OT: CFL Bulbs

[whit3rd]

Yep, that's how it works; if you want to screw-in a light bulb replacement, with power/heatsink/LED, it'll only be a dim bulb. For any power higher than '60W equivalent' (actually about 5-10W), a good LED replacement for an incandescent will require an entire redesigned fixture.

Strip lighting (lotsa LEDs spread out, low watts/square inch) it self-cools fine.

I have a well-made 16W LED fixture; the LED plus heatsink weighs 800 grams (a little under 2 lbs). The LED weighs about 2 grams. The LED/heatsink won't fit any lamp made for screw-in incandescent bulbs.

[krw]

No, it's not irrelevant. There is no rear beam to be absorbed by the emitter. Thats just wrong. THe beam is quite narrow and unidirectional. You do *NOT* lose half the energy immediately as can be easily seen from efficiency numbers.

Not at all true.

[Spalted Walt]

Glad you brought up the LED tube thing as the discussion has mainly focused on A19 or screw-in LEDs. I've got an old 24" T12 fluorescent fixture (magnetic ballast) over the sink in the kitchen that stays on

24/7/365. It's hidden, above and behind a cornice that's part of the cabinets. Last August I started looking at replacing the fluorescent unit with an LED fixture when I stumbled upon this plug-n-play alternative from FEIT:

HD sells the 48" version but not the 24":

Bought mine at Amazon:

I was _amazed_ at the increased brightness over the fluorescent .

It will be interesting to see if it lasts 5.7 years (50,000 hrs) when left on 24hrs a day.

Granted, at $22 a piece, these are too pricey to do a large scale retro-fit. There are cheaper alternatives but they invlove either replacing the entire fixture -OR- removing the ballast and changing all the tombstones to non-shunted:

OR, if you have T8 fixtures w/electronic ballasts, these don't require any modification:

[Keith Nuttle]

Each of these retro fit bulbs cost about 10 times the cost of the Fluorescent they are replacing. Will they last 10 time as long as the regular tube?

Will each individual bulb save $20 in 5.7 years of use?

Point being at this point in time they are not cost effective.

[whit3rd]

[about replacing fluorescent with an LED plug-compatible]

Don't just ask, ANSWER that question: 5.7 years, of 10W LED lamp (Feit T24/841 model) giving 700 lumens output, about 40% 'more efficient' than fluorescent equivalent. So, 4W, times 5.7 years, converted to kW-h

'saved' = 4 * 5.7 * 365*24 /1000 = 200 kW-h

At 0.10 per kW-h, that's $20. So, it's priced about right.

The 24" lamps I see (F20T12 on Amazon, like the LED version) are $3 to $8, plus shipping. They claim to take 20W, and deliver 1200 lumens, but there's some aging and the spec only covers the lamp, not the ballast's efficiency.

[Spalted Walt]

You haven't bought 2ft fluorescent tubes lately, have you

The 2ft are getting MORE expensive and the quality has fallen DRASTICALLY: I only get about 9 months of continuous use with either GE or Philips. Back in the '90s I was getting 2 yrs.

Only time will tell...

If the LED tube lasts 2 years I break even. If it lasts 5.7 yrs I'm ahead more than $20 and that's without considering the electricity savings.

[Meanie]

If there is one or two fixtures to convert, buying new connectors isn't costly, but if there is a room or more full and one doesn't want to add the cost of non-shunted connectors, they can remove the rear cover and snip off the connecting bridge. Time consuming? Perhaps, but could be worth saving a for a tank of gas.

[clare]

Depends on the lamps. I replaced a lot of 60 and 100 watt incandescents with LEDs - (E26/E27 base) and have not had a single failure yet (over a year).

I also replaced a string of 7 (120 volt) halogen mini-spots with LEDs. They are out in the open - not in cans - and I've put at leadt 4 or 5 complete sets through in the last 3 yezrs or so. I put about 150? 12 volt mini-spots in at the insurance office 3 years ago. I bought 400 of them, and I'm out of spares. Some of the originals are still doing fine, and some have been replaced 5 or 6 times. The voltage is right, at about 12.2 volts. and the cans are not insulated.

The incandescents in my house - very many of them, anyway, were still the ones that were in the house when we bought it 33 years ago when we replaced them with CFLs. 6 or so years ago, and I replaced CFLs time and again untill I got the LEDs over the last 2 years. My luck with the (earlier) CFLs was as bad as with the GU10 and MR16 LEDs.

The standard ED bulbs and led PARs have been fantastic.

I'm looking at the 40 inch Flourescent replacement leds to replace the

4 remaining 40 inch tubes in the house - the "direct replacement" ones that do not require modification of the fixtures.

[Martin Eastburn]

Right - in the bathroom the fan unit wants a 40. And make it darker than without the light almost. I put in a 60w LED (effective) and it is a 16 heat watt unit. Runs cool and won't melt the plastic. Shows more light and my beloved loves it. No brainier on that one.

Mart> Mart>> And the good ones are useable on dimmers.

[Martin Eastburn]

The old incandescent bulbs were hard to kill. That is if you ran 130V bulbs on 120V systems. In reverse (common) the bulbs burn out faster due to more current and hotter wire...

LED's are outdoor rated and normally have a large heat sink attached to the back near the screw end.

Any semiconductor will fail if super hot as will an incandescent in high hot. But you and I can't stand those and they don't occur around the house or shop either.

Martin

[Ed Pawlowski]

I pay 0.19 so they really are a good deal.

[Martin Eastburn]

LED's are 'effective' watts. They compare the light output vs a standard and mark the bulb. The better LED's have several die that send different color to be more like daylight. Some are warm.

Mart> >>> And the good ones are useable on dimmers.

[Martin Eastburn]

One would think a flood would be more instant. But not.

I also use a flood > Martin Eastburn wrote in

[Casper]

Bought two 40-watt equivalent LED bulbs the other day at HD and both were $14 each. Was that a special in your area?

[Casper]

Not a terrible price but 100-watt is too bright for my house. Most of the daily use fixtures we have are 2 or 3 bulb so 100-watt would give me a severe headache.

The light in our kitchen that burnt out gets used approximately 5 hours per day. Was hoping this one would last longer but so far the all ones we have all died in about a third of the stated lifespan. Guess it is what you get for free.

[clare]

We've had bad luck with incandescents at the church/ Standard 100 watt incandescents in cans. I've replaced 40 in 2 years. No idea what brand they were but I've been replacing with Philips. (all new install 2 years ago - on dimmers, used about 6 hours a week max. Seems I have to replace almost 1 a week lately.

We will be switching to dimmable LED bulbs and see what happens.

[Puckdropper]

Casper wrote in news: [e-mail]:

They're still running in the $5-10 neighborhood here, so maybe the power company was investing some of your hard earned money in making the bulbs appear cheaper to you. Ours did that with the CFLs, we stocked up at something like 4 for 99 cents. Almost wish we didn't, as LEDs are so much better, but they're still not cheap yet.

Puckdropper

[J. Clarke]

Might have been a special--they're 3 bucks now. Phillips A19 "SlimStyle" SoftWhite. The round ones are 4. When I got them a box of

3 was the same price as a single bulb.

[Casper]

This was the second bulb I caught. First bulb didn't glow orange but it did have a tiny melted brown spot about 2mm around the base of one stem. I was glad we stopped what we were doing to look in the kitchen and check the light as otherwise who knows what could have happened. I'm glad if any info I provde helps anyone. :)

[krw]

I've used 1000bulbs.com several times in the past. They want $3 up (way up). I suspect anything less than that is a loss leader (not that loss leaders are a bad thing).