Are these the same bulbs they sold last month for $5 each? If so, definitely more spot than flood. Blinding when you're underneath, barely there everywhere else. Bought 6, used four on an 18' ceiling, so they're fine there, and 2 in the garage.
I'm all in on the LED trend. Me and the bf are so far in that we are currently debating whether to support edison socket LED bulbs (replaceable bulbs), or fixture-based LEDs (where the LEDs are built into the light fixture, non-replaceable). The LEDs that are purpose-built for the fixture last longer and are more efficient than the edison screw-base, replaceable LED bulbs. But the bf thinks that it'll take society a while to jump on the bandwagon of the more efficient, economical choice of purpose-built LED fixtures. Mostly because most people tend to get scared if they hear that you won't be able to replace the LED light bulbs in a fixture; but they don't realize that most of those fixtures will last long enough that it'll be time to update the fixture and your home's decor long before the LEDs in the fixture will need replacing.
tl;dr: People are stupid sheep and will be slow and scared to change, even if it's for their own good.
@pepsiwine Meh. I would love to get good 5 or 12 volt track lighting where you could just jab the LED arrays right in. As for updating the decor, I would probably change an LED bulb out 2-3 times in the time it takes me to decide to "update" my decor. ;)
@kazriko But your example is exactly the kind of purpose-built LED fixture I was referring to! If more consumers would support lighting companies building purpose-built LED light fixtures then you WOULD be able to go out and buy LED track lighting - that's already got the LEDs built in.
I agree on the decor thing. Some of us (myself included) aren't keen on updating our house with every new decorating trend. But that's why I want purpose built fixtures available now - so I can stop having to buy all these edison base LEDs to fit in my existing light fixtures which would give me the excuse I needed to update my house fixtures/decor now.
@pepsiwine Well, what I'm talking about is track lighting where the light bulbs are replaceable, but still don't have the baggage of a full ac-dc converter on each one. You can use a much simpler constant current driver instead. You don't have to abandon the idea of replacability just to get rid of the legacy 115VAC light sockets. You just need to build a new standard out. This could be done by open source hardware people since most of the LEDs are available on the market.
The trouble is we still can't trust fixture manufacturers to make LED bulbs that don't give off hideous light or use low quality components with a high mortality rate. Then you're left buying a whole new fixture with the same low quality parts in it because you need it to match others.
@pepsiwine LED and CFLs had one MAJOR difference/flaw compared to incandescents. Incandescents were simple. The others have circuits, voltage regulators, heat sinking, more complicated manufacture. With fixtures you get those parts built in, with replaceable bulbs, they're in the bulb. LEDs are likely to be good for tens of thousands of hours. But those supporting circuits? Those wonderful mass produced by the cheapest factory in rural China voltage and current regulators, rectifiers, etc? Do you really want to buy your $xxx (or $xxxx) fixture with non replaceable lighting elements and count on it lasting as long as you expect? I'll stick with replaceable bulbs, edison or otherwise thanks.
The article mentions how it's the REPLACEABLE LED bulbs that are not living up to the lifetime expectations, and that's precisely due to the circuitry that's required WITHIN the replaceable bulb itself. And that the bulbs will last much, much longer if integrated into the fixture (where the circuitry will be).
And if your worries about cheaply-made, Chinese parts is what's driving your reasoning against LED fixtures, then that same argument could be made for almost any consumer product. So as with any product, it will have to meet whatever number of hours it's rated to and if not then the consumer will have the warranty to fall back on.
But the whole point of having non-replaceable LEDs now is that they have such long lifetimes (IF built INTO the fixture, where the circuitry and heat dissipation can be properly taken care of) that they won't NEED to be replaced. (At least probably not any more often than you need to replace, say, your home's flooring. And usually by then, it's needing replaced because of aesthetic concerns and not necessarily because it's worn out and HAS to be replaced.)
People just need to adjust their way of thinking of lightbulbs as "needing" to be replaced. Once you accept the light source itself being built into the fixture, it actually frees you up to have some better-looking fixtures (and yes, since LEDs can be made in ANY color, manufacturers are making the LED fixtures in "natural, normal" light colors and nothing "hideous", @plastrd): https://www.menards.com/main/p-2709503-c-7237.htm
@pepsiwine What a wall of text. You're ignoring my point about how moving to replaceable bulbs with more minimalist circuitry because much of the complex stuff (AC to DC power supply) has been moved to a common source. There could be many ways of doing this, including running the whole system off of 12 volt solar with battery backups. The replacement capability might be seen as more of a way of reconfiguring the system on the fly. You could put up different colored bulbs, or switch to newer technologies as they come out without unscrewing the entire fixture and taking it down. Just pull it off the track and push a new one in. Or maybe double the number of lights. Or switch them out for spot lights. Feel like a warmer or cooler white temperature? Swap them out and put them in the cupboard. The fixtures you're thinking of will still be stuck being 115v devices and won't be able to efficiently use solar or be efficiently run off of battery backups. They'll have to have a DC to AC converter, then an AC to DC converter, then a constant current controller. If you make low voltage track lighting with LEDs you can have diverse power supplies for them and you won't need an electrician to install them to be up to code in some places in the country. (Low voltage is considered less than 48v.) Also, since all LED fixtures are built on arrays of diodes, this makes it resistant to a flaw in one diode that would make the whole thing dimmer and couldn't be replaced without throwing out the entire fixture. LEDs get dimmer over time, at a variable rate as they wear out, they don't just burn out like a light bulb, sure, but there's still value in swapping out dimmer elements. (Also, that url you posted seems to be mostly marketing wank from the company making the fixtures...)
@kazriko I'm not sure what you're saying. I tried to understand what the point of your vomit of a reply was, but I'm pretty sure whatever point you may have had got lost.
It SOUNDS like you're wanting LEDs to be replaceable so that you can go from colorful disco lighting one night to soft white reading light the next day and then maybe put in some fluorescent-colored bulbs for when you want your house to look like a grocery store at 3am. If somebody's got that kind of home decorating ADD then they probably WOULD want to stick with items that are easily replaceable (and probably do a better job staying on their meds). The typical homeowner isn't going to have the need or desire to change their lighting that much, though.
In any case, if my "wall of text" was too much for you, just go back and re-read the first line: I'm not an expert on LEDs, I'm just smart enough to know when to defer to people who ARE experts on LEDs. And the link I provided isn't the only source out there that confirms that purpose-built LEDs last longer and are more efficient than replaceable LEDs (which, before your ADD of an argument muddied the waters, was the original topic of the conversation).
My advice to you: Educate yourself on LEDs and track lighting a bit more before you get your panties in so much of a wad about it. Best idea: Just start with googling LEDs and track lighting, because I'm pretty sure they already have what you're looking for.
In any case, I'm not an LED designer so I'm not really in a position to help you design your phrenetic replaceable-LED, multi-colored, track lighting fixture.
@pepsiwine Wow what a wall of text, but good info; I think I'll do some looking. I did ask my boss at work (who had built in LED can lights, strip lights installed above a crown molding (that was an inch shy of the ceiling so the light would shine out). I don't know the brands or how the resource you mentioned would rate them but he spent a big chunk with an Angie's list well rated lighting person to get them. So far he's lost two cans and two sections of strip, plus a power supply for the strips during power events. One power outage, and one storm related brown-out-flicker-flare-outage. That cost him about 700 hundred dollars to fix, and yes he had whole house surge protection in place. All of those things need to be taken into account, especially if you're referring to built ins. Thanks for the resource!
@pepsiwine I'm not asking you to help me design anything, I can do that on my own. I'm merely pointing out alternatives. I also noticed that you focused on the more fun and trivial bits of what I said rather than the far more important thing about the power supply and diverse inputs of energy. Finally, you seem to have completely skipped over the line when I called the link you posted "marketing wank" because that's exactly what your "experts on LEDs" are shoveling there. There's two types of articles that throw the name of a company at the end. One is self-selection methods, similar to those websites where they force you to watch a 30 minute video before they'll let you go to the screen with more information because they want the savvy people who might look skeptically at their offering to go away. The second is where they're getting you to read through their marketing material with a less skeptical mind only to bait and switch you at the end. This one seems like the latter. Trade magazines like this are full of that sort of crap.
@kazriko I ignored the part of your reply about power supply and energy input because you don't know what you're talking about and I didn't want to embarrass you. And I ignored your opinion of the link I posted as being "marketing wank" because you were, again, wrong. Just because you don't agree with something, doesn't make it incorrect.
Here are the SCIENTIFIC sources of the information that was in the article in the link I posted; as well as additional links from a myriad of additional reputable sources SUPPORTING the data that was in my original link. I didn't really want to have to rub your nose in your own ignorance, but it seems you've insisted on it. So enjoy!
@pepsiwinesigh Ok, want me to prove it's marketing wank? Look at the people who wrote the article, then look them up on Linked In. They're both on there, and they both list Xicato as their former employer. The article is 2 years old after all. That article, as is common in trade magazines, was written by the company that is mentioned in it. It doesn't matter how many other articles you throw up, the one you were pointing at as "experts on LEDs" was basically someone trying to sell you something. A lot of the other ones you're posting are from the government (regulatory capture, you know) or are just discussion threads like forums. I sincerely doubt if they're any more full of quality information than the first one. The whole argument is silly. You're arguing that it's one way or the other, and all of your posts are about those two ways. I'm saying there's a third path that is more flexible and reliable than either of the other two paths, and you go back to your black or white, one way other the other thinking. I don't think the conversation is at all useful any further. Feel free to embarrass me all you want. I have thick skin when it comes to such absurdities.
@pepsiwine I do find it amusing that none of the articles so far seem to even be in reference to what I'm talking about, and some of them don't even seem to talk about the fixture vs discrete bulb that you seem to be arguing. The only thing they seem to have in common with your argument is "Heat buildup is bad". That's not something I'm arguing against, I'm only arguing that your ideas of fixtures isn't going far enough. You're moving the expensive or error-prone AC-DC circuitry (pick one) from the light bulb over to the fixture, and working on the ventilation. I'm saying that you move that expensive or error prone circuitry to a centralized location in the house that powers all of your lighting. (Or, do away with it and go Solar.)
We keep incandescents in fixtures where we read or do close up work. Broad spectrum, nice color and tone. CFL and LED goes into inside area and outside security lighting. We're slowly getting rid of CFLs, especially outside.
I have a stash of US-made 60, 75, and 100 watt incandescents for future use.
Working on it, but it takes a really long time to replace CFLs if you wait for them to fail. I'm really happy with the Cree lamp bulbs I got here last time, but haven't tried the floodlight.
@KDemo Interesting, wonder if your power is cleaner than mine or something… in my experience CFLs barely (if at all) outlasted incans. Been having great luck with old Philips LEDs though…
@brhfl - It's not likely there's something special about my power - the house is ~65 yrs old. Aren't CFLs supposed to last 7 - 10 years? Haven't paid that much attention, but this seems accurate.
@KDemo We have some name brand CFLs fail in under a year, and others that have run for 3-4. But if you look at the runtimes, the 7-10 year expectation is for people who run their bulbs for 4-5 hours in a single stretch each day. More on-off cycles or longer evening runtimes are "severe service" and reduce bulb life expectancy.
Lots of CFL bulbs, still ($6.25 for 50), but I have some LEDs (from Ikea) in a few lamps.
I'm not ready to commit for full-on LED fixtures, though. The value proposition isn't quite there, what with most of my fixtures having been bought from thrift stores.
I'm still switching to CFLs. I'll let the next homeowner decide about LEDs. Maybe some of the other fixtures that are infrequently used will get LED replacements.
No LEDs at all (even my 8 computer monitors and 3 TVs have CCFL backlights). Oh, I just remembered that I have a Cree LED flashlight, and my tablet has an LED backlight. So, I guess I'm not totally stuck in the aughts.
About half LEDs here. We mostly get the Edison-base bulbs as we catch them on sale, as the place is a rental and we can't/don't want to replace the fixtures.
Skipping directly over CFLs from incandescent to LED. Never did like CFLs anyhow, hoarded incandescent until they ran out, then bought a bunch of LED bulbs at that place that rhymes with Boot.
I appreciate the LED technology, better for the planet, yada yada, but I really dislike the cool light. It really bums me out with Christmas lights...the inefficient yellow glow of incandescent light is so comforting.
@Pinky 5000K LEDs are horrible, but 2700K LEDs are basically identical to Ye Olde Incandescents. Don't let the savages who buy the wrong temperate light for the application dissuade you from LED awesomeness! In a blind test it'd be very difficult to tell a 2700K LED is not an incandescent.
@ssstraub Yes. I replaced the ugly, glaring CFLs above the bathroom mirror with 2700K LEDs. Lovely golden glow of incandescents minus the heat buildup.
@Pinky I'm using mostly LEDs outside now; we cut our outdoor Christmas light power usage from ~1300 watts to between 150-200. We kept some incan whites in the wreaths, and in inset surrounds because they really put out much more light. The jewel tones are pretty but all you see are the lights; they provide so little illumination of the surrounding areas compared to incans. We actually used LED strips last year, attached to lattice boards and tacked to the house trim. Laser straight lines in red and green with white fillers... kind of cool but way too much work for not as much coverage
Ditto what @Pinky said. You can take my incandescent light bulbs from my cold, dead hands.
I despise CFL bulbs with their cold blue industrial glow. I get enough of that depressing awfulness at work. I don't want that at home. Every "white" LED bulb I've seen has that cold blue hue. Forget that stuff! Incandescent bulbs now! Incandescent bulbs forever!
Wait. Wait! You are saying that there's some place we can go to adopt LED bulbs? Like the animal shelter, but for light bulbs? Wouldn't an adoption agency for incandescent bulbs make more sense? Aren't they the ones being abandoned for the newer stuff? Is there an adoption fee? Do we have to have them neutered before we take them home? So many questions.
I've just been replacing my dead CFLs with LEDs. I like the LEDs because they don't give off heat and they are not a pain to dusts like the twisty little heads of CFLs. So far though, all the stores want me to pay for the LED bulbs. None of them, sadly, run an adoption agency for bulbs.
I've got a box of LED bulbs to phase in when I run out of CFL's. That may be a while, especially since unsubsidized LED's are still too damn expensive.
The other thing is the lie about long life. Yeah, I know the LED's (and the CFL tube) last a long time, but they're not much good when the ballast or driver circuits fail so soon.
@2many2no If you live near an Ikea, they're a good source for LEDs that don't break the bank. Otherwise, indeed, it's the circuits that tend to fail; with CFLs, folks dislike bulbs that take a while to reach full-brightness so the ballasts are the instant-start variety, which offer a much shorter life when switched on and off multiple times a day. With LEDs, folks want cheap, so the cheap manufacturer's use minimum spec components. That's not to say that the incandescent bulbs of recent years were much better, though; like everything, they were made for the bottom line price point too.
@narfcake@2many2no I stocked up at IKEA on April 1st, they were having an LED sale (50% off). Great prices and allowed me to start changing out dead CFL and Incandesent bulbs for LED now. I love light...gonna need to replace the 96 feet of Florescent light in the garage some day
When all those stupid CFLs started burning out after only a year or two (or less), I'm now down to only 1 or 2 left. Between the Seattle City Light subsidies on LEDs at the store and those ones on meh a couple weeks ago, it's been cheap and easy. Much brighter, no warm ups, blah blah. Mo beddah. And I've had no trouble finding warm/soft white hue LEDs.
The bulbs I want as LED are now LED, and the rest are incandescent. I especially love the 3200K LEDs in the kitchen and home office and anywhere I don't have to see my face.
I didn't realize we were supposed to be 100% LED? Is there a prize?
(Never bought a lot of CFLs. Fragile glass tubes of mercury that make everything look weird and die after about a year? Who thought THAT was a good idea?)
@awk The NSA had input into the LED lamp circuit designs to ensure your safety. Your government looks forward to the ubiquitous placement of LED lamps in all American domiciles
I'm all in .... on CFLs. LEDs still seem pretty expensive and while they do have a longer life than CFLs, the efficiency is about the same, so I'm not in a big rush to change.
SO MANY CFL BULBS. SO MANY. I have LEDs in the bathroom, where the stupid candelabra sockets are, and it's amazing, but everything else is CFL. I think I bought a ten pack two years ago, and I still have seven left.
I was disappointed in the poor life of CFLs in our home (dirty power where we live kills both CFL ballasts and laptop adapters quickly -- at least the laptop adapters we could put on a power strip) and then the breakage/disposal issues as well. I picked up a bunch of LED lights at Costco a few weeks back and replaced one three-lamp fixture and our outside floodlamps (which had been dead for months/years) with them. The floods are BRIGHT and the inside bulbs are perfect -- they don't draw my attention to how bright/dim they are, which is the light level I like.
One thing I noticed is from a cold start there's a very slight delay before the lights pop on, but once it's on, it's on full. Since most of our indoor use involves turning them on once and leaving them on till we go to bed, this hasn't been a big issue, but the first time I just had long enough to think "...are they all dead?" before they lit. I don't know if this is characteristic of all LED bulbs or just those, though.
mediocrebot, I wouldn’t say all in because to be honest I’m not but I’m half-way there I guess. I still have got incandescent lights on the main power connections but since we have a lot of power outages, I have kept a back-up supply and I have connected LEDs to the back-up supply. Since there a lot of fluctuations in the main grid supply, I can’t really afford to replace these LEDs every now and then.
This purchase completes it.
Are these the same bulbs they sold last month for $5 each? If so, definitely more spot than flood. Blinding when you're underneath, barely there everywhere else. Bought 6, used four on an 18' ceiling, so they're fine there, and 2 in the garage.
I'm actually post-white-LED. I've moved on to going RGB everything. It's all about that sweet, sweet, disco fever--in high-tech LED.
Incandescent is more tolerant of our shitty wiring and the power surges that go with it.
I used to have an LED watch.
I'm all in on the LED trend. Me and the bf are so far in that we are currently debating whether to support edison socket LED bulbs (replaceable bulbs), or fixture-based LEDs (where the LEDs are built into the light fixture, non-replaceable). The LEDs that are purpose-built for the fixture last longer and are more efficient than the edison screw-base, replaceable LED bulbs. But the bf thinks that it'll take society a while to jump on the bandwagon of the more efficient, economical choice of purpose-built LED fixtures. Mostly because most people tend to get scared if they hear that you won't be able to replace the LED light bulbs in a fixture; but they don't realize that most of those fixtures will last long enough that it'll be time to update the fixture and your home's decor long before the LEDs in the fixture will need replacing.
tl;dr: People are stupid sheep and will be slow and scared to change, even if it's for their own good.
@pepsiwine Meh. I would love to get good 5 or 12 volt track lighting where you could just jab the LED arrays right in. As for updating the decor, I would probably change an LED bulb out 2-3 times in the time it takes me to decide to "update" my decor. ;)
@kazriko But your example is exactly the kind of purpose-built LED fixture I was referring to! If more consumers would support lighting companies building purpose-built LED light fixtures then you WOULD be able to go out and buy LED track lighting - that's already got the LEDs built in.
I agree on the decor thing. Some of us (myself included) aren't keen on updating our house with every new decorating trend. But that's why I want purpose built fixtures available now - so I can stop having to buy all these edison base LEDs to fit in my existing light fixtures which would give me the excuse I needed to update my house fixtures/decor now.
@pepsiwine Well, what I'm talking about is track lighting where the light bulbs are replaceable, but still don't have the baggage of a full ac-dc converter on each one. You can use a much simpler constant current driver instead. You don't have to abandon the idea of replacability just to get rid of the legacy 115VAC light sockets. You just need to build a new standard out. This could be done by open source hardware people since most of the LEDs are available on the market.
The trouble is we still can't trust fixture manufacturers to make LED bulbs that don't give off hideous light or use low quality components with a high mortality rate. Then you're left buying a whole new fixture with the same low quality parts in it because you need it to match others.
@pepsiwine LED and CFLs had one MAJOR difference/flaw compared to incandescents. Incandescents were simple. The others have circuits, voltage regulators, heat sinking, more complicated manufacture. With fixtures you get those parts built in, with replaceable bulbs, they're in the bulb. LEDs are likely to be good for tens of thousands of hours. But those supporting circuits? Those wonderful mass produced by the cheapest factory in rural China voltage and current regulators, rectifiers, etc? Do you really want to buy your $xxx (or $xxxx) fixture with non replaceable lighting elements and count on it lasting as long as you expect? I'll stick with replaceable bulbs, edison or otherwise thanks.
@duodec @kazriko Well I'm not an expert on LEDs; but I DO know enough to listen to the LED experts:
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-10/issue-6/features/integral-led-luminaires-outperform-lamps-magazine.html
The article mentions how it's the REPLACEABLE LED bulbs that are not living up to the lifetime expectations, and that's precisely due to the circuitry that's required WITHIN the replaceable bulb itself. And that the bulbs will last much, much longer if integrated into the fixture (where the circuitry will be).
And if your worries about cheaply-made, Chinese parts is what's driving your reasoning against LED fixtures, then that same argument could be made for almost any consumer product. So as with any product, it will have to meet whatever number of hours it's rated to and if not then the consumer will have the warranty to fall back on.
But the whole point of having non-replaceable LEDs now is that they have such long lifetimes (IF built INTO the fixture, where the circuitry and heat dissipation can be properly taken care of) that they won't NEED to be replaced. (At least probably not any more often than you need to replace, say, your home's flooring. And usually by then, it's needing replaced because of aesthetic concerns and not necessarily because it's worn out and HAS to be replaced.)
People just need to adjust their way of thinking of lightbulbs as "needing" to be replaced. Once you accept the light source itself being built into the fixture, it actually frees you up to have some better-looking fixtures (and yes, since LEDs can be made in ANY color, manufacturers are making the LED fixtures in "natural, normal" light colors and nothing "hideous", @plastrd):
https://www.menards.com/main/p-2709503-c-7237.htm
@pepsiwine What a wall of text. You're ignoring my point about how moving to replaceable bulbs with more minimalist circuitry because much of the complex stuff (AC to DC power supply) has been moved to a common source. There could be many ways of doing this, including running the whole system off of 12 volt solar with battery backups. The replacement capability might be seen as more of a way of reconfiguring the system on the fly. You could put up different colored bulbs, or switch to newer technologies as they come out without unscrewing the entire fixture and taking it down. Just pull it off the track and push a new one in. Or maybe double the number of lights. Or switch them out for spot lights. Feel like a warmer or cooler white temperature? Swap them out and put them in the cupboard. The fixtures you're thinking of will still be stuck being 115v devices and won't be able to efficiently use solar or be efficiently run off of battery backups. They'll have to have a DC to AC converter, then an AC to DC converter, then a constant current controller. If you make low voltage track lighting with LEDs you can have diverse power supplies for them and you won't need an electrician to install them to be up to code in some places in the country. (Low voltage is considered less than 48v.) Also, since all LED fixtures are built on arrays of diodes, this makes it resistant to a flaw in one diode that would make the whole thing dimmer and couldn't be replaced without throwing out the entire fixture. LEDs get dimmer over time, at a variable rate as they wear out, they don't just burn out like a light bulb, sure, but there's still value in swapping out dimmer elements. (Also, that url you posted seems to be mostly marketing wank from the company making the fixtures...)
@kazriko I'm not sure what you're saying. I tried to understand what the point of your vomit of a reply was, but I'm pretty sure whatever point you may have had got lost.
It SOUNDS like you're wanting LEDs to be replaceable so that you can go from colorful disco lighting one night to soft white reading light the next day and then maybe put in some fluorescent-colored bulbs for when you want your house to look like a grocery store at 3am. If somebody's got that kind of home decorating ADD then they probably WOULD want to stick with items that are easily replaceable (and probably do a better job staying on their meds). The typical homeowner isn't going to have the need or desire to change their lighting that much, though.
In any case, if my "wall of text" was too much for you, just go back and re-read the first line: I'm not an expert on LEDs, I'm just smart enough to know when to defer to people who ARE experts on LEDs. And the link I provided isn't the only source out there that confirms that purpose-built LEDs last longer and are more efficient than replaceable LEDs (which, before your ADD of an argument muddied the waters, was the original topic of the conversation).
My advice to you: Educate yourself on LEDs and track lighting a bit more before you get your panties in so much of a wad about it. Best idea: Just start with googling LEDs and track lighting, because I'm pretty sure they already have what you're looking for.
In any case, I'm not an LED designer so I'm not really in a position to help you design your phrenetic replaceable-LED, multi-colored, track lighting fixture.
@pepsiwine Wow what a wall of text, but good info; I think I'll do some looking. I did ask my boss at work (who had built in LED can lights, strip lights installed above a crown molding (that was an inch shy of the ceiling so the light would shine out). I don't know the brands or how the resource you mentioned would rate them but he spent a big chunk with an Angie's list well rated lighting person to get them. So far he's lost two cans and two sections of strip, plus a power supply for the strips during power events. One power outage, and one storm related brown-out-flicker-flare-outage. That cost him about 700 hundred dollars to fix, and yes he had whole house surge protection in place. All of those things need to be taken into account, especially if you're referring to built ins. Thanks for the resource!
@pepsiwine I'm not asking you to help me design anything, I can do that on my own. I'm merely pointing out alternatives. I also noticed that you focused on the more fun and trivial bits of what I said rather than the far more important thing about the power supply and diverse inputs of energy. Finally, you seem to have completely skipped over the line when I called the link you posted "marketing wank" because that's exactly what your "experts on LEDs" are shoveling there. There's two types of articles that throw the name of a company at the end. One is self-selection methods, similar to those websites where they force you to watch a 30 minute video before they'll let you go to the screen with more information because they want the savvy people who might look skeptically at their offering to go away. The second is where they're getting you to read through their marketing material with a less skeptical mind only to bait and switch you at the end. This one seems like the latter. Trade magazines like this are full of that sort of crap.
@kazriko I ignored the part of your reply about power supply and energy input because you don't know what you're talking about and I didn't want to embarrass you. And I ignored your opinion of the link I posted as being "marketing wank" because you were, again, wrong. Just because you don't agree with something, doesn't make it incorrect.
Here are the SCIENTIFIC sources of the information that was in the article in the link I posted; as well as additional links from a myriad of additional reputable sources SUPPORTING the data that was in my original link. I didn't really want to have to rub your nose in your own ignorance, but it seems you've insisted on it. So enjoy!
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/gateway_intercontinental-hotel.pdf
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_gateway_smithsonian.pdf
http://www.facilitiesnet.com/lighting/article/LEDs-Questions-About-Fixtures-Replacement-Lamps-Tubes-Controls-Facilities-Management-Lighting-Feature--12982
https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=lighting.pr_what_are
http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2445832/led-fixtures-versus-led-bulbs
@pepsiwine sigh Ok, want me to prove it's marketing wank? Look at the people who wrote the article, then look them up on Linked In. They're both on there, and they both list Xicato as their former employer. The article is 2 years old after all. That article, as is common in trade magazines, was written by the company that is mentioned in it. It doesn't matter how many other articles you throw up, the one you were pointing at as "experts on LEDs" was basically someone trying to sell you something. A lot of the other ones you're posting are from the government (regulatory capture, you know) or are just discussion threads like forums. I sincerely doubt if they're any more full of quality information than the first one. The whole argument is silly. You're arguing that it's one way or the other, and all of your posts are about those two ways. I'm saying there's a third path that is more flexible and reliable than either of the other two paths, and you go back to your black or white, one way other the other thinking. I don't think the conversation is at all useful any further. Feel free to embarrass me all you want. I have thick skin when it comes to such absurdities.
@pepsiwine Go on. Embarrass me. Tell me why switching from high voltage AC fixtures to low voltage DC fixtures is a bad idea.
@pepsiwine I do find it amusing that none of the articles so far seem to even be in reference to what I'm talking about, and some of them don't even seem to talk about the fixture vs discrete bulb that you seem to be arguing. The only thing they seem to have in common with your argument is "Heat buildup is bad". That's not something I'm arguing against, I'm only arguing that your ideas of fixtures isn't going far enough. You're moving the expensive or error-prone AC-DC circuitry (pick one) from the light bulb over to the fixture, and working on the ventilation. I'm saying that you move that expensive or error prone circuitry to a centralized location in the house that powers all of your lighting. (Or, do away with it and go Solar.)
We keep incandescents in fixtures where we read or do close up work. Broad spectrum, nice color and tone. CFL and LED goes into inside area and outside security lighting. We're slowly getting rid of CFLs, especially outside.
I have a stash of US-made 60, 75, and 100 watt incandescents for future use.
My power company gave me a free LED bulb a few weeks ago. So I've got 1 in use now.
@metaphore Careful. Those are gateway bulbs.
Working on it, but it takes a really long time to replace CFLs if you wait for them to fail.
I'm really happy with the Cree lamp bulbs I got here last time, but haven't tried the floodlight.
@KDemo Interesting, wonder if your power is cleaner than mine or something… in my experience CFLs barely (if at all) outlasted incans. Been having great luck with old Philips LEDs though…
@brhfl - It's not likely there's something special about my power - the house is ~65 yrs old. Aren't CFLs supposed to last 7 - 10 years? Haven't paid that much attention, but this seems accurate.
@KDemo We have some name brand CFLs fail in under a year, and others that have run for 3-4. But if you look at the runtimes, the 7-10 year expectation is for people who run their bulbs for 4-5 hours in a single stretch each day. More on-off cycles or longer evening runtimes are "severe service" and reduce bulb life expectancy.
@KDemo Supposed to, sure… just was never reality in my experience. Glad LEDs are becoming accessible enough to call CFLs a past transitional phase…
All the lights in my rv are LED. Home...not one.
Lots of CFL bulbs, still ($6.25 for 50), but I have some LEDs (from Ikea) in a few lamps.
I'm not ready to commit for full-on LED fixtures, though. The value proposition isn't quite there, what with most of my fixtures having been bought from thrift stores.
I'm still switching to CFLs. I'll let the next homeowner decide about LEDs. Maybe some of the other fixtures that are infrequently used will get LED replacements.
No LEDs at all (even my 8 computer monitors and 3 TVs have CCFL backlights). Oh, I just remembered that I have a Cree LED flashlight, and my tablet has an LED backlight. So, I guess I'm not totally stuck in the aughts.
About half LEDs here. We mostly get the Edison-base bulbs as we catch them on sale, as the place is a rental and we can't/don't want to replace the fixtures.
Man, damn! I just got all of my lights changed to CFLs and now you want me to change to LEDS? Get off my back! You're not my real dad!
@revloki That's where we are.
@revloki We're from the EPA and we only want to help you.
@revloki ok Beaver!
Skipping directly over CFLs from incandescent to LED. Never did like CFLs anyhow, hoarded incandescent until they ran out, then bought a bunch of LED bulbs at that place that rhymes with Boot.
@Amazonite You mean Woot? Rhymes more with foot, doesn't it?
@editorkid It rhymes with loot (and boot).
@ChunkyBitz It rhymes with moot too ... which is how I feel about the 1000+ items they offer on a regular basis.
@narfcake I agree, I haven't visited the site in ages. Garth Mader annihilated the rebel forces at Woot a long time ago.
I appreciate the LED technology, better for the planet, yada yada, but I really dislike the cool light. It really bums me out with Christmas lights...the inefficient yellow glow of incandescent light is so comforting.
@Pinky Skip the LEDs and wait for Quantum Dot technology, http://www.wired.com/2015/01/primer-quantum-dot/
@Pinky 5000K LEDs are horrible, but 2700K LEDs are basically identical to Ye Olde Incandescents. Don't let the savages who buy the wrong temperate light for the application dissuade you from LED awesomeness! In a blind test it'd be very difficult to tell a 2700K LED is not an incandescent.
@ssstraub Yes. I replaced the ugly, glaring CFLs above the bathroom mirror with 2700K LEDs. Lovely golden glow of incandescents minus the heat buildup.
@Pinky I'm using mostly LEDs outside now; we cut our outdoor Christmas light power usage from ~1300 watts to between 150-200. We kept some incan whites in the wreaths, and in inset surrounds because they really put out much more light. The jewel tones are pretty but all you see are the lights; they provide so little illumination of the surrounding areas compared to incans. We actually used LED strips last year, attached to lattice boards and tacked to the house trim. Laser straight lines in red and green with white fillers... kind of cool but way too much work for not as much coverage
Ditto what @Pinky said. You can take my incandescent light bulbs from my cold, dead hands.
I despise CFL bulbs with their cold blue industrial glow. I get enough of that depressing awfulness at work. I don't want that at home. Every "white" LED bulb I've seen has that cold blue hue. Forget that stuff! Incandescent bulbs now! Incandescent bulbs forever!
Wait. Wait! You are saying that there's some place we can go to adopt LED bulbs? Like the animal shelter, but for light bulbs? Wouldn't an adoption agency for incandescent bulbs make more sense? Aren't they the ones being abandoned for the newer stuff? Is there an adoption fee? Do we have to have them neutered before we take them home? So many questions.
I've just been replacing my dead CFLs with LEDs. I like the LEDs because they don't give off heat and they are not a pain to dusts like the twisty little heads of CFLs. So far though, all the stores want me to pay for the LED bulbs. None of them, sadly, run an adoption agency for bulbs.
@rockblossom just make sure they have their shots....
I've got a box of LED bulbs to phase in when I run out of CFL's. That may be a while, especially since unsubsidized LED's are still too damn expensive.
The other thing is the lie about long life. Yeah, I know the LED's (and the CFL tube) last a long time, but they're not much good when the ballast or driver circuits fail so soon.
@2many2no If you live near an Ikea, they're a good source for LEDs that don't break the bank. Otherwise, indeed, it's the circuits that tend to fail; with CFLs, folks dislike bulbs that take a while to reach full-brightness so the ballasts are the instant-start variety, which offer a much shorter life when switched on and off multiple times a day. With LEDs, folks want cheap, so the cheap manufacturer's use minimum spec components. That's not to say that the incandescent bulbs of recent years were much better, though; like everything, they were made for the bottom line price point too.
@narfcake @2many2no I stocked up at IKEA on April 1st, they were having an LED sale (50% off). Great prices and allowed me to start changing out dead CFL and Incandesent bulbs for LED now. I love light...gonna need to replace the 96 feet of Florescent light in the garage some day
When all those stupid CFLs started burning out after only a year or two (or less), I'm now down to only 1 or 2 left. Between the Seattle City Light subsidies on LEDs at the store and those ones on meh a couple weeks ago, it's been cheap and easy. Much brighter, no warm ups, blah blah. Mo beddah. And I've had no trouble finding warm/soft white hue LEDs.
The bulbs I want as LED are now LED, and the rest are incandescent. I especially love the 3200K LEDs in the kitchen and home office and anywhere I don't have to see my face.
I didn't realize we were supposed to be 100% LED? Is there a prize?
(Never bought a lot of CFLs. Fragile glass tubes of mercury that make everything look weird and die after about a year? Who thought THAT was a good idea?)
@awk The NSA had input into the LED lamp circuit designs to ensure your safety. Your government looks forward to the ubiquitous placement of LED lamps in all American domiciles
I'm all in .... on CFLs. LEDs still seem pretty expensive and while they do have a longer life than CFLs, the efficiency is about the same, so I'm not in a big rush to change.
SO MANY CFL BULBS. SO MANY. I have LEDs in the bathroom, where the stupid candelabra sockets are, and it's amazing, but everything else is CFL. I think I bought a ten pack two years ago, and I still have seven left.
I was disappointed in the poor life of CFLs in our home (dirty power where we live kills both CFL ballasts and laptop adapters quickly -- at least the laptop adapters we could put on a power strip) and then the breakage/disposal issues as well. I picked up a bunch of LED lights at Costco a few weeks back and replaced one three-lamp fixture and our outside floodlamps (which had been dead for months/years) with them. The floods are BRIGHT and the inside bulbs are perfect -- they don't draw my attention to how bright/dim they are, which is the light level I like.
One thing I noticed is from a cold start there's a very slight delay before the lights pop on, but once it's on, it's on full. Since most of our indoor use involves turning them on once and leaving them on till we go to bed, this hasn't been a big issue, but the first time I just had long enough to think "...are they all dead?" before they lit. I don't know if this is characteristic of all LED bulbs or just those, though.
leds are need and usueull...
Wasn't one of the bulbheads in here using the GE Wink bulbs? Considering trying them, but I need a random stranger on the internet to convince me.
I want to love LED lights. But they're too complicated, and they don't dim linearly.
mediocrebot, I wouldn’t say all in because to be honest I’m not but I’m half-way there I guess. I still have got incandescent lights on the main power connections but since we have a lot of power outages, I have kept a back-up supply and I have connected LEDs to the back-up supply. Since there a lot of fluctuations in the main grid supply, I can’t really afford to replace these LEDs every now and then.