If I want to read I like a lot of light. I also like lots of light in kitchens & bathrooms.

While generally LED's are not as hot as incandescent lights, they do run into heat problems as you try make them output more light. The heat problems are in the fixture that powers the small LED bulbs, and heat is not good for LED's, it cuts down on their useful life time. So the higher output LED's cost even more, and tend to loss their brightness much faster than their lower output counterparts.

On the bright side, progress is being made. Prices are coming down and the heat problems are being resolved. Just not enough for me to switch from fluorescents yet.

We used the strips, and then put a filter for them, so there is LOTS of light but it isn't glaring on you. It really wasn't all that expensive for the lighting at all!

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

jocular

Part of the problem with LED bulbs, besides being very pricy is it's hard to find the any that produce even the standard 100W output. The standard LED bulbs are 40 & 60W comparable. If I want to read I like a lot of light. I also like lots of light in kitchens & bathrooms.

While generally LED's are not as hot as incandescent lights, they do run into heat problems as you try make them output more light. The heat problems are in the fixture that powers the small LED bulbs, and heat is not good for LED's, it cuts down on their useful life time. So the higher output LED's cost even more, and tend to loss their brightness much faster than their lower output counterparts.

On the bright side, progress is being made. Prices are coming down and the heat problems are being resolved. Just not enough for me to switch from fluorescents yet.

I was told mine should last for 20 years. Not bad.

We converted our entire home in Hawai'i to solar energy. The payoff time is several years, but, it's great.

Originally Posted by babe

We converted our entire home in Hawai'i to solar energy. The payoff time is several years, but, it's great.

Commendable effort! joc

Originally Posted by jocular

Originally Posted by babe

We converted our entire home in Hawai'i to solar energy. The payoff time is several years, but, it's great.

Commendable effort! joc

Wish we could here. Wouldn't work.

But works great in Hawai'i!

Originally Posted by babe

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

jocular

Part of the problem with LED bulbs, besides being very pricy is it's hard to find the any that produce even the standard 100W output. The standard LED bulbs are 40 & 60W comparable. If I want to read I like a lot of light. I also like lots of light in kitchens & bathrooms.

While generally LED's are not as hot as incandescent lights, they do run into heat problems as you try make them output more light. The heat problems are in the fixture that powers the small LED bulbs, and heat is not good for LED's, it cuts down on their useful life time. So the higher output LED's cost even more, and tend to loss their brightness much faster than their lower output counterparts.

On the bright side, progress is being made. Prices are coming down and the heat problems are being resolved. Just not enough for me to switch from fluorescents yet.

I was told mine should last for 20 years. Not bad.

The problem is not how long they last. It's how fast they lose brightness. For instance if they lose just 10% in the first 3 years, you have a choice to make. Can you live with with the reduced brightness for the following 17 years?

I can see using LED's for headlights and breaklights because they are better than the alternatives. However, for around the house they are way over priced for a job the florescent lights still do better for much less money.

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

Originally Posted by jocular

Thank you for the LED downsides. I favor them for their basic technical superiority, but am not privy to actual application problems such as you mention. Your input makes me feel I started the thread for worthwhile reasons! jocular

The biggest downside is how much they still cost and while they burn a few less WATS than florescent lights, they aren't beating them by very much.

In the average home, lighting power expenditure is likely less than half of the overall, I'm guessing here, of course. Heating water, cooking, air conditioning and heating, surely overshadow the lighting load. So, power consideration is moot for homes, but not for, say, a huge retail store like Wal-Mart, Sears, or the like. I have not seen personally, any of those retrofitting any lighting schemes other than moving to T-8 skinny lamps from T-12. Special consideration is given by these users to "pleasurable" lighting; they pay a lot of extra dough to get fluorescent lamps emitting "sales promoting" hues, as the "Ultralume" lamps I installed while working for Sears. Those looked "pink", to my eye, but their "experts" maintained that made the public "buy". I have my doubts, needless to say!

I personally have no problem whatsoever with the mercury in fluorescents. Outdoor lighting, nonetheless, has been often supplanted with the "sodium vapor lamps", yellowish-orange light, which drives me "bananas"; I hate it!

A good primary example of insanely extravagant waste of resource is the outside lighting shone upon buildings in the "gambling meccas", such as Vegas or Laughlin (Nevada). For example, the River Palms Hotel & Casino in Laughlin has about 50 fixtures outdoors, aiming their light output upwards against their 24 story tower, on both sides, each containing what I perceive to be 400 watt mercury-vapor lamps. The effect shone against the white and blue tower's sides are undeniably beautiful, inestimably valuable as calling cards to new visitors, and totally flagrant, to me, as wasteful of resources. I estimate their electric power tab at ~ $500,000 a month, maybe more, maybe I'm way off! But in this age of encouragement to not waste vital resources, where/when will the extravagant waste be addressed? jocular

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

Originally Posted by babe

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

jocular

Part of the problem with LED bulbs, besides being very pricy is it's hard to find the any that produce even the standard 100W output. The standard LED bulbs are 40 & 60W comparable. If I want to read I like a lot of light. I also like lots of light in kitchens & bathrooms.

While generally LED's are not as hot as incandescent lights, they do run into heat problems as you try make them output more light. The heat problems are in the fixture that powers the small LED bulbs, and heat is not good for LED's, it cuts down on their useful life time. So the higher output LED's cost even more, and tend to loss their brightness much faster than their lower output counterparts.

On the bright side, progress is being made. Prices are coming down and the heat problems are being resolved. Just not enough for me to switch from fluorescents yet.

I was told mine should last for 20 years. Not bad.

The problem is not how long they last. It's how fast they lose brightness. For instance if they lose just 10% in the first 3 years, you have a choice to make. Can you live with with the reduced brightness for the following 17 years?

I can see using LED's for headlights and breaklights because they are better than the alternatives. However, for around the house they are way over priced for a job the florescent lights still do better for much less money.

Mahalo! I didn't know that.

My question to you then, would be how much use do they require before the production of light decreases?

In my bathroom, the lights are on to brush my teeth at night....maybe 15 minutes max a day.

My eyes, due to my glaucoma and subsequent surgeries for it, are VERY light sensitive. The LED's provided, for me, a better lighting environment. That was another reason.

Originally Posted by jocular

In the average home, lighting power expenditure is likely less than half of the overall, I'm guessing here, of course. Heating water, cooking, air conditioning and heating, surely overshadow the lighting load. So, power consideration is moot for homes, but not for, say, a huge retail store like Wal-Mart, Sears, or the like. I have not seen personally, any of those retrofitting any lighting schemes other than moving to T-8 skinny lamps from T-12. Special consideration is given by these users to "pleasurable" lighting; they pay a lot of extra dough to get fluorescent lamps emitting "sales promoting" hues, as the "Ultralume" lamps I installed while working for Sears. Those looked "pink", to my eye, but their "experts" maintained that made the public "buy". I have my doubts, needless to say!

I personally have no problem whatsoever with the mercury in fluorescents. Outdoor lighting, nonetheless, has been often supplanted with the "sodium vapor lamps", yellowish-orange light, which drives me "bananas"; I hate it!

A good primary example of insanely extravagant waste of resource is the outside lighting shone upon buildings in the "gambling meccas", such as Vegas or Laughlin (Nevada). For example, the River Palms Hotel & Casino in Laughlin has about 50 fixtures outdoors, aiming their light output upwards against their 24 story tower, on both sides, each containing what I perceive to be 400 watt mercury-vapor lamps. The effect shone against the white and blue tower's sides are undeniably beautiful, inestimably valuable as calling cards to new visitors, and totally flagrant, to me, as wasteful of resources. I estimate their electric power tab at ~ $500,000 a month, maybe more, maybe I'm way off! But in this age of encouragement to not waste vital resources, where/when will the extravagant waste be addressed? jocular

Some good points. Any place where changing out burned out lights is a major expense, does make LED's worth considering. I know in Dallas they outline their buildings with lights (very costly to change them out). In both Japan and China they like to do building and bridges and many other places where minimizing how often they need changing makes a very big difference. Also your example of Los Vegas is a very good example.

Originally Posted by babe

Originally Posted by jocular

Originally Posted by babe

We converted our entire home in Hawai'i to solar energy. The payoff time is several years, but, it's great.

Commendable effort! joc

Wish we could here. Wouldn't work.

But works great in Hawai'i!

Why not? joc

Originally Posted by babe

Mahalo! I didn't know that.

My question to you then, would be how much use do they require before the production of light decreases?

In my bathroom, the lights are on to brush my teeth at night....maybe 15 minutes max a day.

My eyes, due to my glaucoma and subsequent surgeries for it, are VERY light sensitive. The LED's provided, for me, a better lighting environment. That was another reason.

With the ones that compare with 40 & 60 W incondesent lights, probably not much. It's the more expensive brighter LED's that will lose brightness the fastest. But it will always be a personal choice for each of us based on medical and financial considerations. If you don't mind paying for them I have no problem with that. But if the lighting industry wants to mass market them, they need to come down in price.

Originally Posted by jocular

Originally Posted by babe

Originally Posted by jocular

Originally Posted by babe

We converted our entire home in Hawai'i to solar energy. The payoff time is several years, but, it's great.

Commendable effort! joc

Wish we could here. Wouldn't work.

But works great in Hawai'i!

Why not? joc

We don't have enough sun.

You do need the sun....we monitor our solar input of energy daily...overcast days your efficiency goes way down........and since Mainland, they used to train WWII fighter pilots here cause it was one of foggiest places

in the USA....well you get my drift.

If we could, we would hands down consider it.

Originally Posted by babe

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Carpet in a bathroom makes me cringe, but I DO like LEDs.

I am still using my 8 year old compact fluorescent bulbs, but I would certainly upgrade to LEDs if they ever burned out. I hate filament bulbs. They're so last century.

I would NEVER have carpet in a bathroom!

EVER!!

YUCK it's GROSS!!!

That is marble, not carpet! *L*

My fault! Looks like a well-vacuumed carpet.

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Carpet in a bathroom makes me cringe, but I DO like LEDs.

Prior to moving permanently, while still residing in Missouri, we spent the final two winters in Arizona in a rented condo. It had carpeted bathrooms, two of them. I never thought about the consequences of that before, but reflecting on the puddles of urine one often encounters on public restroom floors both beneath both urinals and toilet stools, I became reluctant to go barefoot in these bathrooms. We managed to contact the condo's owner, who lived in California, and proposed that we ceramic tile those floors for him, free of labor charge, if he pays for the materials. Knowing absolutely nothing about my abilities, he readily agreed. It sure was nice with new, clean ceramic! Hope he found our choice of color acceptable! joc

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Carpet in a bathroom makes me cringe, but I DO like LEDs.

Prior to moving permanently, while still residing in Missouri, we spent the final two winters in Arizona in a rented condo. It had carpeted bathrooms, two of them. I never thought about the consequences of that before, but reflecting on the puddles of urine one often encounters on public restroom floors beneath both urinals and toilet stools, I became reluctant to go barefoot in these bathrooms. We managed to contact the condo's owner, who lived in California, and proposed that we ceramic tile those floors for him, free of labor charge, if he pays for the materials. Knowing absolutely nothing about my abilities, he readily agreed. It sure was nice with new, clean ceramic! Hope he found our choice of color acceptable! joc

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Originally Posted by babe

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Carpet in a bathroom makes me cringe, but I DO like LEDs.

I am still using my 8 year old compact fluorescent bulbs, but I would certainly upgrade to LEDs if they ever burned out. I hate filament bulbs. They're so last century.

I would NEVER have carpet in a bathroom!

EVER!!

YUCK it's GROSS!!!

That is marble, not carpet! *L*

My fault! Looks like a well-vacuumed carpet.

I am anally a clean freak.....

Originally Posted by jocular

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Carpet in a bathroom makes me cringe, but I DO like LEDs.

Prior to moving permanently, while still residing in Missouri, we spent the final two winters in Arizona in a rented condo. It had carpeted bathrooms, two of them. I never thought about the consequences of that before, but reflecting on the puddles of urine one often encounters on public restroom floors beneath both urinals and toilet stools, I became reluctant to go barefoot in these bathrooms. We managed to contact the condo's owner, who lived in California, and proposed that we ceramic tile those floors for him, free of labor charge, if he pays for the materials. Knowing absolutely nothing about my abilities, he readily agreed. It sure was nice with new, clean ceramic! Hope he found our choice of color acceptable! joc

ya should have called *L* I am good at that stuff...don't ask me why....never studied it..