How Much Power Savings using LED's?

otrfun wrote:
Just purchased 4 warm white LED panels with 20 5050 LED's. Wanted to experiment with these on my TT before purchasing more.

Anyhow, one 20 5050 LED panel wasn't nearly as bright as the original 921 bulb in my TT. Tried two panels and it was as bright, or maybe slightly brighter than the 921. Noticed there was pretty significant heat being produced by the two LED panels, so I became very curiuous about the amount of current these puppies were drawing. The two 20 5050 LED panels (total 40 5050 LED's) were drawing .59 amps total. For comparison sake, I also measured the current draw for one 921 bulb--1.3 amps. Wow, unless my eyes are misreading the light output of the 2 panels, using LED's only cut my current draw in half vs. using the original 921 bulb! A 50% reduction is still fairly significant, but not nearly the savings I expected.

Curious what other have experienced. How many 5050 LED's have you needed to replicate the same light output as one 921 bulb?

LED manufacturers LIE about the light outputs in order to get folks to buy them.

More LEDS is bad for efficiency.

What you want is lights with HIGHER POWER 1W LEDs which have MORE lumens efficiency.

A 921 bulb has about 264 lumens and 17W draw, your panels I didn't bother to look up but I doubt that you are getting more than 100 lumens per panel..

If you want REAL bright LEDs then take a look at PHILIPS 3.5W LED CAPSULE

So far those are the ONLY LEDs I have found that are bright and so far lasting more than a few weeks. However Philips is fibbing a bit on the power draw, they state 3.5W but the module says 350ma and that my dear folks is 4.5W!

They are rated to replace a 20W incadescent bulb which gives 250 lumens, the Philips bulbs are "rated" at 170 lumens which is LESS than a 20w bulb. Don't get me wrong, it is a savings in power but it does not really replace a 20W bulb (they are pretty bright though).

For your situation TWO of those Philips bulbs would easily replace a single #921 bulb, draw .75A and give you 340 lumens which is significantly MORE light.

For those who don't think LEDs give off heat, you are all wet. LEDs are not 100% efficient and I can tell you that high power 1W LED modules GIVE OFF a lot of heat (they just don't give as much heat as incadescent), those Philips bulbs are enclosed in a ceramic case and it gets HOT.