ktmrfs wrote:
I have some LED recessed floods and they are bright, same color as halogens, dimmable, and very pleasing color rendition. (Costco had them). In fact, just for a comparison I left one 75W halogen in the kitchen and the other 9 floods were the LED. Walking into the room, it was very difficult to point out the one halogen. Brightness and color were very good.
Initially LED bulbs had 3 emitters, red, green, and blue with very narrow spectrum so no matter what, the color didn't appear very white. Some then added yellow to help but the same basic problem, 3 (or 4) very narrow spectral lines, not like "normal" light.
so, finally the solution. Use a phosphor coating like they do on floresent bulbs on the LED case surface. the LED excites the phosphor which then emits light at a variety of wavelengths, like a florescent bulb does. Now the spectrum is filling in and the output is much more like natural light. Couple that with varying the brightness of the 3 or 4 emitters and choosing phosphors and it is like floresents where you can make almost any color temperature you want pretty easily.
I suspect there is a very slight hit in efficiency, but more than made up for in the color of the light. And the CREE LED's seem to be continually improving in efficiency as well.
My prediction is that the LED's within one, maybe two years will be priced like the CFL's today and the CFL's will disappear quickly.
Not likely.
LEDs, especially WHITE LEDs have a long, long way to get to CFLs price points, LONGEVITY and potential brightness.
To me LEDs have been unreliable and costly, heck I can't even keep SIMPLE LED taillights and even marker lights working reliably for more than a couple of years on my RV.
My experience with 120V home LEDs has also been terrible, the longest lasting 120V LED bulb made it TWO MONTHS and it cost $20 :M, the shortest has been one week..
You also can not get super uber bright LEDs, you know something that competes more on 40W and above in incadescent but yet you can find lots of super bright CFLs which are in excess of 350W of incadescent brightness.
Take a good look at CFLs future, it is EXTREMELY bright...
85W CFL linkSpecs are as follows..
85-Watt, 5200 Lumens, 80 CRI
350-Watt Incandescent Equivalent
10,000 Hour Average Lamp Life
6500K Color Temperature, Daylight Color, Medium Base
$27.95
To get a LED light to get close to that brightness you would literally have to buy 520 of the BEST LED lights costing you at the min of $2600 :E ($5 per 100 lumens).
That 85W CFL rocks, I put one in my garage last summer, used it last winter and this summer and so far is still working.
They make even brighter CFLs to boot.
