Anyone else hate the new light bulbs?

[MikeInEburg]

I think some of you guys who say a 100W is too dim need to see an optometrist or something!

There isn't a 100W bulb in my house, all the lights are 60W and 40W equivalents. Even the halogen spotlights at the chicken coop are only 90W and we can see just fine. I don't understand the need for enough light to play a nigh time ballgame in the living room

The problem is that many lighting systems or layouts were designed with 100 watt bulbs in mind. Adding additional fixtures isn't always as simple as it may seem...

 

[srs]

Scooby074, I like to read by a lamp of about 150 watts but finding such a bulb is getting harder to find. Less strain on the eyes. FYI I see the eye doctor yearly for a complete eye exam. I do use reading glasses but overall my eyes are in great shape, thank God.

And if someone wants to play a night time ballgame in their living room shouldn't he/she have that right? I know (hope) you were just kidding here. Take care, Stanley

 

[Scooby074]

i have 12 foot ceilings in my living room. Just try and get a few 60 watt lamps to light up your reading materials. Now, if the fixture uses multiple lamps, than 60 watts are ok. Some of mine use only 1 lamp.

12' ceilings are a bit of an exception. Growing up, we had a large A frame, 25' ceilings or so in the LR. 2-100W at the ceiling, but thats why there is such a thing as task lighting for reading etc.

 

[Scooby074]

Scooby074, I like to read by a lamp of about 150 watts but finding such a bulb is getting harder to find. Less strain on the eyes. FYI I see the eye doctor yearly for a complete eye exam. I do use reading glasses but overall my eyes are in great shape, thank God.

And if someone wants to play a night time ballgame in their living room shouldn't he/she have that right? I know (hope) you were just kidding here. Take care, Stanley

150W in a lamp... Ive long since ditched all my Halogen desklamps and torchieres. Too much wasted electricity, heat and fire hazards

Yes, I suppose you do have the right to play ball in the LR. That wasnt my point. Its the wasted lumens. Most people I know, including myself, are doing what we can to cut down on wasted light and the associated costs.

 

[California]

its simple, you onlt need to add 4 LED lights to replace the existing 100 watt incandescent. ohoh, that means youll still need 100 watts of power.

Huh???

100 watts of power applied to Cree 9.5 watt bulbs will make 600 watts of light. That should be enough to read by.

 

[Redneck in training]

its simple, you onlt need to add 4 LED lights to replace the existing 100 watt incandescent. ohoh, that means youll still need 100 watts of power.

thats the rub. I saw 4 packs of 60 watt equiv at Home depot for $19.95, but the're all some Chinese knockoff brand. dont think so. I bought a 72 pack of 60 watt incandescent lamps from my supply house for $19.75 cash. ... thats $ 0.27 each, and that should last me for some time. I also have a case of 100 watt incandescent i bought last year. Have lots of 65 watt incandescent in my normal stockpile, as i use these lights on a weekly basis.

Funny thing is they also banned the 40 watt incad light this year. who the heck uses 40 watt light. there a useless lamp.

The building codes here in Idaho now REQUIRE 50% of all new house lighting to be either LED or spiral florescent. There forcing it on everyone. The dimmable florescent arnt worth the dynamite to blow them up. The dimmable LEDS are so expensive they generally cost 4x what the light fixture costs. Try explaining that to a client. Also most (not all) dimmable leds and florescent wont work on standard dimmers. You need the new brand of dimmers that take 1-2 seconds to operate. So now when you flip a switch, the lights dont even turn on for up to 2 seconds.

They end up flipping on a series of switches in an effort to try and find the right one. this drives the clients absolutely nuts. Ah, the modern convenience of a light switch has now gone away.

We are early adopters. We bought LED for all lights that were ON for more than 8 hours a day when they were over $50 three years ago. All are dimmable using standard dimmers we bought more than 10 years ago. No start delay at all. About a year ago we bought several cheap LEDs for guest batroom. They have fraction second delay when turned on.

 

[ultrarunner]

Went through Mom's home and replaced the kitchen light with a T8 fixture and other lamps with Cree 60W. equivilent 800 lumens.

Her bathroom fixtures had 4 75w bulbs in each and now each has two 9.5w Cree. She is 80 and says the light has never been this good.

In the hallways I put the 40w Cree and also a corner lamp in the living room she like to keep on.

The only bulb I did not change is the 150w reading lamp over the dining room table where she does her reading...

So no 100w bulbs anywhere in her 4 bedroom home.

When I was a child... each bedroom had 3 100w bulbs and the bathrooms had 4 100w bulbs... dad only bought 100w bulbs in bulk...

Could be why we never turned on the heater my entire childhood unless we had company over the holidays???

 

[woodlandfarms]

Back on the soapbox. Its not watts, its lumens. Its a hard, hard thing to shake, but the issue is lumens, not watts for the conversation about brightness.

Second, almost as important, its about design. Inside your LED house styled bulb is more than likely what they call a corncob light. It looks like a cylinder with a bunch of LED's soldered to it. There is also a flat dish design and a "fireworks" design. The flat dish is a very popular design but it limits the light to 180 degrees.

LED lights are very directional. It is one of the many reasons you get more lumens per watt than with a filament. Also, LED bulbs generally run at 5 volts DC. Most commone LED's run under 1 watt per bulb, but you see 3 watts in industrial and off road lights and 5 watt led's starting to surface.

What I am getting at is what is happening now and what is the future. Bulb designers are struggling to make an LED light bulb that puts out the same lumens with an incandescent in the large size because they can't keep the electronics cool and quiet without making the bulb too large to fit in current lamp designs.

Second, designers are struggling to make bulbs that look good in current lamps. Your incandescent bulb puts out 300 degrees of light. This is really hard to do with all the electronics and the directional nature of LED.

I think what you will see, and I hope someone in the government stays on top of this, is that new light fixtures will be designed just for LED. Not how the bulb connects with the lamp, but how the light comes from the lamp. My big concern is that it is beginning to look like there are going to be a TON of various types of LED bulbs, distinct to each lamp unit. If that happens, prices will remain very high for LED bulbs as mass manufacturing will not occur.

 

[Sodo]

I saw an interesting comment recently - an energy analyst from Hawaii spoke at a conference and opened with the line "I've come from the future to speak to you today". Hawaii has so much solar that the utilities are having to respond to falling energy demand, increased demand to improve transmission lines, and of course a continuing responsibility to make a profit for utility stockholders.

More than 90% of Hawaii's power is from buying fossil fuels (coal and oil) and burning it. It's an incredible amount of fossil fuel energy shipped there (and sold) to be burned. A GREAT market for energy sellers who are reacting like any industry, slowing government adoption of energy savings and opposing programs that assist people to gathering their own electricity.

Hawaii has abundant solar power, wind power, geothermal power, all of which could free the people from purchasing fossil fuels, if their goverment could shake off the energy industry controls. But theres that money-politics connection.

Try and imagine Alaska being forced to buy coal and the Alaskan goverment being part of the problem. Thats like Hawaii buying fossil fuel.

Anyway with electricity costing 32cents per kilowatt hour, LED bulbs pay for themselves in Hawaii about 3x as fast as the US average. And MUCH faster if the LED bulb is in an air-conditioned home or office. Hawaii is one place where only a dimbulb would "hate the new lightbulbs".

Here in WA (or other cold areas that have hydro power) cost/benefit is still a wash, I think but I am getting tired of going up a ladder for incandescents….

 

[grsthegreat]

More than 90% of Hawaii's power is from buying fossil fuels (coal and oil) and burning it. It's an incredible amount of fossil fuel energy shipped there (and sold) to be burned. A GREAT market for energy sellers who are reacting like any industry, slowing government adoption of energy savings and opposing programs that assist people to gathering their own electricity.

Hawaii has abundant solar power, wind power, geothermal power, all of which could free the people from purchasing fossil fuels, if their goverment could shake off the energy industry controls. But theres that money-politics connection.

Try and imagine Alaska being forced to buy coal and the Alaskan goverment being part of the problem. Thats like Hawaii buying fossil fuel.

Anyway with electricity costing 32cents per kilowatt hour, LED bulbs pay for themselves in Hawaii about 3x as fast as the US average. And MUCH faster if the LED bulb is in an air-conditioned home or office. Hawaii is one place where only a dimbulb would "hate the new lightbulbs".

Here in WA (or other cold areas that have hydro power) cost/benefit is still a wash, I think but I am getting tired of going up a ladder for incandescents….

at .32/KWH i can see it. but i pay 0.06/KWH.... so i hate them:laughing: