How Much Power Savings using LED's?

[otrfun]

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 curious 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?

[westend]

John & Angela wrote:
We did a little testing as well. After all is said and done using quality 27 Led single contact bulbs, we found we draw about 1/3 to a 1/4 of the power getting about the same amount of light. No where near the claimed 80 percent less power but substantial enough to justify the change.

Do the LED bulbs you used have a regulator on them? Some of the "quality" bulbs from stateside sellers have a small regulation board attached. This may draw off a bit of current and that may explain some of the disparity between different user's reports on current drawn.

[12thgenusa]

Almot wrote:
Even if you compare AH energy savings of LED to your old incandescent - it will not be impressive unless you burn it a lot. 2 incandescent bubs 2 hours a day will burn 7 AH, and 2 LED of the same lumens will burn 2-3 AH.

Must be a wide variation in LEDs. The ones I mentioned in my earlier post are rated at 252 to 288 lumens vs. 264 for the 921 incandescent. So I can have more than four times the light for the same power or twice the light for less than half the power. Considering that for many folks, light power use is second only to furnace power use, it's a very significant power savings.

I was a little generous to the 921 incandescent in my previous post. The 36 1210 SMD LED uses only about 21% the power of the 921 instead of 25%.

[docj]

mena661 wrote:

Almot wrote:
120V LEDs are not not as reliable and not cheap either.

The only good 120V LEDs IMO are Philips. They're not cheap but they went from nearly $50 three years ago to $15 now. Cree just jumped into the 120V market too and I think the competition is what drove Philips prices down to its present price (price dropped from $30 to $15). The Philips bulbs are reliable. I have three on my front porch that go through 115F summers and 20F winters. I usually replace incandescents once a year on the porch lights. Even the CFL's didn't last more than a year out there although MEX tells me GE's are better. The Philips are still going strong after two years.

We tried the Cree bulbs in our MH (yes, we have 120V light fixtures) but they don't stand up to the vibration of traveling even with air suspension.

[mena661]

Almot wrote:
120V LEDs are not not as reliable and not cheap either.

The only good 120V LEDs IMO are Philips. They're not cheap but they went from nearly $50 three years ago to $15 now. Cree just jumped into the 120V market too and I think the competition is what drove Philips prices down to its present price (price dropped from $30 to $15). The Philips bulbs are reliable. I have three on my front porch that go through 115F summers and 20F winters. I usually replace incandescents once a year on the porch lights. Even the CFL's didn't last more than a year out there although MEX tells me GE's are better. The Philips are still going strong after two years.

[Almot]

hershey wrote:
I just bought a couple bulbs last year in Q-site and what a difference. They actually work better than the filament type bulbs. No heat and very very low current draw.
The current draw is of little concern to me as we seldom boondock anymore, but just the better available light makes LED's a no brainier.

Nobody questions a lower power draw of LED per given amount of light, the question was - how much lower. Can be anywhere from 1.5 to 6 times lower, but most often you are lucky to get 3 times lower.

Manufacturers do lie about the amount of light emitted by LED, measured in lumens. Especially today that all LEDs are not only made in China, but designed by God knows who in the same China. Lax quality control, same as most other regulations in that country, need no further comments.

And LEDs are not always "better" available light, it depends on application. In residential use fluorescent tubes and CFL bulbs is an easy, inexpensive and reliable alternative to incandescent bulbs. 120V LEDs are not not as reliable and not cheap either.

In RV, LEDs are more practical than fluorescent tubes or CFL, though hardly any better in energy savings and annual costs. Even if you compare AH energy savings of LED to your old incandescent - it will not be impressive unless you burn it a lot. 2 incandescent bubs 2 hours a day will burn 7 AH, and 2 LED of the same lumens will burn 2-3 AH. 4-5 AH difference is a lot for a minimalist with a single battery, but if you translate this in terms of residential electrical, this is savings of 2 KWH a month. One month total is, more-less, what weekend warriors spend in their RV in a year 🙂

[John___Angela]

We did a little testing as well. After all is said and done using quality 27 Led single contact bulbs, we found we draw about 1/3 to a 1/4 of the power getting about the same amount of light. No where near the claimed 80 percent less power but substantial enough to justify the change.

[mena661]

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

Ask the seller what the Kelvin value is:

Great chart Don!

[pianotuna]

Hi,

Ask the seller what the Kelvin value is:

[hershey]

I made a feeble attempt to go to LED's about 10 years ago. At that time the LED's just glowed compared to todays LED's. What a waste of money and time, I still have some of the bulbs and have given a lot of them away.
I just bought a couple bulbs last year in Q-site and what a difference. They actually work better than the filament type bulbs. No heat and very very low current draw.
The current draw is of little concern to me as we seldom boondock anymore, but just the better available light makes LED's a no brainier.

[mena661]

I bought mostly Command Electronics 510 lumen panels and LEDTrailerlights 300 lumen 921's (when they sold them) in my old 5er. I also had some 75 lumen 921's from LEDWholesalers. The CE panels were 5W, don't remember what the LEDTrailerlights were and the LEDWholesalers were like 1.44 or 1.5W. They were all ~3000K. They were pretty expensive (bought in 2010) except the LEDWholesalers. All were working when I sold it last year. I have mostly florescent tubes in the MH and there aren't any LED replacements a appreciable watt savings that I've found (I may have found a LED replacement...need to try it out). There are a few 1141's that were replaced with LEDs. All working so far.

[Almot]

otrfun wrote:
I've also heard LED's usually provide a power savings factor of 4-6 to 1 for an equivalent amount of light.

... but your eyes tell the different story, right? 🙂

If you do a little more research, a power savings factor of 2.5-3.0 for a given amount of light is pretty common. Which is close to what you see in your panels - savings by a factor of 2 or slightly better.

[12thgenusa]

I waited for a few years before replacing all the lights with LEDs. I didn't like the focused light and the bluish color. Eighteen months ago when I added solar power, I replaced all the 921 bulbs with Warm White 36 1210 SMD LEDs. These are very close to incandescent in color (3000 to 3500K) and the same brightness or slightly brighter. Measurement with the Trimetric shows they use 25% power of the incandescent bulbs. No LED failures, sticky back tape failures or radio interference as some have reported with other LEDs. They are rated 12 - 14 volts, but I have run them at close to 15 volts at times when the temp compensated solar charger is in absorption mode. Replaced 25 bulbs for $120.

[tenbear]

I replaced my 1141 bulbs with 36-1210 (3528) panels from 2011-led. I found them to be a similar brightness. They drew about 200 ma. I later bought more 36-1210 panels from a different vender and they were much dimmer, to the point that I won't use them.

Panels direct their light down so they don't look too bright from the side but put lots of light down.

[BFL13]

As usual in the "Yeah for LEDs" threads, nobody mentions the H in AH.

I doesn't save you much if your lights aren't on very long anyway.

Here, in the summer the sun is up well before breakfast and even before you wake up maybe. It goes down later just before bedtime unless you are a night-owl. So when do you ever turn on any lights??

Now in winter it is different. Now your batts are at lower capacity in the cold temps and it is dark most of the time. Now you get some serious Hs in those lighting AHs. This is where LEDs can start to make a diff on how much battery AHs lights grab from what batt capacity in AHs you have.

So before running out and getting all excited about how much less the LEDs draw in amps, check those AHs which is the real measurement and how many Hs there will be in your scenario.

BTW I found a CFL lamp in the 120v lamp uses fewer amps than the 12v lamp nearby where the 120v CFL is on powered by the inverter. So you can save AHs by using those too, if you have that sort of situation.

[Gdetrailer]

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.