LED indoor bulbs?

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pybyr

Minister of Fire
Jun 3, 2008
2,300
Adamant, VT 05640
Anyone able to report any experience on use of LED indoor light bulbs that install into regular lamps/ fixtures, just like CFLs?

I was an early adopter of CFLs, but the newest CFLs do not seem to last as long as the earlier ones.

I'd like to give an LED unit or three a try in several locations that see most long-on intervals- but only if reports are that these products are ready for prime time, reliable, and not prohibitively expensive on a life-cycle-cost (bulb+ energy to operate) basis.

Thanks
 
We're using a pair of indoor spot LEDs that I bought at Home Depot to light our fireplace. We picked this location because these lights get a lot of use and because we dim them. I'd tried dimmable CFLs there but didn't like the color and have had trouble with failures of dimmable CFLs and some CFLs in general.

We also bought one standard bulb for a table lamp that we use a lot. It is not a dimmable fixture though. The LED light seems to be a better color of light that were the CFLs we replaced.

After about 6 months of use the LEDs seem to be doing well. They put out a very nice light and dim well. None of the three has failed.
 
I have had bad luck with Osram Sylvania Strip Undercabinet LED lights. They have discontinued them but wont do anything about the ones that failed (average is about 3 months of daily operation). I dont know about other designs, but these are a LED's wired in series, whne one fails the entire string fails. I have fixed one just to diagnose the problems. If anyone want to play with them, I have 8 - 18" units that I wil give away if they pay shipping.
 
Received PM, glad Igo do something with them
 
bah, just hang LED xmas lights everywhere in your house. its festive and environmental conscience....my son's BR is entirely lit with Xmas lights, he thinks its the bee's knees.
 
I bought one to put in my fridge last year, since CFLS don't work well there & I sure don't want heat of an incandescent... Anyway the bulb casing was too big to fit there so I put it in the range hood light that my wife likes to use quite a bit. It failed after about 6 months which I was very surprised to see :( The light was nice, a little too dim, but good color. This was a Sylvania, either 1.5 or 2W.
I've used LEDs in a flashlight and headlamps since 2002 and never had one fail.
 
Prolly the heat that did it. Range hood + LED lamp does not sound like a good combo.
 
I have been looking at the CREE CR6 to replace 8 can lights in out kitchen.

I made the jump to CFLs already and 8x65w incandescent to 8x19w CFL is nice. With the CR6 I'm looking at 8x10.5w LED, so I will almost cut the curant usage in half. I just don;t know if its worth $400+ to do the kitchen.

It works out to a very, very small savings over the life of the LED fixture, which is 50,000 hours; between that and stopping my wife from complaining about the warm up time, it might be worth it...
 
BeGreen said:
Prolly the heat that did it. Range hood + LED lamp does not sound like a good combo.
Click to expand...
Will have to take some readings with IR thermo to see. I didn't expect temps very high, but maybe it gets warm enough that heat from the LED can't dissipate
 
I have used 1 before, wasnt impressed with the color, and it was a tight spot, also not desirable. It died after a few months of near continuous use. It was a cheapo unit from china, and Although teh LED's will last forever, the electonics always seem to give it up first.

Just about everything else is CFL, but I rarely seem to get the service life the package claims... but that is all I will use until LED's are a bit more economical.
 
I picked one up to try from HD. It was on sale for $20 (yikes). It was a 40w equivalent.

It is not bad. The light is a little different, but then CFL's seemed that way when they were new.
When I do another house, I will use them. I just hope the price comes down.

I was in HD last week and they had a sale on LED recessed lights, fixtures and lights for $49.

That is a decent deal, considering I paid $20 for the recessed lights I put in my kitchen and the CFL's have been replaced at
least two times in the seven years they have been in place.

As I understand it turning on and off CFL's diminishes their life expectancy on hour for every time it is flipped on and off.

Seems to be true, at least all my kitchen lights fail pretty close to each other time wise.
 
I replaced most of my lights in my house with CFL.
What I found out is that the CFL seem to burn out much quicker then the regular bulbs.

This is causing issues due to disposal of mercury.
Regular bulbs I could just throw in the trash, these mercury bulbs I have to save until I get a few stored up so I can go to a place to properly dispose of them.

Does the LED lights last longer and use less electricity then the CFL?
If this is the case then I will start replacing the CFL with LED's.

Do they make a CFL that lasts longer and doesn't contain mecury?
 
It took a while, but the newer cfl bulbs seem to be standing up ok. I date ours and they are lasting a little longer than the halogens they replaced. We recycle them at our local power company office.
 
I have a few led's in use as nightlights and in that regard they work well. Other than that use, or as very close task lighting I've yet to find an led that can even remotely compare to cfl's.

My lighting is dc so I try to keep up with any innovations in efficient lighting, and although I can't comment on ac powered led's I can say that I haven't seen any led's (nor have suppliers that I speak to) that will provide the indoor lighting that we're used to. I don't think the technology is there yet. I've also read that you need to be careful about high powered led's in that their energy use can actually be pretty high. The cost of the brightest led's out there is also prohibitively expensive and that's a factor to take into consideration when comparing them to cfl's.

I do use mostly cfl's and though I pay quite a bit for them in a dc format I have to say that their light quality is excellent. You'd never know they were cfl's by the warm light they put out - nothing like the older generations. Some have been in use in my kitchen and livingroom where they're on all the time and they're 6 years old. I also have a meter that indicates my electrical use (in and out) and they use a tiny amount compared to a standard incandescent.
 
I'll add here that the life rating of cfl's is largely dependent on the switching cycle. Fluorescent bulbs don't do well when they're turned on and off frequently with little time between. If they're cheap this may not be much of a problem though cheap cfl's may be more sensitive as well.
 
I have some osram sylvania 40 watt LED bulbs that I have put in a dining room table that has 5 bulbs in it.
Quite a bit less heat than the 40 watt incandescent bulbs and actually brighter.
Even with rebates they're a bit pricey still but in this particular application they've made reading the paper or a book under that light much easier on the eyes. They dim fairly nice, too.


I have some CFL that are ten years old that are just starting to be abit slow turning on.
 
My limited understanding (of LEDS) is that there is just about the same heat generated from LEDs but the heat goes up towards the fixture (there is a heat sink on them) whearas the heat from a regular bulb goes downward. This can be a concern on some applications.
 
In order to dim CFL floods or bulbs you have to have the right dimmer. I found this out the hard way after $120 worth of recessed can bulbs lasted less than a year. Also, some CFLs don't like to be upside/down or sideways, which is why they may fail faster. Other than that I've had tremendous luck with them and they definitely do show a difference on the bill. LEDs are still too expensive to warrant replacement, but if I was replacing a fixture such as an outdoor flood or recessed cans I'd definitely go for them.

Hijack warning:

Can't wait for the LEDs to start getting more affordable, especially the grow lights. Because you can tune the wavelength so narrow your input wattage has the potential to be much more efficient. I'd love to see indoor greenhouses feasible/profitable year round here in the Northeast. I'm thinking that if I could sequester enough heat in the day I wouldn't have to heat the greenhouse at night to keep it above frost temps and the addition of LED lights during the darkest part of the Winter would give me leafy greens. Maybe not flowering fruits like tomatoes but at least kale and other cooler-temp munchies.
 
I sell lighting along with other electrical stuff. The LED floods are making good progress with the life and LUMEN output. We are selling TCP brand and Satco. That being said, the market is changing rapidly. One maker has an PAR30 LED with about 1000 lumens which is VERY GOOD and VERY PRICEY. The problems with making a linear light output device into a general lighting bulb (standard A19) is that the lighting is linear, straight line, whatever you want to call it. So it all boils down to the reflectors that would be used behind every diode. I am telling my customers to wait a year.
Or check out cold cathode or induction lighting
 
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