EU lamps

[Tim Watts]

That TerraLux maglite upgrade I mentioned I have is 1000 lumens.

OTOH I concede to yours gievn the tiny size :)

[polygonum]

A pack of two (different name, same product) dropped through my letterbox this morning. To add to the one that was in my pocket. Excellent brightness. Excellent value.

If I understand right, you can use a 3.7V 18650 lithium cell and get them to be even brighter.

[Dave Liquorice]

As retrofit probably but networked home automation stuff is slowly appearing and "plugin" stuff is on the shelves of the sheds. Some one must be buying it...

Ah but you just have one bill and most people haven't a clue about how to troubleshoot an internet connection and tolerate amazing levels of spam and poor speeds (peak time or otherwise). Provided they can twiddle, farce and watch a "HD" movie data compressed down so much that the result is not much better than SD they are happy. It HD is says so on the box...

Wouldn't have thought there was much market for VDSL boxes, as BT supply one *and* it remains theirs. Similar for Virgin? Anyway if "installation" is much more than open the box, connect the blue cable to the blue hole, the yellow cable to the yellow hole and plugin a wall wart, it becomes too "technical" and too "difficult".

It's the "one bill" thing and the marketing designed to obscurate the real total cost. Sky and BT are in quite battle, the next auction of Premier League rights for the 2016/17 - 2019/20 seasons will be interesting. Virgin seem happy to keep out of the programme making side of TV and just buy feeds, whilst providing decent hi-speed connections to *all* their customers over their network. Unlike Sky/BT who are stuck with the foibles of FTTC or ADSL. Provided by BT, can you get unbundled FTTC?

[tim.....]

But that's a one off purchase every 10-20 years

It is of no use to the manufactures as a replacement for purchase of consumables.

the replacement that the bulb manufactures need is a monthly/yearly service fee for this feature.

Do you see people signing up for that?

It's not the bundled internet I was sceptical about (that seems perfectly reasonable add on to a telephone bill)

It is bundling the box that gives you broadcast TV that I was referring to.

most normal people can manage this - yes really

so I hear,

but why?

We don't strive to get one bill for other things

no-one goes around trying to buy groceries from their Telco so as to receive "one bill", or have their house insurance added to their One Bill!

In fact most people don't' even buy all of their groceries from the same shop or all of their insurance from their same company

what's TV got that means people "want" to tie themselves up for this tiny tiny benefit?

well obviously. It's just that I didn't thing people were that dumb!

Not everybody wants paid for sports channels.

the Telcos are falling over each other trying to sign up those that don't

tim

[Vir Campestris]

I have an LED Maglite.

It's great for spotting rabbits. Not so good for walking - the beam can be a small spot, or a ring.

My wife has a handbag-sized LED torch. Perfect for walking down the road, far brighter than any incandescent torch running on 2 AAs.

Andy

[Vir Campestris]

I'd be interested to see those calculations.

I might believe it of a windfarm though...

Andy

[The Natural Philosopher]

They dont exist.

Still not quite true, almost true of solar panels though or biofuel.

[Graham.]

If it was down to me, my fondleslab wouldn't be a RIM or an Apple.

The Blackberry was what supplied by my employer.

[Johny B Good]

Would you say they seem about as bright as 75W lamps?

The "60W" reference standard is probably based on the American 120v

750 hour 60 watt incandescent lamp which provides a lumen output close to our 75 watt 240v 1000 hour lamp.

I paid £3.49 for a 12W LES 810 lumen lamp last month in Asda (I gave the 10W versions a couple of shelves higher a miss on account of their

15 quid asking price).

[PeterC]

It should be cheap at

[Johny B Good]

[PeterC]

Yes, I appreciate that in the bathroom. 11W CFL plenty bright enough - eventually - but shadows. Replaced with 3-arm semi-flush fitting, 3x3W, 320 lm LEDs and far better.

Same here. I was thinking about using up the CFLs then going to LEDs, but at the rate of use I'll probably end up giving away the CFLs, gradually replacing tha fittings and going to LED.

[Chris French]

In message , Tim Streater writes

Yup

We've have 2 x 3 lamp fittings in the hallway, up facing translucent shades, with halogen golfball bulbs. Replaced one with an LED (branded, probably Phillips or Osram).

Light is pretty much identical, except for a slightly different pattern on the ceiling which probably I only I notice

[unopened]

e 2 issues that spring to mind nevermind cost, from someone who`s living is in LED lighting for entertainment.

LED isn't entirely ready for the home, yet, for not completely dissimilar r easons. Colour rendering* is pretty dreadful compared to incandescent lamps, althou gh of all people, IKEA are selling some higher CRI LED lamps - instead of t he the entirely normal low 80s, some of their LEDARE lamps have CRIs in the high 80s.

Apart from that, the other issue is dimming: while dimmable LED lamps are p roduced, almost all of them simply reduce their intensity while maintaining the same colour temperature. This is not what incandescent lamps do - they get redder at lower light intensities, and people like me like this attrib ute. Philips do make some LED lamps that change colour temperature from abo ut 2700K to 2200K as they are dimmed (Master LEDlamps Dimtone), but they ar e not easily found, don't cover the full range of domestic lamp formats, an d are rather expensive.

Also, for LED lamps that are meant to be like-for-like replacements of exis ting incandescent lamps, there are problems associated with transformers an d dimmers. If a transformer is designed to run halogen incandescents, it ma y well be very inefficient, or even struggle to properly light the lower wa ttage LED lamps. Some transformers simply cut out if the demand on them is too low. Similarly dimmers can be rated for working with a minimum wattage, which is higher than the total wattage of LED lamp replacements - so exist ing dimmers may not work. There are other reasons existing dimmers may not work: their dimming mechanism/mode of action may be incompatible with what the LED lamp expects (cf leading edge and trailing edge dimmers)

So, to replace some halogen lamps with LEDs, I could well need to replace a transformer and/or dimmer, which will begin to eat into the cash savings b y the lamps using less energy.

In my own personal case, I have some G4 light fittings built into a bathroo m mirror. I can't replace them with LEDs, as the transformer has a minimum load of 10 watts, and if I replace all the lamps with LED replacements, the load will still be lass then 10 watts. So I need to replace the transforme r too. But, as this is in a country (not UK) where a transformer repalcemen t has to be done by an electrician (DIY is not allowed), I need to pay for an electrician to do this. The cash saving on my electricity bill would pay back for the electrician and transformer in about 14 years (depending on t he assumptions, that is quite variable: it could be as little a 7, or as mu ch as 28 years). That's not a good ROCE.

Regards,

Sid

*CRI is not a good measure of colour rendering. There is plenty of critcism of it, including examples of how it can be gamed to give a a good result o n paper and appalling results in practice. I believe there is a move to rep lace it with a combination of Color Quality Standard (CGS) and Gamut Area I ndex (GAI), but changes in this standards area are slow, so we are currentl y stuck with a poor index.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

[snip]

Excellent post which I largely agree with.

On the subject of light quality, it's something which plainly doesn't concern perhaps the majority.

[alan_m]

It may depend on my age and perhaps degrading eyesight but I prefer daylight type LED bulbs for my main lighting.

[Andy Burns]

The only room I have daylight LEDs is the study, I find the "starker" light somehow more promotes being more alert/awake.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Here it's more to do with the spectrum of light from various types than the base colour temperature.