can't find LED bulb

Odd shape and size bulbs are the hardest to find in LED. I have yet to find a standard PAR30 outdoor flood that fits my fixtures so I have regular incans in the motion sensor flood and CFLs in the switched ones. Neither gets used much.

Where I do use all LED are for all the desk lamps - lots of cheap options to replace a 60watt A bulb. If you dont care about looks Phillips has a 8watt 60w equiv that sometimes goes on sale for less than $2 at HD



I used a couple of these in enclosed fixtures, but also have a lot of the regular philips A style LED and both philips and Cree bulbs in higher wattages. I also have LED indoor BR30 floods in my kitchen recessed lights. These are 11w (65w BR30 equiv) and ran about $10. HD Ecosmart label, made by Cree I think.

I have tried to stay with all Philips, Cree and lighting Science. the quality and color consistency seems better than the no name china brands.




For low wattage bulbs in exposed fixtures maybe you want to wait for those new filament look LED bulbs that are coming?

Ha yea... Im thinking about bulbs hidden in fixtures.

Im guessing you have a lot of antique candle look fixtures? If so thats a tricky one.

In an outdoor rated PAR30 long neck LED, amazon offers one model that looks ok:

http://www.amazon.com/Electric-12-w...ref=sr_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1431614383&sr=1-2

which sounds like what you want, but its $25.

Very well rated....which is useful for LEDs b/c a lot of Hecho in China ones die quickly...good ratings suggest these last and have a low defect rate.

At $0.15/kWh, saving 50W vs incandescent, needs to run 25/0.15*20 = 3,333 hours to break even on purchase price.

If you are uncertain on color/spread (i suspect its aok) I would buy one, try it out, and then buy more.

woodgeek said:

$0.15/kWh, saving 50W vs incandescent, needs to run 25/0.15*20 = 3,333 hours to break even on purchase price.

Click to expand...

... except you're not really 'saving' 50 watts ...the LED bulb requires 12 watts to run, so the 'savings' over a 50W bulb is only 38W. There is also likely to be some sales tax on the purchase price. These together mean you could have a much longer payback time.

Ok. The lumen output Ashful quoted looked a little generous IMO for 50W...more like a 60W incand to me. And in 3300 h of runtime, he will need to replace the incand a couple times, and while cheap, they are not free. I think that covers the tax.

My only point with the math was that at 1 hour a day, the (simple) payback is ~9 years (ugh), while at 12 hours a day, it is more like 9 mos (yay). Only he knows how much he runs it.

If the LEDs last a nominal 30k hours of lifetime, e.g. 12 hours a day for 8 years, each one would save >$200 in kWh, paying for themselves many times over.

How about this one? http://viribright.us/products/sku/74347 (I have no further knowledge of company or their bulbs.)

We have some Phillips BR30 in our kitchen, love them. I am actually hoping that our CFLs are burning out that I can replace them with LEDs. So far, little luck. Instead, we had two lamps fail last year while the bulbs were still fine.

I don't think I've ever seen a 90 degree PAR bulb. The whole point of a parabolic reflector is that it allows you to focus light evenly in a narrow pattern.

Are you sure a BR30 won't work for you? Bulged reflectors usually have a much wider beam. Or that a 40 degree PAR30 isn't broad enough?

Corey said:

... except you're not really 'saving' 50 watts ...the LED bulb requires 12 watts to run, so the 'savings' over a 50W bulb is only 38W. There is also likely to be some sales tax on the purchase price. These together mean you could have a much longer payback time.

Click to expand...

Although you also have to factor in the purchase price of halogen bulbs. If he's looking at these for lights that spend a lot of time on, he could potentially go through 2-3 halogen bulbs over the next 5-10 years, while an LED stands a good chance of lasting beyond that time frame.

iamlucky13 said:

Although you also have to factor in the purchase price of halogen bulbs. If he's looking at these for lights that spend a lot of time on, he could potentially go through 2-3 halogen bulbs over the next 5-10 years, while an LED stands a good chance of lasting beyond that time frame.

Click to expand...

This is true - and another factor to consider in the 'payback period' - though you still need to base the calculation on the actual wattage 'savings'.

There is also a 'human factor' which has been reported with more efficient bulbs... people tend to let them burn more which can also offset a good portion of the savings. With a 100W incandescent, people are generally pretty good about using it only when needed... maybe only a few hours a day. With energy efficient bulbs, they're more likely to leave them on even when not needed...sometimes 24 hours a day.

I noticed the price of CFLs has gone way up recently. I used to buy the 100 watt EQ for less than $1 a bulb ,now they are almost $2. THe LEDs though keep coming down.

I think some areas are increasing their standards for light bulb subsidies, which may leave CFL bulbs being sold full price.

And they may be starting to get declining economies of scale. There's very limited reasons to buy a CFL bulb anymore.

iamlucky13 said:

. There's very limited reasons to buy a CFL bulb anymore.

Click to expand...

They are still half price or less than the LEDs and they dont use much more power if any. Different brands of LEDs use different amounts of power. I replaced one CFL once that used 1 watt less than the LED of equivalent lumens i was replacing it with. I guess Some of the transformers are not as efficient.

Re the CFL vs LED debate....CFLs are mature, but LEDs still have room to improve eff wise. OF course, also a good reason to wait.

For reflectors/directional, however the performance lead is now solidly with LEDs, reflector CFLs suck, and always have.

I always found them to be very low lumens/W, very wide spread, and annoyingly long warmup.

Home Depot in CT had a state funded discount on the Philips flat bulbs. In the $3.50 range. I bought about 50 of them. They are great.

If someone wants to try a bunch of different LEDs, here is a decent sale: http://www.superiorlighting.com/LED_Bulbs_on_Sale_s/2628.htm

If anyone is in southeastern PA, the HD in this area (serviced by PECO or PPL) you can get Cree BR30 in 2700 or 5000 for 4.97 and 5.97 respectively.