LED bulb: 17 Years, $50.00

[Pete C.]

That's very strange, I don't know what would account for that. You don't have them on dimmers, or worse yet the old fashioned diode dimmers that give half wave AC do you? That will kill a CFL very quickly, as will a lot of short on times as the startups give the most "wear" to a CFL.

I've not had any issues with the bulk pack CFLs from Depot / Lowe's / Sam's / Costco. See my other post.

I've also used six little 9W CFLs to light the inside of a 40' cargo container in the frozen northeast and had no problems with those either, even when the ambient temp was below zero. Granted at those temps the CFLs do take about 90 seconds to reach full brightness, but after that they are fine and I have had no failures there either.

[SMS]

There's your problem, you think you're investing when you buy a light bulb.

But it's true about LED bulbs not lasting all that long. There's a huge difference between a low power, 20mA LED indicator lamp that will likely last for a hundred years, and a high-power LED lamp that is designed to actually illuminate a given area. High power LEDs generate an enormous amount of heat at the very small semiconductor junction. It's very difficult to adequately heat sink these junctions. If you look at something like a 3W MR16 lamp, you can see the amount of metal used for the heat sink. If you block the air flow across the bulb by putting it into a sealed enclosure (like for automotive lamps) then it will quickly self destruct. Incandescent bulbs dissipate the filament heat through the glass of the bulb which is much easier to manage.

[DanG]

Amen, the ones I have tried have all blown. They have been name brand, not discount bulbs. The one on the front porch is still going. By choice I will not be investing in any more CFL or LED until the technology improves.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 4/11/2010 9:42 AM Roy spake thus:

This seems to vary wildly by individual case.

I've got a bunch of CFLs, including some decidedly "old-school" ones (20 watters from Ikea, which were the cheapest ones at the time) that I've been using since 2002 with no problems.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 4/11/2010 5:44 PM Oren spake thus:

But the question is, who's looking back at you?

[John Gilmer]

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The present generation of LED lamps is, at best only slightly more efficient than the CFL lamps.

In theory they last much longer but, because they are "new technolgy" the bugs haven't been worked out and you can expect a LOT of pre-mature failures.

Bottom line for now is just the CFL "bulbs."

In the fullness of time the LEDs should be more efficient that the CFL to at least the low double digits. The "color" problems should also be solved.

But that's no reason to buy them now unless you have a special application that truly requires a super long life.

[Oren]

People in Oakland? I'm not sure.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 4/11/2010 7:11 PM Oren spake thus:

Nah, we've got better things to look at.

Like the Oakland marathon, aka Oakland Running Festival:

Revived after a 25-year hiatus.

Or the Fire Festival held each summer:

A fusion of art and pyromania. Burn, baby, burn!

[clare]

No dimmers. Just normal lamps and fixtures. The worst culprits have been the PAR floods (potlights) which have NEVER lasted more than 14 months - and usually the last 5 or more of that 14 being extremely slow to light off. Never had much luch with the F40 tubes either, and "green" t12s are even worse. I'm down to only 3 of those disasters left in the house.

I DID still have 1 old circline compact flourescent in working condition up untill about 3 months ago that I bought about 22-25 years ago. Bought 2 - the first one died about 6 years back. Cannot remember the manufacturer but it was North American

[clare]

The OLD ikea bulbs were the only ones I EVER had any luck with - made in Germany or Belgium or someplace like that. So I went the 80Km to get some more a year or so later, and "Made in China".

[Ralph Mowery]

You can sort of blame the enviromental people. The new bulbs do not contain enough mercury to really light off, especially if it gets cold.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 4/11/2010 7:28 PM [e-mail] spake thus:

The Ikea bulbs were pretty good--they were linear, with 4 tubes, not "twirly", but they had one really annoying feature: they took what seemed like forever (actually about 5 seconds) to light up; enough time to cross a room before any light appeared. Other than that, they were bright and reliable.

[salty]

I believe the LED's themselves as a component, have a service life of around 50,000 hours. The problems with current LED's for the home is that they have to have a regulator built into each one to take 120 volts AC and reduce it to just a few volts DC. That is very inefficient. I am thinking that LED's for retrofits will always be a problem. In new construction, if the building is wired with low voltage DC for lighting circuits, I think that problem can be overcome NOW. It would be pretty easy to set up a battery bank of AGM batteries that would be charged by solar panels and backed up by an AC charger. This sort of system would be extremely low maintenance, and would also greatly reduce the cost of the individual lamps due to elimination of all of those individual regulators. AGM batteries in this sort of setup would last a decade or more, easily, and most of the electricity for your lights would be from solar. That would make the numbers work. Your lights would continue to work in a power failure as a bonus.

[ransley]

e new bulb uses just 9 watts and provides a 77% energy savings

Leds last, but the electronic package and the non exterior housings I see make me think you cant loose that Receipt for your warranty. In time they will come down in price.

[ransley]

[e-mail]:

The money a Cfl saves over an incandesant is 75%++ in electricity consumed. I pay near .50c a cfl bulb of warm white 2700k, with a 9 yr warranty from HD. Cfls are Prime Time and in all commercial buildings I work work and visit.

[ransley]

But I like the most of the US pay near 50% more per BTU for electric, so Incandesants are a waste as is electric heat.

[ransley]

Hide quoted text -

It is worthwhile, every bbuilding ive converted to cfls has seen a 50% overall drop in the electric bill, those who say its not worthwhile dont know all the facts.

[ransley]

Buy HD stuff, you are in their computer and just the other day I returned some without a reciept, HD has a 9 yr warranty and I often buy the CFls so im in their computer, no mail in required.

[Jim Yanik]

"Pete C." wrote in news:4bc27049$0$23567$ [e-mail]:

I had one "60W" CFL of a 4-pack die very quickly,just a month or two. Two more from the same pack seem to be lasting OK.

[ransley]

imited.usenetmonster.com:

View it this way. Incandesants are Electric Heaters, that as a by product out put light. In the visable spectrum you only see about 4-6% of the energy used as visable light, the rest is heat output in an incandesant. So take 11, 100w incandesants and its equal to running a

1000w electric resistance heater. In winter its not so bad, in summer its an extra 1000w you will need to run you AC longer to remove that 1000w of extra heat. Now consider the fact electricity is at least 50% more than NG per BTU, and you see the wasted energy. Incandesants output 10-15 LPW, CFls 60-75 LPW, LED 80-100 LPW [ In a spot beam] so ratings can be skewed to be deceptive. CFLs are winners hands down.