LED Bulbs?

[Greg Pasquariello]

Does anyone know of any companies producing LED bulbs as functional replacements for standard incandescent bulbs in a home environment? I'm thinking of something that can replace a run-of-the-mill 60W to 100W bulb.

Thanks for any pointers!

Regards

-Greg Pasquariello

[upand_at_them]

This easy search:

turned up ledbulbs.com

-Mike

[Greg Pasquariello]

Yes, I know how to google, so let me rephrase...

Many of these "replacement" bulbs are not good replacements for the typical home lighting situations. In some cases the bulbs are too "focused", in other cases, not bright enough, etc.

So I guess my real question is, can someone _recommend_ an LED replacement bulb manufacturer or product that works well as a replacement bulb in a typical home setting.

[SQLit]

Functional and led for replacements of incandescent is double negative. Can you find them, Yes. Are they equal to the lumens of an incandescent, No. CF are the way to go if you looking for reducing wattage. If you looking for a night light then ya a LED would be a good idea.

just my opinion

[Greg Pasquariello]

I was hoping it wasn't not double negative :-)

Ah well. I've had the same experience, but with the way LED technology is advancing, I was hoping for more.

Thanks!

Regards

-Greg Pasquariello

[Roger]

I have no experience with household bulb led replacements, but they are very expensive, running over 20 dollars per bulb, and not very efficient compared to the leds used in small flashlights and such. Lumens per watt are less than even incandescent for the 60-100w range of household bulbs, and much less than compact fluorescents. For lower wattages, like 15-30w range, leds are indeed more competitive, efficieny-wise, with compact fluorescent bulbs, and more efficient than incandescents. You can get an idea of performance, choice, and price at

, where you can find them in the "120v replacement led bulbs" section of their website.

[Don Klipstein]

It's going to be a while.

LEDs are advancing and have been advancing over the decades, but over the decades LEDs have only advanced about half as rapidly as computers have.

Obstacles that LEDs still need to overcome:

1. The most efficient white LEDs that have widely hit the market are still less efficient than most fluorescent lamps. I have yet to hear of any available that matche or exceeded the efficiency of most fluorescent lamps.

1. LEDs are sensitive to heat, and are efficient at producing non-radiant heat. More efficient at producing nonradiant heat than incandescents, in fact!

2. A 1.2 watt ("1 watt") LED still costs a few dollars.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[buffalobill]

see:

done an enormous amount of homework on this.

see lights and low lumens specs chart:

in the meantime while we also look for brighter led's, we added automatic motion sensor lighting.

[mm]

If they could make such things, you'd hear about them all over.

It's only in the last couple years they've tried to make flashlights with leds, and they're not as good. The big thing they have going for them is that the batteries last a very long time.

Bulbs that are plugged in don't benefit from this.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[buggy228]

They say that some day in the future there will be a light that's simply a very fine piece of wire inside a sealed glass bottle with a vacuum, and that wire will glow very bright when elektrizzity is applied. It's said these will eventually replace candles and kerosene lamps. I'm looking forward to that.

[Don Klipstein]

I mostly agree, except that LED flashlights have been around for more than just a couple years and there are some good ones now and have been at least a couple years - just more expensive than regular flashlights.

Most LED flashlights are available mainly online rather than in retail establishments. I suspect that retail establishments try to sell batteries, but consumer demand for LED flashlights is in the process of forcing retailers to sell more LED flashlights.

Check out

This is the website of Craig Johnson's "LED Museum" and "Punishment Zone" (mostly a review of hundreds of lighting items, mostly LEDs and LED products, mostly flashlights).

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Mark Lloyd]

The Wal-Mart store here has a lot of LED flashlights for sale. That includes little keychain ones (that use button cells), large D-cell flashlights, and head-mounted lights,

[Slavek]

Check these links:

[Don Klipstein]

Just as a matter of what is currently available and at what cost:

The LEDs shown in this part of the Osram website are mostly their "Golden Dragon" ones - their current greatest.

Each LED in any of the systems shown is a roughly 1.2 watt LED.

A datasheet for some of the ones shown there:

6-LED white unites draw 7.2 watts and produce 150 lumens of light. That's an efficiency of nearly 21 lumens per watt. Compare to 16.7-17.5 lumens/watt for a "standard" 100 watt 120V incandescent.

shows 150 candela rather than 150 lumens. Both documents show light coming out at an angle of 120 degrees, and most LEDs with that angle have lumens about pi times the candela. So one of these is probably wrong, as in having a typo. I would vote against the datasheet being the item with the wrong figure, since I got a Golden Dragon (single 1.2 watt LED) from Digi-Key a few months ago - at a cost about $10. It does not produce more than 25 lumens. I have Luxeons and Cree XLamps of similar power lying around and seen datasheets for those also, so I know what their capabilities are.

This page links to various LED lighting businesses. Watch for lack of (or exaggerated) specific claims of light output in lumens. Look for prices.

Not that I spent much time following the links from that site, but I have yet to hear of a screw-in LED bulb that provides the 840-900 lumens that a standard 60 watt incandescent (or a 14 or 15 watt compact fluorescent) provides. When something like that hits the market, I expect initial prices many times that of compact fluorescents. I also have yet to hear of a screw-in LED bulb of any wattage with specific claims of power consumption in watts and light output in lumens, and with an efficiency at least 60 lumens per watt (fairly common for compact fluorescents). LEDs that efficient may be just around the corner (a year or two away) or, for some low power ones (around 1/8 watt), just about now may be coming off the assembly line.

Check back every year or two. LEDs and LED lighting systems are slowly advancing. Currently, they do well for decorative and accent lighting - and only in some applications.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])