LED bulbs

I've finally reached the end of my incandescent bulbs and CFL and am starting to replace them with LED bulbs. I saw a 60W equivalent bulb on sale for $5 made by Cree as part of some deal with the utility so I picked one up. It is a warm light. It is OK, nothing to brag about.

Sunday, I wanted to replace two more bulbs so I picked up two more, but these were Osram and were $10. I chose the daylight over the warmer colors.

I put the two side by side in a vanity fixture. Cree = kind of dingy Osram = Wow, this is nice and bright

both are allegedly 800 lumens.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski
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Unfortunately, the same thing is happening with LED "bulbs" as happened wit h CFLs... some are really good and some are not.

I'm guessing you didn't like the Cree because it was "warm white" not becau se 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.

The nice thing about CFL and LED is that you can pick color temperature whi ch you can't do with incandescent - regular incans are all "warm white" hal ogens maybe a little cooler but you'll never see an incan of any type signi ficantly higher than 3000K. That's easily achievable with LED (in fact hig h color temp LEDs are more common than "warm white" ones.)

If you want to fall down a rabbit hole, do some reading over at candlepower forums...

Finally the BEST LED "bulbs" I've tried are the Philips L-Prize bulbs, 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 IIRC.

nate

Reply to
N8N

Energy savings of LED's over CFL's are not worth the extra cost. I'm waiting for them to come down.

Spectral differences can be a PITA. I bought a couple of CFL's whose white light made them annoying indoors and they now reside on the porch.

Also some of my CFL's are hummers and can be quite annoying. One in the kitchen is so loud I can hear it in the den nearby. Wife says it goes away with time. I've also heard of both type lights interfering with the radio.

Looking forward to manufacturers removing this annoyance.

Reply to
Frank

Hi, We like Philips Daylight ones. Dimmable, works well with motion sensor switch.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

We just bought two "65-Watt equivalent" "Feit"-branded dimmable BR30 LED bulbs (very cheap at Costco with an instant rebate from the utility co.) to try in our dining room (we really need four altogether but bought two to start). They are brighter than the 65W incandescents they replaced and seemed to work fine with the dimmer. But because they are a little too bright at full power we set the dimmer a little lower this morning but then noticed that the brightness would jump up and down a little from time to time -- very annoying. I have no idea whether the problem is in the bulbs or in the dimmer.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

Hi, Did you mix them with other kind bulbs? It happened to me when two different brand LEDs were mixed(GE, Philips).

Reply to
Tony Hwang

My experience with FEIT CFLs is that they are short-lived. I hope their LEDs are much better quality.

Reply to
hrhofmann

Two of the LED bulbs, two of the original incandescents.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

in my experience that is true of all CFLs.

Reply to
Pico Rico

Does anyone know if all LED lights are dimmable?

My mother has a small chandelier above her dining room table. It has six 40 watt incandescent bulbs with candalabra bases. She has a cheap dimmer switch which both turns it on and off and varies the intensity of the light.

The problem is that on hot evenings, the heat coming off that chandalier can make the whole dining room uncomfortably warm.

My understanding is that I can't replace the bulbs with CFL's because CFL's aren't generally dimmable. I'd have to replace the dimmer with a special dimmer switch to use CFL bulbs.

I'm hoping someone makes 40 watt equivalent LED bulbs with candelabra bases so that I could replace those incandescent bulbs with LED's to eliminate the heat they produce, but still retain the dimmability of the chandelier with the existing dimmer switch.

Reply to
nestork

I'm not sure that all LED bulbs are dimmable, but some are marked as being dimmable.

Some dimmers are specifically marked as being compatible with CFLs and LEDs, but I don't know what happens if you use an older dimmer with them.

I think I saw candelabra-base LED bulbs at Costco, but I didn't take much notice because we have no light fittings with candelabra bases.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

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Reply to
BenDarrenBach

CFLs can be dimmable, just look on the box to see if it says they are dimmable. You don't need a special dimmer for dimmable CFLs. They may flicker dimly on some dimmers, that is all.

Reply to
hrhofmann

CFL's can work great but if you put them in places where they are frequently turned on and off they can wear out fast. I no longer put them in my bathrooms. Between taking several seconds to come up to full power and short life, I prefer incandescents in bathrooms. Powder room in my basement has original super bulbs put there by the builder 35 years ago.

Reply to
Frank

LEDs will give you a modest power savings over CFLs, but more importantly they have a much longer service life and that is where more significant savings come in with lower lamp cost over the service live vs. CFL as well as less lamp replacement labor.

All of the lighting in a given room should be coordinated as to color temp and CRI, this is nothing new, it applied just as well before LEDs or even CFLs.

I've used both CFLs and LEDs for some time and have not run into noise issues either acoustic or RFI. The one thing I have found in my various tests is that *ALL* encapsulated CFLs suck. Open CFLs seem to have no issues and I've not experiences short CFL life as some people report, and that is with many brands of CFL and in several different physical locations in different towns and states.

Reply to
Pete C.

I have not had any problems with CFL's interfering with the radio, but they usually have an electronics failure long before the tube goes bad.

When I started using the LED bulbs, radio interference with Two Meter Ham Radio became a serious problem. Dimmable bulbs seem to be much worse than non-dimmable.

I installed a 60 Watt equivalent LED bulb in a staircase where it is hard to access the fixture. That fixture's wiring happens to make a good antenna, so I had to try several bulbs to find one that did not interfere. That bulb is a Phillips non-dimmable. Another that had only a slight amount of interference, was a cheap WalMart soft white non-dimmable.

Fred

Reply to
Fred McKenzie

Jury is still out on that one. I've had to replace several CFL's. It's always been the driver electronics that smoked. LED drivers have lower output voltages, but the input side has much the same vulnerability.

25,000 hour LED life is meaningless if a power glitch can take out the driver. Time will tell.
Reply to
mike

The Osram bulb has a nice even glow over the entire globe. The Cree has a bright spot under the globe and does not seem to disperse as well. The color temperature seems lower than the incan too.

I happen to like the brighter colors but that is personal preference.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

I've got about 2.5 years on the LEDs here in daily use and no failures yet (LG 7.5W LED lamps). Plenty of thunderstorms and power hits in those years as well.

Reply to
Pete C.

Hi, Heat is the enemy. When venting around fixture is poor CFL always fails premature. Yes, electronics failure. So far none of LED bulbs failed in my place going on almost a year. I expected ones on the GDO in the garage would go first(vibration) but they are still working yet.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

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