Anyone using LED lights for household lighting?

[ohsoloco]

I recall from an episode of Mythbusters that LED lights use a LOT less watts than regular light bulbs.  Got poking around last night in the computer and looked at a few (most that I saw use less than 1 watt).  Holy    are they expensive though.  $40-$50 seemed pretty typical. 

Just wondering if anyone has used them...curious about the lighting characteristics.  Lots of task lights available, but there's also some that could go in lamps, etc.  Is that initial cost going to cancel out most of the operating savings? 

[HOOF-ER]

Been thinking about that also. For that price I guess one could take apart the dollar store LED flashlight and buy a transformer for dc. They should not be that expensive when the $1 flashlight has 3 LEDs in them. I looked at the conversion for  a mag light today at Wally World. $18 . You could buy the whole 3 d cell light for $23. Go figure!! 

[farmerdoug]

They would work good in unheated cold buildings.  But for everyday use the price out weighs the energy savings.

[Don_Papenburg]

But you guys need to buy them so that in a few years when i buy them the price will be down where I can afford them

[SwampDonkey]

A 13 watt florescent is equivalent to a 60 watt incandescent. What are they? About $5 each and last 6000-10000 hours. You can get outdoor ones as well, might be a couple bucks more?

[Ianab]

What the guys say...

They are too expensive right now. The BEST leds are up there with flouro tubes for efficiency, but not any better.

They seem to have the longest life of any sort of lamp, are resistant to cold and vibration and would be a good light source if they were cheaper.

They are still good where long life and good efficiency are needed, small torches, car signal lights, traffic signals, low level lights etc.

We priced out replacing 200watts of metal halide lighting for a fish tank, several thousand dollars of LEDs. 

But it will get cheaper, once the Chinese work out how to make em

Ian

[submarinesailor]

Yes, LED lighting is very cheap to operate when compared to incandescent and CLFs.  Here’s the BUT – But right now they are much more expensive.  One of the biggest selling points for them is their life cycle lost.  There is practically no maintenance cost because their average life span is about 22 years. 

Back in the late 90’s, in the new Pentagon Heating Plant we replaced 83 EXIT sign incandescent blubs with LED.  The calculated energy savings was about $2700 per year.  But, the Fire Marshal loved the fact that we no longer had any burnt out exit sign blubs.  So if you need very reliable light or you want/need to be on the cutting edge to energy savings, then yes use LED. Just be aware of the cost.

BTW – the Manassas, VA. COSTCO had some accent LED lights in the store as of last Saturday.

[trapper]

We use the LED night lites from wally world.  About.5 watts and give enough light for hallways and bathroom when getting up at night.  About 5 years and havn't replaced any yet.

[Tom]

I'm waiting for the surgically implanted night vision array so that I can see all of the time.

[Coon]

I suppose you want them to implant a new LED laser pointer into you too.

[KnotBB]

I put up a string of blule lights one Christmas and wound up leaving them pluged in for three years.  I like them so much that this Christmas I put up a new set (1/2 of the old ones were out)  that I bought at half price the year before on clearance and plan on leaving them up for as long if not longer.  Nice blue night lights.

Steve

[tim1234]

I'm sure the cost of LED lights will come down now that they have banned the incandesent bulb.  It will be phased out by what was it 2020? 

I'm sure there will be a cometition between CFLs and LEDs.  Dimable CFLs are not very good ....LEDs are easily dimmed.  LEDs last a lot longer.  LEDs are more durable.  LEDs don't contain mercury.  CFLs can have a better light quality (more like sunlight)

I think when the cost comes down LEDs will win, but the volume and technology need to catch up first.  The one thing that manufactures have to be thinking about is if a consumer only needs to buy 1 light every 20 years, then I will have to make a bunch of them at the beginning and then I won't sell very many until 20 years later when the 1st ones start to "burn out"

Tim

[StorminN]

I've used LED's for the past five years or so, to varying degrees of success.

The first ones I bought were 12VDC turn signal, instrument cluster, and cabin lights for my conversion van... from superbrightleds.com... this was about five years ago. The turn signal lights and cabin lights have worked well, but the instrument cluster lights stopped working sooner than the incandescents!

I also bought a task light for my house... regular screw-in Edison base, with 24 LED's on the face. It was expensive... maybe $25? It's worked great for years, but I've always been disappointed with the amount of light it puts out. It's very directional, and barely enough to read by.

However, LED's have improved in leaps and bounds over the past couple of years. An important change was the addition of current-limiting circuitry into the actual bulbs. On something like a car, the voltage powering the bulb can vary from maybe 11 to 14 volts, depending on the other loads at that moment (starter, etc.). The early LED's didn't have current protection and the diode itself is not tolerant of voltage fluxuations, so some would "burn out".

It's also important to remember that if you compare lumens per Watt, CFL's usually still come out on top. I heard recently that the T8 florescent tubes were actually the highest lumens per Watt.

I agree that LED's will get LOTS better in just the next couple of years. Some of the 3 Watt Luxeons and other bulbs are pretty amazing and blow away the "bright" LED's from just a year or two ago.

-Norm.

[RSteiner]

The company I work for installed LED lamps in many fixtures in our new building.  They do take less energy and they are in my estimation on the expensive side.  The main problem I have experienced on the PAR 38 type lamps is the intensity of the light.  We tried to use them for ligthing the lunch room, bathrooms, and hallways.  Locating the lamps 6 or so feet above the table height there was not enough light to read by at night.  In the bathrooms with only two lamps it was very dim, not good for those who need to read. 

The bulbs we were using had 90 LED's per unit there is one that has 120 LED's per lamp that would give a little more light.  The 90 LED bulb took only 6.5 watts.  The other thing to consider is the color output, cool white (5000K + ) is not nice to look at but is a more intense light.  Warm white (2700 - 3500K) is a more frendly color but not quite as intense in the same wattage.  We bought a case of bulbs from a company in China for around $40.00 a bulb you can buy a similar thing in compact flourescent for around $12.00 each.

The best usage right now seems to be spot lighting at point of use and not trying to illuminate a whole room or area.  The LED's for flash lights seem to be getting better and brighter.

Randy

[Crunchycon]

I just put in a couple of LEDs that fit right into a 6" can light. One is 2700K the other is 3500K. The out put is 650 lumens and the consumption is 12W. They are supposed to have a 50,000 hour life span. I'll tell you in 40 years if they lasted that long. Although in 40 years we will think a 12W bulb is a real energy hog.

[ohsoloco]

12W....isn't that just a hair under what compact fluorescents are using    Aren't they around 13-15 watts? 

[StorminN]

Yeah, a 13W CFL will put out about 825 lumens, they call them the equivalent of a 60W incandescent.

-N.

[Ianab]

The very best LEDs are about the same efficiency as a Compact Flouro. Just they cost a bit more. So a 10-15 w CFL or LED gives approx the same light as a 40-60 incandescant.

LEDs should last much longer than either of the others though. Good if they are in a spot thats hard to change.

Ian

[Modat22]

The led lights use about 10 percent of the power per lumin than a CF but they cost 10 to 14 time more per bulb, And the led light is only as good as the electronic circuit driving the LED bulbs.

Right now you can buy a 4' LED bulb that will replace a 4' fluorescent T8 lamp but it costs 135.00 bucks per lamp.

The company I work for was asked to spec this bulb on an environmentally friendly project, but the bids quickly caused us to value engineer those bulbs back to standard T8 lamps

[submarinesailor]

Modat22,

Take a look at the new T5's

Bruce

[Modat22]

Yep, keeping an eye on the T-5 lamps. Industry is kind of slow to adopt the new bulbs, took forever to get owners to accept T-8 bulbs. I suspect in another year or two the T-5 bulbs will become a spec requirement.