LED Light Bar vs LED Square Flood lights - Bad news, light bar not as good

[radair]

I don't know much about lights so I'm trying to research them. I was told wattage is not the way to measure brightness with LED lights, it's all about lumens.

 

[Coyote machine]

I don't know much about lights so I'm trying to research them. I was told wattage is not the way to measure brightness with LED lights, it's all about lumens.

Go to strobesnmore.com there you should be able to find and buy high quality LEDs.

 

[Steve_Miller]

Just went through the same thing, bought a 120 watt for $60 cdn, free shipping, what the heck have I got to lose. I've blown $60 on worse things. Light bar shows up, first thing I hook it to the ride on battery, not as bright as I thought, got ammeter out and check, 3.4 amps@12.6Vdc, hook it to 24 Vdc and got 1.7amps, either way it works out to 41 watts. My two 18 watt LED's I already had on the tractor were as bright or brighter than this light bar. Sent seller a reply and he says QC must have missed this one and requested pictures of ammeter/volt readings which I immediately sent. He says that he has just sold out of this type of light (yeh, right) and if I send the light bar back and sent him a copy of the postal receipt he will refund both or I can keep this light bar and he will refund me $40. I counteroffer, i find another light similar to this one (126 watt) that he has advertised, if he will send me one of these ($80) and when it arrives I will send the original back at my expense to trade of the $20 difference. He replies that his supplier has pulled these 126 watt back from him and that he will refund my full purchase price and for me to keep the light bar. So I have a half *** light bar for free. I go back on line and see that this seller has at least five different stage names on ebay that all ship from the same location. I sent a request to state the current ratings for at least five other light bars advertised and have yet to receive a response from any of them. Beware, if they don't state the current rating for the light, stay away from them. I got lucky and got mine for nothing.

Steve

 

[woodlandfarms]

Yeah, a case of you get what you pay for. I did run my ampmeter and had roughly the same result.

Radair, you are very correct. All lights should be sold on Lumens, not watts. As we move forward in the new LED age this will change. But right now it is a tough market to get the honest levels. Beyond lumens, you get into color temp and that seems to be a struggle to find someone telling the truth as well. IMO this applies to both US and Chinese distributors. Even the expensive ones with major names seem to have certain failures (especially in color temp).

Our house in Los Angeles is fully LED now. We have noticed a difference in our power bill that I attribute directly to the switch (we will never pay for the cost of the upgrade via power saved, though, as we were early adopters). Our house in Washington is primarily CFL which I do not like. But we invested in CFL and will ride it out, replacing with LED when necessary.

For home ownership I wish we could get beyond the "150" watt limit (equivilant to 150 watt Incandescent). Our house originally had 200 watt in a number of fixtures and finding bulbs that strong in a small form factor in LED is being a real PITA.

 

[aczlan]

For home ownership I wish we could get beyond the "150" watt limit (equivilant to 150 watt Incandescent). Our house originally had 200 watt in a number of fixtures and finding bulbs that strong in a small form factor in LED is being a real PITA.

I agree. Would be nice to bump some lights up (ie: a mini base 100w bulb in a fan). I for one like LOTS of light when I am working on things.

Aaron Z

 

[Fallon]

I don't know much about lights so I'm trying to research them. I was told wattage is not the way to measure brightness with LED lights, it's all about lumens.

Correct. Watts is a measure of power usage. Lumens is a measure of light output. A LED will make more lumens with 10 watts than an old halogen will with 80 watts. It's like saying one tractor burns 1 gallon per hour & another burns 10. Might be relevant if they are both 32hp CUTS, but not as relevant if one is a CUT & another is a 200hp ag machine.

Kelvin is a measure of color temperature 3,500 to 4,200 is daylight color. 5,000 is bright white. Anything above that turns blue or purple (which is really hard for human eyes to perceive, creates glare & generally sucks). I put 5,000k HID lights in my truck & kind of wish I had gotten 4,200 now. The white looks cool, but doesn't quite illuminate as well as 4,200.

 

[BoylermanCT]

If you have a digital SLR camera, switch over to aperture mode and point it at the LED and see what shutter speed the camera chooses. Then point it at the other LED light, same distance, same lens zoom, and see what the shutter speed on that one is. Whichever light gives the fastest shutter speed is the brightest. It won't give you a reading in lumens, but will let you know which one is brighter.

 

[Steve_Miller]

For the most common LED lights you can use roughly 75 - 100 lumens per watt as a reference point. They are slowly getting more lumens per watt but for now this is a good reference point if you need to know. A lumen reading can be very deceiving when comparing LED to incandescent light or HID lamps.

Steve

 

[Northland]

I bought these on eBay from China - $3.59 for two. I replaced the halogen headlight bulbs with these and found they are much brighter and consume much less energy. That's important since my Kubota B7800 has a dynamo - not an alternator.

2X 1156 BA15S P21W CREE Q5 9W LED Backup Reverse Car Light Lamp Bulb White 12V | eBay

I received them in 6 weeks.

I am going to buy Cree LED work lights next.

 

[Cord]

I buy only on beam spread (60), lumens and price. I generally try to look for Cree Led's too. Haven't had any problems so far. In fact the 60w LED's that I put on the skidsteer are incredibly bright!