Trouble with Home LED lights

[Fossil Farm]

Many of the early LED's were not UL certified. Bought some GL-10's online to replace the halogens we had. Halogens got just so hot, I really did not like them. The early GL-10's I bought burned out fairly quickly (were not UL certified), but the ones we have now are much better and have been great so far. The CREE's I have sitting in the closet have the UL label on them.

 

[Gary Fowler]

After removing the old LED bulbs, they were a but different from my others. These are from Lights of America 11Watt 4100K and are UL listed. I picked up 2 new from Lowes that are 12W with 75W equivalent however with 800 lumen output. They are bright however they are a warm white (3000K) which I don't really like for the color, it looks yellow rather than warm white which it is supposed to be. I didn't see any other flood type light there, only PAR30 spot. I may return them and look for some more in the 4100K range.

 

[k0ua]

I put LED bulbs in my kitchen recessed fixtures because they are used alot at night. Unfortunately they emit enough RF that it messes up my AM radio. Pluses and minuses I quess.

My Cree's are clean. See my thread about that very thing

 

[Gordon Gould]

What amazes me is that replacing a bulb leads you into a maze of technical mumbo-jumbo and after 3 decades of trying nobody has really improved the common old incandescent bulb as far as user friendly light goes. We use the fairly new GE energy efficient type that only save about 30% but at least they have the same Omni-directional output and the same lumen output as the old bulbs. And they fit it the lamps. I don't find that they get any hotter than old fashion bulbs. And best of all for me they are simple to figure out.

gg

 

[jaydee325]

I've not gotten into LED bulbs yet! What has caused me pause is the wide range of prices. My inclination is "you get what you pay for". So the low priced ones are attractive and the high priced ones I just don't know if they are worth it.

How much to you need to spend to get a quality bulb?

 

[k0ua]

I've not gotten into LED bulbs yet! What has caused me pause is the wide range of prices. My inclination is "you get what you pay for". So the low priced ones are attractive and the high priced ones I just don't know if they are worth it.

How much to you need to spend to get a quality bulb?

I have been using Cree's, the price has been dropping, and I am satisfied with them. They seem to be clean RFI wise, They seem to work well, and they dang sure save money on electricity.


Cree 60W Equivalent Daylight A19 Dimmable LED Light Bulb with 4-Flow Filament Design-BA19-08050OMB-12DE26-3_1 - The Home Depot

 

[k0ua]

Lets do a little cost analysis to see if Gary saved any money on his 31,000 hour period he used his LED bulbs.

I don't know what Gary paid for those bulbs 5 years ago, but I am going to suggest he paid about $25 each. LED bulbs cost a lot more back then.
So he got 31,000 hours out of them, that would be about 30 standard bulbs that he could have bought for about $0.50 each. So he is in the hole about $10.00 on the costs of the bulb by my way of thinking. Now only Gary can tell us how much trouble it would have been to change out those 30 standard 1000 hour bulbs and whether that would be worth anything to him, but so far he is $10.00 in the hole in buying the LED bulb.

Now lets figure out how much electricity Gary saved with the 12 watt usage 60 watt equivilant LED bulb.

First lets figure how much the 30 standard bulbs would have cost to run. Lets see, 60 watts is .06 Kilowatts X 31000 hours = 1860 KiloWatt Hours. Lets say Gary pays $0.10 per KiloWatt Hour. So Gary would have payed $186.00 to run the 60 watt incandescent bulbs that 31,000 hours.

Now lets figure the LED bulbs. Gary said they used 12 watts. Newer bulbs use a bit less, but that seems about right for bulbs of that era.

12 Watts is .012 Killowatts. X 31,000 hours = 372 KiloWatt Hours. X $0.10 per Kilowatt hour (guessing here as to what Gary pays, but I doubt he pays any less than this) = $37.20 for electricity for the LED bulb. Whoa now! that is a huge saving in electricity. $186.00 - $37.20 = $148.80 in electrical savings, and now subtract the $10.00 that the bulb cost over the incandescent bulbs yields an overall savings of $138.80

Multipy the $138.80 by how ever many of these bulbs Gary had, and we are talking some real money.. Note that if the cost of electricity is more than the 10 cents and the fact that a good Cree bulb is about $9 at Home Depot, and that the new bulbs are 10 watts consumption for 815 lumens of light and your savings will be even more. Anyway you figure it, LED bulbs can save a pot of money, if they are used much.

Gary please correct me if anything doesn't look right in the figures or assumptions.

 

[Sodo]

James thanks for going thru that!

If those lights are within a heated area, the savings is less because more heat may have been purchased to offset the cooler lighting (lesser electrical heating). If he'da fell off the ladder changing one of those 60 bulbs, the savings is more.

Light bulbs used to be 2,000 hour. Industry changed to 1,000 hour and nobody noticed, or cared. But they doubled the cost of bulbs and the profit (and doubled the cost of fixture maintenance too). Industry can do the same with LEDs (over time) if they get together and plan it. Its a rich country, and there's substantial profit in moves like that, enough to counter any opposition. Same big companies that did it with incandescents can surely pull it off again as long as there is no govt intervention.

If people waste less energy with LED lighting the grid can serve more citizens and seeing as how the citizens often have to pay for grid upgrades this "can" translate into savings but maybe only for the investors.

A few years ago I bought a few cases of 14,000 hour bulbs for 25c each. Not sure what to do with them now that LEDs are cheaper. I must have about 100 14,000 hour bulbs. :shocked:

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edit: A documentary claims that an international cartel was created many years ago wherein lightbulb producers organized to reduce bulb lifetime hours to 1000, in 1924! :shocked: Seems to me that when I was a kid they were 2,000 hours, and sometime in the last 30 years they dropped to 1,000. I could be wrong.

 

[ultrarunner]

So far no complaints with the CREE bulbs I bought 3 years ago... did almost all the bulbs at Mom's and noticed a big drop in kWh usage.

As of yet... never replaced one...

We also pay about 25 cents average per kW...

On a side note...

Brother has a string of lights around the Christmas Tree Farm sales area... 60W equivalent and 200 on one string of lights... 2,200 Watts on one circuit with LED instead of 12,000 Watts and 6 circuits.

Not CREE bulbs... it's like daylight out there and he is looking into a dimmer...

 

[90cummins]

I bought some Cree bulbs that felt sticky and noticed that they had a plastic coating on them.
Perhaps the coating is starting to turn dark?
90cummins