Has anyone any experience of using LED lighting indoors?
I'm looking to kit out a new 12 m/2 extension with LED lighting as a way of keeping running costs in that part of the house down (and of course saving the environment).
Has anybody any thoughts or observations they would like to share about this.
John
Not trying to be controversial, but I wonder what environmental "costs" are involved in manufacturing LED fittings, and indeed in replacing any existing installations "just for the sake of". Obviously the manufacture of glass "bulbs" for conventional lighting does have an environmental "cost"...
Just as a bit of fun, I bought a couple of little 1 Watt white LEDs as I wanted to see how bright they were. (Ans: quite bright). One thing they came with was a warning not to look directly at them as you could dazzle yourself and possibly sustain permanent eye damage!!!
Anyhow, this got me researching a bit. It turns out that a 100W bulb throws out about 1700 lumens. A 3watt LED in comparison is ~70 lumens. By my reckoning, that means you need about 25 of the little blighters to get the same illumination as a bulb. 25 * 3W LEDs is 75Watts, so the power saving is not that great. When you take into account the efficiency of the power convertor, from mains down to 5-ish volts, you probably don't save anything.
That number will cost you 150-200, excluding the not inconsiderable cost of the power supply, but will last 100,000 hours.
Personally, I'm going to stick with normal bulbs for now.
Pete
Well LEDS are not that expensive to make really..just a wee bit of gallium something or other..
Ok te machine is expensive, bit there isn;t much energy in running it.
NT
And the plastic stuff with which to encapsulate it... Probably made from oil.
I'm not thinking about "expensive" in terms of money.
John, This is what we do. But it tends to be for high-end installations where the client is looking for something different and normally involves colour change.
There are so many reasons we all like halogens but primarily I think is for their colour output. You can't beat the glow of a fire, and burning metal is what is happening in the lamp. When dimming, the effect is a change in the burn from White hot to a Orange glow all very natural. This is something at few other light sources achieve.
If you are looking for efficiency then there is little to beat fluorescents. In theory their lifetime should be good but in practice cheap manufacture means the electronics often give up. An affliction that is also evident in the LED sector. The colour of the light output is often less appealing. Other environmental issues are the metals and gases used and disposal.
It is fair to say that LED's have a long way to go yet. Many dismiss them immediately but you only have to look to see that they are popping up in all sorts of applications. Their light output although very intense, is over a narrow beam width which means it is difficult to achieve light outputs comparable to halogens. Also the colour of the light, although very consistent can be very clinical. Warm white fittings are meant to simulate the colour of halogens but rarely come close. Also Warm White give about half the light output of pure white as filters or dyes are used to produce the colour.
For our clients it is colour change that they like and this is where LED comes into its own.
Some of the advantages are:
- Good reliability (providing you purchase quality LED's and drivers)
- Pure, reliable colour mixing
- Low heat output
- Low running costs
- Compact low profile fittings
Disadvantages
- Low light output, relatively speaking
- Market place flooded with cheap cr*p giving LED a bad name
- Expensive to fit.
Depending on how the room is to be used LED could work well and save energy but the overall light output will be less. Dark colours and furnishings will only exaggerate this so White walls are best.
Forgive the links,
I think it is fair to say that at the moment LED is not for the masses, this is changing rapidly. If you want ultimate energy efficiency a single compact florescent pendent is the way to go, not very homely though.
Probably the best thing to do at the moment is to fit low voltage halogens for 2 main reasons:
The FAQ is a little out of date since we are well into the territory where the best reported LEDs are significantly more efficient than fluorescents and some commercial LEDs are now better than compact fluorescents (which aren't as good as big tube fluorescents).
If you do fit low voltage halogens it may be worth looking for transformers which suggest they are OK driving LEDs since the currents are smaller (due to less energy) and some transformers are only happy when running close to their rated loads.
The alternative is to fit mains downlighters and fit CFL replacement bulbs. The main downside with this is that the quality of light is different but short of sticking a couple of big modern fluorescent tubes on the ceiling it will represent the most efficient system for the moment.
Give it 2-3 years and LED fittings will start to be cost effective. At the moment if you don't want the fancy colour changing stuff (as discussed in an earlier post) payback is >10 years (or at least would be for my kitchen which was where I calculated it).
Happy lighting.
Fash
The maximum environmental cost as I see it is if all of the price of the LED goes into burning gas, as that's the cheapest bang for the carbon buck, and the LEDs just appear.
(You can't argue that the mining of the stuff to make the LED costs more, as it can't, unless the mine subsidises the LED makers.)
A 1W/80 lumen LED costs around $8. However, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that it uses inherently more material than similar 1W/40 lumen LEDs that can be had from china for $2. If the saving (over incandescant) is .8W, then it pays off at 20000 hours - assuming that all the cost of the LED goes into buying and burning gas, and it's run from gas fired electricity.
In practice of course, it's going to be nowhere near this.
Latest is more like 160/2.5W, or 80/1W.
You _can_ produce a LED light about 10% more efficient than a CFL fixture, but it's expensive, and only a few percent higher.
It may actually have economic payoff, if you count the cost of changing the bulb against CF, for lights on all the time, but it takes 10 years at best, as the basic 100W equivalent LED costs closing on a hundred quid.
Well, Wal-Mart are replacing all of their florescent lighting in their refrigeration units with LED lighting. Apparently it will save them $2.6 million in energy costs.
Have a look:
Excellent advice - for those who live in a fridge.
Conventional fluorescents are horrible at cold temperatures, and may actually need heaters to get them to strike reliably at freezer temps.
LEDs are great at providing small amounts of light, evenly spread. With fluorescents, you've got to have a fairly large one, to get the efficiency up. LEDs let you put the light just where you want it, without compromising as you may need to otherwise. They are probably not as efficient as the fluorescents that they are replacing, in terms of simple amount of light they put out per unit energy.
However, because the right amount of light is produced in the right place, they are overall better.
Not to mention that they are moderately more efficient at colder temps, and won't actually need changing.
and as they give out less heat, the refrigeration plant has to work less hard: same double bonus as low energy kit in air conditioned buildings.
Do they give out less heat lumen for lumen against a decent florry? That would suggest they are inherently more efficient. And, of course, for food display lighting you need a decent wide spectrum light.
The very best in LEDs that are currently available is pretty much of a wash against the average CFL.
50-60lm/W is commonly available in LED, 80lm/W is harder, and more expensive to obtain, but possible.There are unobtainable prototype hand-picked-from-thousands ones that will beat current linear fluorescents. (135lm/W).
That's what I thought.
So still some way to go?
For larger lights, yes. For smaller ones, any light under around 3W is completely blown away by the newer crop of LEDs, especially at low powers.
I've got a 1AA 1W LED torch, that produces around 40 lumens, which completely outclasses cheap 2AA ones. Bought 5, for 3 quid. Wish I'd bought 10, as the distributor has gone under.
Yes, but a torch is a rather special application. Ideally suited to the directional characteristics of an LED. A lantern might still be better with a small fluorescent.
I've got a key ring type which runs off a button cell. Excellent for what it is.
Anyone tried those LED conversion kits for Maglites?
Thanks to all of you who have contributed to my initial query. I'll take on board all your comments as i re-look at the lighting for the extension.
John
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