You may want to wait on LED's - incandescents might be back!

Harvey51 wrote:
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I just bought our first LED replacements for 4 foot fluorescent tubes for home use. They had a lower lumen rating than the fluorescents but are much brighter because all the light is aimed downward. The claim is half the power consumption. Not as good as I expected. Apparently there are LED tube replacements that require removal of the ballast and a bit of retiring to take the 120 V direct to the tube. That sounds better but I don't know where to get them.

In a slight thread detour... In talking to an electrician friend of mine, LED replacements for 4 foot florescent tubes are still a bit too expensive to justify replacement strictly based on cost. He said the tubes will probably follow along with LED bulbs - soon the cost will drop. I'm talking about the full replacement with ballast removal.

By the way, I just picked up two 2-packs of 60w equivalent LED bulbs from Walmart - for $1.89 each pack. They say GE on them. I don't know if they work yet, haven't tried them. I don't know if that was mis-marked (went through the checkout computer without a hitch, though), over stock, or just an incredible sale.

I'm skeptical of the figures in the article and the idea of reflecting the infrared but not the visible light.

One quantity that characterizes a lighting source is the so-called luminous efficiency, which takes into account the response of the human eye. Whereas the luminous efficiency of conventional incandescent lights is between 2 and 3 percent, that of fluorescents (including CFLs) is between 7 and 15 percent, and that of most commercial LEDs between 5 and 20 percent, the new two-stage incandescents could reach efficiencies as high as 40 percent, the team says.

In the RV I experienced 7 times less current draw when I switched to LEDs just as bright as the incandescents.

I just bought our first LED replacements for 4 foot fluorescent tubes for home use. They had a lower lumen rating than the fluorescents but are much brighter because all the light is aimed downward. The claim is half the power consumption. Not as good as I expected. Apparently there are LED tube replacements that require removal of the ballast and a bit of retiring to take the 120 V direct to the tube. That sounds better but I don't know where to get them.

I'm using all halogen bulbs in the house except for the kitchen which uses florescent.

I save lots of money, turn everything off and go camping.

All our RV's 110AC and 12VDC and our homes are now fully lighted with LEDs inside and out and have been changed from mostly CFL's and a few incandescent and couple of sodium exterior security lights. The drop in the average monthly electric bills was astounding and a real eye opener! Same wattage LEDs and the same Lumens in the LED replacements and the light level is now even higher/brighter than before. Besides, it a clean light and most colors are brighter now. Only 2700K, 3000K, 5000K, and 6000K LEDs were used to replace the same or as close as possible the existing bulbs.

Bought all the LEDs on big sales and that saved a bundle. The payback is over $70/month on average in savings compared to what the average electric bill and KW's used for the same nearly a year of months period average so far with the same usage and hours of lights on in the 2 homes. We see a huge difference in the RV's % of battery drain also. It's been simply WIN WIN WIN! The change to LEDs has already paid for itself and more in less than a year so far and the savings will continue for years ahead every month per the average listed life as printed on the LED packages. Regardless, they have already paid for themselves already!!!

One question that arises for me about that research, is why they didn't aim at improving the most efficient manner of lighting, LED's, instead of incandescent?

Also, since the heat in the modified incandescent bulb is not going to be totally dissipated, how hot are they going to get? Will it be so hot that the amount of air conditioning needs to be increased to cover the difference?

I am guessing that incandescent was chosen because public perception is that the color of light from an LED can't be as good as the Edison variety. It can be built to be exactly the same color and current, cheap LED's from Asia operate at 20 percent of the power as similarly bright incandescents.

I've replaced a couple of CFL floods in Living room and kitchen with LEDs but at about ten dollars apiece, time over a one hundred that is just too rich for my blood.
Twenty bucks a week or so for two or three is still too much in my book.
I do have one yellow bug light CFL that has been in service, since 012 every night.
Sometimes these CFLs you can watch them start up and burn in from one end of the curl to the other then blow. Most, of what we have take a few minutes to reach full brightness some five minutes.

My LED's will burn out by then...lol

I replaced my 65w incandescent flood lamps in my kitchen to 10w LED's. It uses less power, how can you make incandescents much more efficient?

Seamutt wrote:
CFL have mercury in them and should be disposed of safely. Do a search on how to clean up a broken CFL, its a jaw dropper.

Not as bad as you might think.

Case 1: CFL is used, then carelessly tossed in the garbage, ending up in a sealed sanitary landfill (clay liners and leachate collection systems to prevent groundwater contamination. The small amount of mercury stays relatively contained.

Case 2: Incandescent lights with zero mercury are used instead. Multiple needed for same lifespan and use 4x the energy. Coal burning is still almost half the power generation in the USA. Coal burning emits a small amount of mercury! The total mercury emitted due to the increased amount of coal burned is as large as the mercury contained in the average modern CFL.

Conclusion: BOTH approaches put mercury out into the environment. The CFL puts it in a sealed landfill (unless you break it!), the incandescent causes it to be pumped out into the air. Which is worse?

Better conclusion: Buy LED.

Money and color of light is what is impeding my switch over to led's in my rv....plus the height of the ceiling fixtures in the main part of the 5th wheel. Also figuring out which is the proper replacement bulb. There also seems to be a big price difference among the same bulb from different suppliers....with incandescent bulbs it is easy 60 watts or 50 or 40 that is what the key is not so with LEDs.....just too many chances of getting the wrong ones....