LED Lighting Experience?

[daveinnh]

We have a pole barn about 300 ft. from our house that will have one bay converted into a horse bay. Rather than run power out that far (with concern for voltage drop) I saw that Nothern Tool sells Buyers-brand LED lights for ~ $40/EA.

Water may be from a nearby dug well.

Any experience or thoughts? ( we have 12V RV lights in our goat barn - but they seem to use some power)

 

[Big Bri]

LED's are the way to go. We sell LED stage lights for bands and they are awesome. i leave 4 of them on 24hrs a day as a selling point. They will last up to 100,000 hrs, have no heat and draw very little power. I saw some LED replacement flood lights at ace hardware the other day, they are a little pricey at $40 each but will pay for them selves quick.

 

[wvpolekat]

I don't know about that brand in particular, but I had an LED floodlight in my carport that had a solar panel. Frankly, it stunk. That was almost 10 years ago though and I am sure they are much better.

 

[crazyal]

I have some screw in 110v LED replacement bulbs that were less than stellar. I got two different low power ones, maybe 25 watts worth of light. They gave off just enough for what I wanted but the power converter inside the base went on one of them as well as three higher output ones I had in a street lamp. They weren't name brand so they were pretty cheap. I see Lowes stocks them now, Silvania I think, but the price is just too high to justify them.

LED's themselves are very robust. I wouldn't think twice about using them in a 12 volt application. I think I would look into a solar charger/ 12 volt battery system.

 

[ModMech]

A small solar cell, 12V gel battery and some 12V LEDs and you are set.

The higher the LED "voltage" the LOWER the efficiency advantage!

LEDs operate at 3.2-3.8VDC, that is ALL. You can wire them in series to handle moderate voltages up to about 24V but after that you NEED a voltage reducer (controller) to keep the amperage and voltage within design limits for each LED element.

12V LEDs are VERY efficient, reasonabally inexpensive from various RV and trailer supply houses and very easy to SAFELY wire and control. A single 10A fuse would cover more lights than most could afford or would want.

 

[Cat_Driver]

I've been playing with LED's for years and I just finished an LED street light that is battery operated. It's fun. It throws as much light as a typical street light but you can walk around with it.

A typical Led light can throw out the same lumens as a incandescent light at a fraction of the power.

 

[Skyco]

LEDs operate at 3.2-3.8VDC, that is ALL. .

That is generally true for white LEDs, but some LEDs can operate on much lower voltages, 1.5V for example.....

As for the 110V commercal lamp replacement LEDs- be aware that some of them will die an early death if operated on an invertor. The waveform of most invertors isn't a sine wave and the electronics in the LED package perhaps wasn't designed to operate on anything else.

I'd go with a 12v system for the lighting in the barn. Easy to do and relatively inexpensive.

 

[Egon]

Three hundred feet, run some wire.:thumbsup:

 

[kennyd]

Three hundred feet, run some wire.:thumbsup:

Exactly. Voltage drop will not be an issue if the wire is sized correctly.

 

[pat32rf]

I'm with Egon. For 300 feet of wire, even 10/3 NMW, you can't go wrong. Run some low voltage (actually its extra low voltage) for telephone, control circuits as well.
Sooner or later someone will want to run a 110v something up there just because they don't have one that is battery powered....Even if its just a charger for a drill.