LEDs??

[suckolux]

I upgraded the whole house last year, yes it saved 4 dollars a month it seems, but had the toughest time seeing small things or reading and I read a lot. I threw back in an old cfl, all was good! Just not good for task lighting I guess.

 

[suckolux]

Of note, the cfl was 1600 lumens, the led was 750 and not a friendly color? bought on price, not always good

 

[wyaple]

David,

Based on your lumens figures, it would be like replacing all your 100W bulbs with 50W ones. Definitely dimming the total light! Very hard to read by...

I still haven't done the switch to LED because the last time I shopped around, 100W LEDs were about $20 apiece. I did find some 3000K 100W CFLs that give off a great hue and are bright enough, but they turn on at about half brightness, then take 2 minutes to reach full brightness.

Bill

 

[kenkart]

We have changed

All our household lighting to LED, I like it, Just NO Christmas lights, Donald uses only very vintage stuff.

 

[suckolux]

To my eyes when you look at the bulbs it seems very bright, almost painful, but the light does not seem to carry, or travel far???

 

[dartman]

They make them in just about any light range color just like the cfl's if you look around. Our power company offered a free energy saver kit if you applied and they gave out led bulbs, shower heads, water saving faucet nozzles depending on the size of your house. We got 6 led bulbs in 2500k wich is close to the color normal bulbs give out in 60 watt versions. They seem plenty bright to me, go full brightness immediately, and use slightly less juice then the equivalent cfl bulbs. When I switched to cfl probably about 09 it saved me 20 bucks a month, led doubt it makes much difference. I have since upgraded to 5k bulbs and they give off a very white light.
Amazon has good sales on multi packs every so often with cheap or free shipping and that's when I upgraded. On black Friday got 20 for like 20 shipped or close. 100 watt ones are a bit more but so far the daylight 60's are doing just fine for me here. Just decide what color range you like and the light output and start shopping, deals show up all the time.

 

[human]

The only LED I have is on my front porch. I put up a fixture with an array of 12 Cree LEDs permanently installed. It puts out as much light as a 75-watt bulb and only pulls 8 watts. I just leave it on all the time. It's got a 15-year guarantee.

 

[kirbyvertibles]

We love the old bulbs, leds are nice but if you like bright light then id reconsider. My thoughts.

 

[davetranter]

Colour Temperature

I have also started to experiment with LED lighting, now that it has become (almost) affordable. I managed to buy one lamp (320lm/4.5W/30Wequiv, 2700K) at a local 'discount store' 18 months ago. I installed it to replace a 40W incandescent in the small bedroom where I am sitting now (used as a study), and the light is adequate for most purposes, and saved it's purchase price (£1 sterling) in approximately 5 weeks. I have since managed to get a MR16 base (low voltage halogen downlighter/reflector type) (12V 5W / 400 lm (40W equiv)) in 6400K, which makes an excellent work/reading light. If anything, it's too bright, and I have to angle it away slightly. it gives excellent colour rendering and makes reading VERY easy (Love my UK spelling!! ;-) ), and also only cost £1. I have recently seen at the same store some GU10 base (mains voltage) Halogen downlighter type lamps in 6400K, I will soon be investing in a few, and will report back my findings. None of these 'cheap' lamps are dimmable.

For anyone who may be interested, I have recently acquired (in the course of replacing them for customers) several 'dead' LED lamps. In all cases the actual LED chips are still fully functional, but the inverter supplies have failed, which has made a few interesting 'in-car' projects possible, using a good old-fashioned 'dropper resistor' ;-)

All best

Dave T

 

[dustin]

This is interesting, we've switched to LED's almost 100%, and found them to be significantly brighter than similar output cfl's. Not to mention the lack of warm up time to reach full brightness. Most are standard soft white, a few are daylight. Two 60w equivalent daylight bulbs in the front porch lights illuminates the front yard very well, where two 60w equivalent CFLs didn't. We got most of ours from Walmart, they have some sort of deal going with consumers (power company) and offer 4 packs for $1.97 each, we bought several boxes and all seem to be working great! So far we love them and won't be looking back. I even installed a 60w equivalent daylight bulb in the refrigerator, nice and bright! We went from 100w (23 actual watts) CFLs in the living room lamps to 60w (8.5 actual watts) LEDs and they seem to provide the same light.

 

[suckolux]

my cfls were 1600 lumens for 23 watts used. Did Costco run, they had a 4 pack of 1600 lumen leds using 15 watts. 4 pack was $16.44 I think? Now I can see tasks. And garage and outside well.