120v LED vs CFL vs 12v Lamps Results

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Gdetrailer,

Thank you for the clarification about operation.

I "assumed" the fluorescent CFLs were flickering. Then that leaves the question - what part of that light tires out my eyesight? Not only do my eyes ache, but my vision gets blurry, even with reading glasses. 26 watt General Electric cool white CFL versus a 30 watt 5K LED chip. It can't be the 4 watts. The lamps occupy the same place.

I always appreciate understanding the why of things...

couple of things that may impact visual issues. First, a CFL or regular FL emits UV that excites a phosphor blend in the tube that emits a visible spectrum. so if you look at it with a spectrometer you will see a spectrum with peaks and valleys along with likely some UV.

Now a incandesent is just a very broad spectrum emitter.

Now a LED. there are two major types. One has a red, green, and blue diode, sometimes adding a yellow. a spectrum will show 3 or 4 very narrow emission frequencies. and likely little or no UV.

The newer more expensive LED's also add a phosphor mix in the bulb that adds additional frequencies to the spectrum and gives it a broader spectrum of emissions, moving towards an incandesent.

Also LED's, at lest the better ones, will pulse the diode duty cycle dependent at a higher frequency (KHz or 10's of KHz so) to get maximum brightness.

how all this affects vison etc. who knows, but the differences in operation likely relates to how they affect vision.