LED bulbs

[nestork]

Well, I just found out that my local Home Depot sells LED bulbs with a candelabra base. They're only 25 watt equivalent (compared to the 40 Watt incandescent we have now), but they're dimmable. But, they cost $17 $Cdn each, and that's pretty pricey if I have to buy 6 of them.

The guy at Home Depot says that the package says "dimmable" on it, but that I may have to replace the dimmer switch anyhow because old dimmer switches might not work with the relatively new LED bulbs.

But, he also said that Home Depot here in Winnipeg has only been carrying LED bulbs for the past 4 months or so, and he's seen a steady decline in the price of LED bulbs over that time. Every month or two there's a drop in the price of the bulbs they're getting in of about $2 on a formerly $20 bulb.

He also said that 60 watt equivalent LED bulbs with the medium Edison base were down to $12 each now, and given their long life, it might make sense for me to replace the CFL bulbs in my hallways with LED bulbs. I wouldn't replace them all at once, I'll just start buying spare LED bulbs to replace the CFL bulbs I have now. He also said they have a 100 Watt equivalent LED bulb, but it costs $27, and that's still a bit too pricey for me.

[clare]

Consider yourself lucky you don't need 42 of them!!! Just relamped a large chandelier at the office.I sold them for $9 each and still made a small profit. Imported them myself from China.. Needing 42 I had to buy 50. Dim fine on a Lutron dimmer. (but only to about half bright - the dimmer can't reduce the output any farther)

[Percival P. Cassidy]

We bought more of the Feit BR30 bulbs, so the dining room lights are now a matched set. The dimmer is a fairly recent Lutron, but it is not marked as CFL/LED compatible.

We've now replaced the 10-yr-old Sylvania CFL BR30s in the living room by Feit LED BR30s as well -- *much* brighter. No dimmer on that circuit yet, but I think we'll be buying the latest Lutron LED-compatible dimmers for both rooms.

Perce

[nestork]

Can you post which Lutron dimmer you purchased and whether or not it worked properly with LED bulbs. If I'm going to have to replace a dimmer switch, I might as well get one that I know works.

I know the dimmer I bought for my mom's dining room chandelier barely fit in the electrical box. Are the new dimmers smaller?

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Haven't bought them yet because nobody keeps in stock the color I want (Ivory must be out of fashion now, but that's what I want to match the existing switches and outlets), but what I am looking at is the Lutron Maestro C.L.* These are programmable for minimum and maximum light level, fade-to-off delay, and... (I forget the other options). They are large (I've seen other colors in the store) and would be a tight fit in a single-gang box, but I assume that they must be NEC compliant. About $30. The Diva models look similar and are a little cheaper, but I don't think they are as programmable.

*MACL-153M-xx (where xx is the color code).

Perce

[Scott Lurndal]

I've had the Maestro's installed for over 10 years, and I'm currently using one of them with all LED bulbs (PAR-30's, for the most part).

Works fine.

One should treat the switches gently, a soft tap is sufficient to activate the switch. Hard taps can break internal plastic bits that disable the main switch (fortunately, when this happened, I called Lutron and they sent me two new units gratis).

They're available in 30 colors (including ivory) on amazon for $28.75 each.

[trader_4]

ed with CFLs... some are really good and some are not.

because it's bad though. They're usually pretty well regarded, even if th e CRI is only about 80ish or so. If you live in CA you should be able to g et a "true white" version with a 90+ CRI.

re which you can't do with incandescent - regular incans are all "warm whit e" halogens maybe a little cooler but you'll never see an incan of any type significantly higher than 3000K. That's easily achievable with LED (in fa ct high color temp LEDs are more common than "warm white" ones.)

epowerforums...

, but they've been off the shelves for quite some time now. They are warm white but they are a truly good replacement for a 60W incan. ~900 lumens I IRC.

If they last long enough to recover the upfront $$$. From what I've seen with the claims made on CFL versus how long they really last, and how fast other crap consumer stuff fails these days, I'm not going to be the one to find out.

[clare]

The good lutrons are not. I have both Lutron Diva LP10P and 103P (3 way) units in use with LEDs They are incandescent/Halogen rated preset dimmers.

[D F Bonnett]

This^. I put them in places that are a PITA to get to or are enclosed fixtures that build up heat where incandescent bulbs don't last.

[N8N]

with CFLs... some are really good and some are not.

ecause it's bad though. They're usually pretty well regarded, even if the CRI is only about 80ish or so. If you live in CA you should be able to get a "true white" version with a 90+ CRI.

which you can't do with incandescent - regular incans are all "warm white" halogens maybe a little cooler but you'll never see an incan of any type s ignificantly higher than 3000K. That's easily achievable with LED (in fact high color temp LEDs are more common than "warm white" ones.)

owerforums...

but they've been off the shelves for quite some time now. They are warm wh ite but they are a truly good replacement for a 60W incan. ~900 lumens IIR C.

I don't have LEDs because of the power savings over CFLs, it is because the y (at least good ones - most of mine are the now discontinued Philips L-Pri zes that I scooped up when they were on sale at HD for $15 apiece) don't ha ve many of the drawbacks of CFLs. The light is a nice warm white high CRI light, they are properly dimmable, and they are approximately as bright as a 60W incan unlike many "60W equivalent" CFLs.

nate

[N8N]

mable. You don't need a special dimmer for dimmable CFLs. They may flicke r dimly on some dimmers, that is all.

A few years ago - probably 5 or 6 now - I purchased one of just about every "dimmable" CFL I could find in local stores, and not one of them was accep table. I returned all of them and just used 100W incans in the wall sconce s in my living room as at the time there was nothing else available that wo uld work.

The Philips LED bulbs dim nicely, with the one caveat that the color temp d oesn't change to the warmer with diminishing brightness like incans do, nor do they dim smoothly all the way to zero brightness like an incan will. H owever they seem to be much closer to a functional energy-efficient incan r eplacement than any CFL I have seen.

nate

[gregz]

A few years ago, 15 ? , I bought a dimmable CFL, might have been walmart, $20. I installed it in one of those 500 watt halogen floor lamps. It worked well and was a pleasant daylight color. There was a slight turn on threshold, but didn't have a problem with that. One day in a move, I broke it. Never got to retry another lamp after it sat outside under my porch weathering.

I had awful luck with feit dimmables. The only ones I have tried lately.

Greg

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I now have Lutron Maestro dimmers installed for both the dining room (four Feit BR30 LED bulbs) and the living room (eight Feit BR30 LED bulbs). Haven't really had the living room ones on for more than a minute or two, but one or more of the dining room ones -- one at a time

-- will change brightness from time to time. (These specific Feit bulbs are listed as compatible with that Lutron dimmer on the Lutron Web site.)

Perce