LED lights

[stoveliker]

I believe the Dutch frugality beats the German... one of our neighbors (not on the East side) has a joke that copper wire was invented by the Dutch. Two guys were pulling on a cent.

 

[gthomas785]

Good for them!! I always like to give kudos to those who do what they like vs what society deems as acceptable. If you don't like it, buy a pair of yellow tinted sunglasses for when you look over....or just don't look over. I prefer white light vs yellow light. Always have. We have white light LED bulbs in our house.

What do you do on your autos? Do you drive older vehicles that have yellow halogens or do you replace the whiter lights with aftermarket yellow bulbs?

I know, they have every right to do what they want. I accept that, but I also have a right to complain about it. Don't try to tell me 5000K is "white". It's blue. I know they call it daylight but anyone with a properly functioning set of cones in their eyes can tell that's not the same as white light. It's obnoxious.

(Edit: yes I studied physics and I know 5000k is the real color temperature of sun light, etc. But that color when surrounded by darkness appears blue and artificial. The perception is what I care about.)

Fwiw, I also don't like the blue headlights on new cars these days they hurt my eyes more when I'm driving towards them.

 

[begreen]

5000k is the color temperature which is not the same as the Color Rendering Index (CRI). CRI has no relation with the color temperature
of the light as the latter represents the tone of visible light. There can be two 5000k bulbs that have significantly different CRI. One may appear bluish and wash out colors and the other a more true white with much more accurate color reproduction.

 

[tlc1976]

I put 5000k lights in my kitchen. To my eyes they are white light and the most usable. There were other choices both higher and lower K but I felt they were less usable. Because either one had a brown/yellow tint or a blue tint.



I also replaced the sodium bulb outside with a 35W 5000k LED bulb. Not a corn bulb, but a large plastic one with smooth output all around. Even though it has fewer lumens it lights up things just as well. Others may use outdoor lighting for beauty, but I use it to see while saving money. To each their own.

I do agree that many modern headlights are too bright, and they must have changed the laws on brightness limits from the past because I read up on it before. I think there are some recalls now, but seriously who is going to take their car in for the recall because they can see too good at night?

 

[stoveliker]

Pics on a computer screen are notoriously bad in conveying color.
As a photography hobbyist, white balance is finicky, mixing of perception (difference from the environment) and technology.

Interesting related video - though not about light bulbs. Same ideas though.

 

[begreen]

I do agree that many modern headlights are too bright, and they must have changed the laws on brightness limits from the past because I read up on it before. I think there are some recalls now, but seriously who is going to take their car in for the recall because they can see too good at night?

Locally I am finding that many of the worst car headlight offenders are due to replacement bulbs, often in older vehicles. These may be a lot brighter than the OEM filament or halogen bulbs, but the headlamp lens and alignment are not right for an LED bulb. This tends to disperse the light right into the oncoming driver's eyes. Not good. The other issue in our dark rural area is that idiots don't dim their lights. That might have been annoying with older headlights, but it is blinding with some modern units.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Locally I am finding that many of the worst car headlight offenders are due to replacement bulbs, often in older vehicles. These may be a lot brighter than the OEM filament or halogen bulbs, but the headlamp lens and alignment are not right for an LED bulb. This tends to disperse the light right into the oncoming driver's eyes. Not good. The other issue in our dark rural area is that idiots don't dim their lights. That might have been annoying with older headlights, but it is blinding with some modern units.

those are the worst in the rain after a long day and tired eyes. I literally see spots for an hour after coming home.

 

[begreen]

My wife has decreasing night sight. She no longer will drive at night if it is rainy for this reason.

 

[stoveliker]

We bought a 2018 Toyota RAV4 (SE, so the fancier lights) for my wife, from a dealership. It's lights were aimed wrong. We got flashed by many. Adjusted them, and now is all good. Unless she drives behind me - having those lights reflect into my eye via my outside mirror sucks.

I don't like them. Also not when I drive the car; I feel that with that bluish light, I can actually see less than with the more yellow conventional lights. Somehow my eyes don't register as much with the bluish ones, even if the number of photons coming out is higher.

 

[begreen]

Our 2018 Volt has LED low beams. I love them. The light is clean, well-aimed, and has a sharp cutoff below the oncoming driver's eyes.

 

[woodgeek]

I replaced the headlights in my Gen 1 Volt with drop in LEDs, and checked that they had a sharp cutoff in the same place... no one flashes me. About 3X the lumens are helpful with my old eyes.

 

[ABMax24]

I've never had a set of LED headlights that I liked. I always find the color is off to the point of seeming mono tone. I'd rather drive with halogen bulbs. I do like a good set of HIDs though, they produce a nicer light.

Some LED light bars are really nice, my 40" on my sled deck works really well and the color is about as good as my HIDs.

 

[vbu]

The problem with the headlights here is the laws around them (aside from older vehicles putting led bulbs in housings that were never meant for them). In europe, LED/ xenon headlights have to be self leveling. So when you load your vehicle up, the headlights tilt down and you're not blinding anyone. They also have to have a wash system that works with the windshield washer system. I'll leave it in the middle how well that system works, but the fact of the matter is that in Europe you never get blinded like you do here daily. Pay attention to the VW/ Mercedes/ BMW/ Audi headlights. They don't blind you.
Just recently they passed (or revoked? not sure.) that allowed the use of Matrix LED headlights. They were prohibited here to protect the US manufactures because they do not have this technology (yet). Audi has had it for years. You can drive with your high beams on, it detects pedestrians and oncoming traffic and dims that specific area.

 

[woodgeek]

AS for tech, the 22 Bolt has automatic highbeams. The collision avoidance camera detects any vehicles within the headlight spread and just switches the highbeams on and off. I was skeptical, but the system seems quite sensitive and well engineered, and reacts faster than I would tbh. Matrix lights are cool, but not necessary to get automatic functionality.

Self-leveling seems a gimmick to me (in a world with things called 'hills'), probably a protectionist thing fr EU makers if I was feeling cynical. I get flashed by German cars all the time. But (when mandated) automatic highs will fix that, so no worries.

 

[stoveliker]

The RAV4 has that automatic high beam switching off too. Driving on a rural narrow very curvy and hilly road recently, I got annoyed because either there were a ton of larger animals or it was detecting trees and thought they were vehicles. It kept switching my high beams off.

The cutoff of these lights is good and sharp though.

 

[peakbagger]

The light quality and cut off on my Rav 4 is fine but on rural roads I tend to dim my lights earlier and on occasion, I would dim my lights and they would auto brighten before the oncoming car drove by. I think there are adjustments to the program but I dont like experimenting on other drivers

Most long-distance drivers like HIDs for long distance lighting and LEDs up close. HIDs are fussier and more expensive to install due to the need for the switching ballast to get them to fire off plus they have a shorter life span. HIDs tend to have a "sharper" cut off like a spotlight while the LEDs I have seen tend to be more or fuzzy cut off especially the non-OEM conversions. There are some pretty wild auxiliary lights sold in Australia for long distance drivers.

The US has ancient regulations on lighting systems that prevent new lighting tech from being installed on new vehicles. Its slowly changing but Europe has had steerable headlights on high end cars that follow the curves of the road and auto leveling for decades. They also have very strict thorough annual inspections in many countries that are tough to pass. My guess is the number of one eyed cars on the road are pretty low compared to the US.

 

[vbu]

The US has ancient regulations on lighting systems that prevent new lighting tech from being installed on new vehicles. Its slowly changing but Europe has had steerable headlights on high end cars that follow the curves of the road and auto leveling for decades. They also have very strict thorough annual inspections in many countries that are tough to pass. My guess is the number of one eyed cars on the road are pretty low compared to the US.

Exactly. I'm originally from Europe, and my parents still live there. When the car turns 3 years old you need to pass a yearly inspection, which is very thorough like you said. They check everything from emissions, to a brake test, to testing suspension and measuring the headlights.
My dads car has LED headlights that actively follow the direction of the steering wheel. It works fantastic. The self leveling is not a gimmick and works great as well. Only LED/ xenon/ bi-xenon lights have to be self leveling. Regular halogen headlights have a little dial inside the car to manually adjust the lights.
Seeing a 'one eyed' car on the road there is extremely rare

 

[Ashful]

Thanks. I guess I'm due to give it another try, sometime soon...

Welp, following that post, I bought another two PAR38 45W equivalent (7W actual) 3000K bulbs, and installed them over my front door. Outdoors, but tucked up inside a porch ceiling with at least 6 feet of overhang, they're totally out of the weather. "Wet location" rated bulbs, even though this is a decidedly dry outdoor location.

The box advertised 16 year life span, but the first of this pair just died yesterday, after 16 months. LOL... scale that "cost savings" back by about 12x! I didn't do the math, but I suspect the added cost of the bulb is greater than the cost of the electricity it saved me, over just 16 months. Moreover, since I can't find the same bulb anymore, now I might have to replace two, so I don't have side-by-side bulbs (6 feet apart) that look different.

These were Philips brand, and I believe I bought them at Lowes. They run sunset to midnight, so roughly 3 hours in summer or 7 hours in winter, plus 6am - sunrise in winter. Probably average 5.5 hours per day, over the course of the full year, or 2675 total hours on the bulb before it died. They are installed in deep cans, and run dead-cool, as the cans were rated for something like 150W halogens, and these things only burn 7W. They are never dimmed, in fact they're not rated for dimming.

I'm sure the LED array is just fine, but some other cheap capacitor or resistor wiped out the whole assembly. Useless. This is my third or fourth experiment with LED's, with the same result every time, they don't even last as long as a typical 3000 hour halogen or incandescent, let alone the 6000 hour incandescents that are pretty common now... and far cheaper. I actually get the advertised times on halogens and incandescents, in fact usually longer than advertised, unless it's bumped or vibrated.

 

[woodgeek]

Bummer. Reflector types in enclosed fixtures are the worst.

I'm still partying with my cheapo Chinese filament edison bulbs, that seem to last forever (or at least 90% of them do), have eff as high as 200 lum/W.

But if your house is build with nearly all reflector fixtures indoors... well that is a problem.

 

[Tonty]

These were Philips brand, and I believe I bought them at Lowes.

I have not had good luck with Phillips brand. When we built our house in 2019, I put mostly Phillips brand LED bulbs in. Most have been replaced already due to failure. I switched to Feit and they seem to be better.
Conversation reminds me of a local old mansion that gives tours. According to the owner, the house had original Edison bulbs that were still in use into this century. He said he has asked bulb manufacturers/representatives that tour the house why they don’t make bulbs that last that long anymore. Their response has been “Why would we want to?” 🤔

 

[begreen]

I am getting about the same lifespan with LEDs so far as with previous halogens and CFLs. Like their predecessors, there are exceptions. I have a 60w equiv. LED LR light on a time that has been running for over 5 yrs now. It is on an average of 8 hrs a day in winter and about 4 hrs a day in summer. Just yesterday I had a dining room 100w equiv. bulb go out in just 3yr of lower usage. This was a generic ACE Hardware bulb. It has been replaced with a FEIT bulb.

Do Philips bulbs still have a warranty? I recall getting a refund from them for an expensive CFL years ago with no hassle. Save the receipt.

 

[stoveliker]

I'm here now 6 years. All new LED bulbs when I got into the home. Some additional LED lights outside (front door is lit all night) added after a year and a half or so.
Nothing has burned out yet.

I start to wonder if your power has issues that LED bulbs can't deal with.

Because the observation is that you have a very consistent unusually short (that is, unusually for me and "all" folks I have talked LED lights with here in NY and back in TN) lifetime of the array of different brands of LED bulbs you have tried.

So, how clean is your power?
If you do treat your incoming AC, do you only do that for certain (computation...) circuits or for the whole house?

 

[Ashful]

So, how clean is your power?

Very "unclean", by comparison to other homes in which I've lived. We have a probably 600+ foot run at 220V to the closest transformer, and get voltage dips everytime an air conditioning compressor kicks on. Since we have four HVAC systems, that's basically several times per hour. On top of that, the autoranging function on the transformer on our street appears to not work properly, and I need to call the power company for a manual adjustment maybe once every 2-3 years. Just three weeks ago, I found our voltages running 138 and 265 VAC, for a full day before they re-adjusted.

But no matter, the incandescent and halogen bulbs take it just fine, and there's no good reason the LED's should not, as well. This is the reality into which they are being inserted, and engineers should take account of that reality, in their design.

 

[stoveliker]

I agree.
Tho to blame the bulbs then is similar to blaming a stove for not being able to burn wet wood well...?

 

[Ashful]

Tho to blame the bulbs then is similar to blaming a stove for not being able to burn wet wood well...?

Not at all. I control the wood, I don't control the utilities. Stove manufacturers can and should expect their buyers to feed their stoves dry wood. But bulb manufacturers must accept and design around the known flaws of the utility upon which their customers are inevitably running their product.

I'm an EE, and spent most of my career designing product that ran on AC mains, worldwide. Many of our customers in post-Fukushima Japan experienced failures at one point, as their poor power quality revealed a flaw in our own design, which may have never been noticed otherwise. Because the power was only pushing the limits of our advertised capability and not exceeding it, of course we had to fix the design, and deal with the consequences thereof.