Aldi have a range of led lamps in their current specials. What caught my ey e was a ES rated at 1050lm, staing 75W equivalent. Also a BC 850lm. Plenty of dimmer ones too. These are the first usefully bright ones I've found. Wi ll try them out later and report back.
£10 each, which isn't cheap though.Andrew
Those are not at all bad prices - thanks for the heads up. Similar ones are on Amazon from more recognisable brands. The ones with Samsung and Philips LEDs in do the best imitation of incandescent lighting.
Some of the cheap and nasty ones sing faintly when on.
First half decent LED lamp I ended up with was an end of line remaindered model from Aldi/Lidl discounted to £10 for a brace.
I was a bit surprised to see when I visited IKEA recently that the LED "candle bulbs" were slightly less efficient, in lumens per watt, that the more standard energy-saving bulbs.
That's typical. What you're paying for (assuming enough lumens) is the 50,000 hour life rating and 'instant on' feature.
The best lighting in terms of cost per lumen output still remains the linear fluorescent tube in an electronically ballasted fitting.
The CFL can't compete simply on account that its much higher tube temperature demands the use of the slightly less efficient mercury amalgam fill (the reason why they suffer a 'run up to temperature' delay in reaching their design lumens brightness).
Yes - and quote 20,000 hours when most others are 26 - 30kh.
Last time Aldi had LED lamps I went there the day fter and there were loads of SBC, ES and SES but no BC. When will they admit that the UK still has mainly BC?
A helpful IkeaDroid said she'd mention a suggestion of stocking adaptors (I emphasised good quality, minimal extra lenght and clearance for 'shoulder' and also said that there was talk of adaptors being possible anyway.
I thought short tube length was the main cause of lower efficacy.
NT
Yes, this is odd.
Also I'd really like to see screw-type brass lamp sockets of the kind popular for many decades in the UK, hopefully ones that can simply replace the corresponding BC sockets.
I've never seen any similar brass fitting on the continent, only ugly plastic things.
(I know there are screw adaptors, and have bought many cheaply online; but these don't fill me with great confidence.)
That's certainly a contributary factor (possibly the main factor) but it's surprising just how long the coiled tube turns out to be in a modern 11W CFL. I've just checked one and I reckon they've packed a good 14 to 15 inches worth of tube, not counting the hidden ends, into the double helix.
Without hunting down a 20W example to measure, I reckon the effective tube length could be approaching the 20 to 24 inch mark, significantly longer than the classic 6 and 8 inch linear tubes where the short length is a major factor in reduced efficacy.
One thing I do know for a fact is that the mercury amalgam lamp is less efficient than the straight mercury vapour lamp when each is run at their optimum temperature. I'd overlooked the short tube effect on efficacy so there's even less reason to disbelieve that a modern linear tube and electronic fitting is the most efficient of all the GLS lighting technologies to date.
Given further development of the LED lamp, notably more efficient mass production as demand starts to increase to scale up mass production to more economic levels, the price of such lamps will fall to a level comparable to the equivilent of the 5 or 6 CFL lamps it replaces. The efficiency needn't have to match or exceed a modern CFL to succeed as a replacement since there are other benefits than just the bare watts to lumens ratio involved in the TCO equation.
At the moment, most LED lamps are around 4 to 4 1/2 times more efficient than a tungsten filament GLS lamp compared to a CFL's efficiency figure of 5 times. An LED lamp isn't so far behind the CFL and may yet match or even just exceed the efficiency of the CFL in the not too distant future.
As things stand, it's not the slightly lower efficacy compared to CFL that's holding back the uptake of LED. It's the high price on GLS lamps with barely adequate ratings that's the big turn off.
They are a continental company. I agree it is odd, but it works to my benefit since I get to buy up the remaindered non-BC stuff.
I don't much like adaptors in permanent light fittings.
14-15" makes for rather poorer efficacy than 5' & 8' tubes. There's just no way round that with fluorescents.
Folk have been saying that for decades, but it still hasnt happened. At some point it may, but not soon. CFL will continue to rule for years for GLS equivalents.
purchase price, premature failures, poor CCT & CRI, and inadequate power ratings. In short they're a bit of a niche product still.
NT
I always thought that the circular fluorescent tubes had potential - but the fittings were always horrible. Perhaps a flat spiral tube would be a good way of getting additional lengthe whilst aiming the light downwards.
No they haven't been saying it for decades. High power LEDs are a comparatively recent innovation they were indicator lamps originally. CFL is essentially about to be phased out as LEDs have now won.
The latest consumer LED lamps are around 80lm/W for 8-10W bulbs which is about comparable with fluorescents and *better* than most CFLs. There are already 10W LEDs in production which at 100lm/W Cree XM-L would trounce any fluorescent lamp.
Research grade white LEDs can now reach 250lm/W or more but their price is still astronomical see for example Cree's recent announcement.
This really is impressive because only the low pressure sodium vapour lamp and the microwave pumped sulphur lamp are in that league.
The Philips and Samsung white LEDs do a pretty good imitation of incandescent 3300K colour temperature. However, some of the cheap and nasty LEDs have bad colour fringes and also cook their electronics.
The biggest problem for LED retrofit is getting the waste heat away from the bulb since it all ends up as temperature rise with very little being radiated away (and they die rather quickly at 100C or above).
The big problem for getting people to buy them is that people only see the shelf price and forget about the true total cost of ownership including the electricity used and replacement bulbs.
Same happens with loss leader sales of printers and mobile phones where it is using of the "free/cheap" device that really costs the big money.
some point it may, but not soon. CFL will continue to rule for years for G LS equivalents.
In the 70s once indicator LEDs appeared, it was fashiobnable to think the f uture of lighting lay with flat wall light panels lit by solid state LED la mps. People saw the future fairly well even then. Since lighting LEDs came along, there have always been people saying practical LED lighting is just around the corner.
/200-LPW-fixture
there have been interesting research LEDs for years.
r ratings. In short they're a bit of a niche product still.
incandescents arent 3300K
well, LEDs have bigger problems than that at this point
LEDs arent sold as loss leaders AFAIK.
NT
About the same as the Low energy ones were when they first appeared. Brian
In article , Martin Brown writes
I recently was in a shopping mall lit by (I think) metal halide lamps (big white bulb, probably E40 cap).
Some of those fittings had been retrofitted with large spiral CFLs and I was impressed with their brightness and colour rendition. They were so bright it was difficult to look at them directly.
This seems to me to be a suitable case for using CFL rather than LED as a replacement.
Yes the latest LED bulbs that I have bought are more efficient than CFLs. The BC22 bulbs I have bought from Amazon were cheaper than the Aldi ones mentioned by the O/P.
I feel the same but I still have a shedload of 10p CFLs and they'ree good ones. Can't yet justify going to ES wired sockets, although easy to do, especially as LEDs are still expensive and grossly inefficient.
eye was a ES rated at 1050lm, staing 75W equivalent. Also a BC 850lm. Plent y of dimmer ones too. These are the first usefully bright ones I've found. Will try them out later and report back.
Ok, it's bright, the 1050lm one. Possibly a little too bright for the appli cation I wanted it for: an uplighting standard lamp. Colour temp is very wa rm, 2700K.
The lamps are completely unbranded, just say "made in china" dot printed on the side. They're also jolly heavy compred to an old tfl or one of my 23W Megaman spiral clfs.
Stated life is 25k hours.
That will be from the heat sink. They don't sound too bad at all.
How uniform is the illumination under it?
That rather neatly sums it up. Mentioning the phrase "niche product" reminds me that I found one for a 5 watt LED lamp I bought in Asda for a fiver about a year ago. The niche in question being the foot of the basement steps where the area being lit is quite small and the cool temperature reduces thermal stress on the lamp (it's plugged into a ceiling mounted batten socket).
The half second or so delay between switch on and instant brightness is a welcome change from the 11W CFL previously residing in the socket.
I'd bought it because it was cheaper than the 3.5 and 4 watt alternatives next to it on the shelf and thought it was 'worth a punt'. I first tried it out as a replacement to the 11W double helix CFL in the bedroom wall light fixture over the bed head.
The glass tulip shade wasn't ventillated and I rather thought this was detrimental to the lamp so I then transplanted it to a desk lamp where it seemed to be adequate and in no danger of overheating. Even here, I decided that another 11W CFL would be a better match before finally discovering its ultimate niche.
I saw those 10W LEDs in Aldi last Sunday and wasn't impressed at the
1 penny shy of ten quid price tag and, for all the reasons you gave which so neatly sums it all up, decided against making a purchase. I might have been tempted if it had been more sensibly priced (imo, a fiver would have been enough temptation).HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.