|
They cost a mint compared to regular light bulbs & the payback period is long, so they are a something I plan on throwing in as a stocking stuffer this year for some of the people in my family that already have everything. Anything I need to look out for? Any great deals lately? Any brand/type stand head and shoulders above the rest?
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 05:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 04:56 |
|
|
I'm assuming you're in the US so I don't know about brands or deals (buy Philips or osram if you want to go for expensive bulbs. If you'd like to keep it cheap, Ikea has good ones now - the generation before they switched two years ago was terrible.) People will tell you led lights have an awful spectrum - this hadn't been true for a while now, current generations are available in a number of nice warm colours.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 21:28
|
|
|
ifuckedjesus posted:Anything I need to look out for? Don't put normal LED lights in if you have a dimmer switch. You need special compatible ones.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 22:03
|
|
|
Get Cree and call it a day. I like the TW (true white -- looks like an incandescent but colors are more accurate, it's weird). When I stocked up they even had six-packs.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2015 06:40
|
|
i like nice words
|
LED lights are great. Now you can leave lights on 24/7 for the same use of electricity as 1-2h of normal incandescent light or maybe 8h of energy saving bulbs. If they're replacing pin-mounted halogen bulbs, make sure to not just get the correct pin size but also the correct physical size if the lamp has a shade since some LED bulbs are built taller.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2015 09:25
|
|
I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
|
I have a couple dozen Cree's in my house for the last 2-3 years. The 60W equivalent ones are on alot (nonstop for weeks at a time) and no problems, the 100W equivalent ones I've had 3 stop working, those I am turning on and off alot. I'm not sure it is the bulb or something else causing the problem.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2015 16:34
|
|
|
I sold commercial lighting for about 5 years. Don't buy lights from Ikea they are complete trash. Cree is fine, so is PQL, Ushio, or TCP. I'd recommend not buying from any of the "big 3" (Philips, GE, Sylvania) if you can buy from one of the smaller companies I mentioned, as their quality will be generally higher. You can buy LEDs that are dimmer compatible, but only certain dimmers. If you have a local electrical store that would be the place to buy from.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2015 19:19
|
|
|
What's wrong with the IKEA bulbs? They are far and away the cheapest option around here unless there's a government rebate happening.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2015 20:45
|
|
|
flashy_mcflash posted:They are far and away the cheapest option Yes, they're cheap because they are made with very low quality materials which translates into high failure rates, poor dimming, poor brightness, and a general fragility.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2015 22:09
|
|
|
I've been running whatever brand Costco sells most affordably, and don't have any complaints so far (5 years of use). Also have a cheap blue/red LED grow lamp from Amazon as a supplement for my tropical house plants during the low light months. Seems to work pretty well too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2015 22:25
|
|
|
Wachepti posted:Yes, they're cheap because they are made with very low quality materials which translates into high failure rates, poor dimming, poor brightness, and a general fragility. I still have a drawer full of old Ikea flourescent bulbs and god drat are they lovely. As in, less bright than a same-wattage no-name bulb from the cheapest supermarket even before considering failure rate.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2015 23:34
|
|
|
I picked up a $60 Switch led on amazon for $9. It weighs a lot and is liquid cooled, whatever that means.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2015 18:49
|
|
|
pim01 posted:People will tell you led lights have an awful spectrum - this hadn't been true for a while now, current generations are available in a number of nice warm colours.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2015 21:43
|
|
|
So you're saying I shouldn't go with a Philips HUE light kit?
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2015 23:03
|
|
|
Ninkobei posted:It weighs a lot and is liquid cooled, whatever that means. Switch bet on traditional thermal management not getting better over time, so they invested millions into liquid cooling. Well, they lost the bet and went out of business. Also their bulbs occasionally leak.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2015 00:38
|
|
|
When I moved in to my apartment after college I replaced every bulb with a CFL. In the span of seven years I replaced exactly one bulb. When I moved in to my house two years ago I replaced *most* of the bulbs with LEDs. In those two years I've easily had to replace four or five. I'll keep buying them, but any possible savings I might be getting on energy efficiency is being lost out to the cost of the seemingly constant replacement.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2015 18:09
|
|
|
What did you buy that doesn't have a warranty?
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2015 18:14
|
|
|
Crumps Brother posted:When I moved in to my apartment after college I replaced every bulb with a CFL. In the span of seven years I replaced exactly one bulb. When I moved in to my house two years ago I replaced *most* of the bulbs with LEDs. In those two years I've easily had to replace four or five. I'll keep buying them, but any possible savings I might be getting on energy efficiency is being lost out to the cost of the seemingly constant replacement. Do you have weird voltage peaks at your house? I switched my entire house over to LED 5 years ago and of the 2 bulbs that have broken in 1 the bulb was physically broken because the lamp got knocked over the other was a DIY store own brand. Of the Philips bulbs none have broken without being smashed to pieces.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2015 19:35
|
|
|
NihilismNow posted:Do you have weird voltage peaks at your house?
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2015 20:55
|
|
|
I've been using LED bulbs since 2012 - bought a variety of brands and sizes since then. I haven't had any fail on me, personally. I have enough of an assortment now that I can put LEDs in any light fixtures I use regularly, which I think makes a reasonable difference in my energy bills.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2015 03:34
|
|
|
Trip Report: I bought 4-5 of the cheapo 60w replacement LED bulbs from Home Depot on black friday for $1 per. They are Utilitech brand and claim to be 750 lumens and 9 watt bulbs. They aren't terrible, but it's very one-directional lighting. I have them in globes on my ceiling and the globe is only lit on the one side. It still lights the room just fine however. They don't seem as bright (approx 90%) or have as nice of a color as the CFL's in my house (it's kinda a reddish/white). They run hot - I had the turn it off and let it cool for awhile before I could take it out to replace it with the CREE light. This all being said, they are fine for $1 per and I'm really being nit picky. Cree 60w LED bulb Basically identical to a 60w replacement CFL bulb. Claims to use 11w and is brighter than the Utilitech. Cost is $5-6/per. Light is more omni directional like a CFL. Honestly IMO, not worth the extra cash except maybe if you do alot of reading. This all being said, I have no idea about the long-term durability of either bulb.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2015 01:30
|
|
|
I replaced every bulb in my house with either CFL or LED. I have like 30 can lights in my house, both upstairs and down. I have LEDs in probably 24 of them, the other 6 CFLs. In lamps and closets and whatever else, we have a mix of CFL or LED; depending on when the bulb was last replaced. Several years ago, I stocked up on CFLs that were a great price at Costco. I have been using them as replacements over time. However, now when I buy new bulbs, they are exclusively LED - with the exception of outdoor light bulbs. Then, I buy whatever is rated to work in -20°F weather. We don't get that cold here too often, but it does get below 0°F much of January. The LED bulbs produce a wonderful light spectrum. We cannot tell the difference between them and the incandescent light bulbs that we used previously. The power consumption difference is stark. The incandescent bulbs used 75W per bulb. The LEDs were like 8W or 13W, something like that. They're equally bright. I have not had to replace any of my indoor LED bulbs in probably 2 years of using them. Meanwhile, I routinely replace the CFL bulbs as they fail. The LEDs I bought claim to have a 20 year warranty, but nobody saves the original packaging, receipts, etc. I couldn't even tell you what brand they are, though I would guess Philips. Outdoors, I have a bunch of low-voltage landscaping lighting. I think there are 12 lights on my property, all aiming at my house or trees or whatever. I replaced the halogen lights (each used 20W) with LED bulbs (each use 3W). I can run my entire system on less power than 2 of the halogen bulbs that came with these lights. The LED colors produced are just what I want, so they are great in that regard. However, I have had to replace 3 or 4 of them in about 2 years. These lights are supposed to be sealed by a rubber gasket from rain/snow/whatever. I suspect that water gets in and fries them. As for an overall cost savings, I calculated it at the time. When I bought my bulbs, the upfront money was something like $250. To get that kind of a return, based on the power consumption estimate of $0.12/kWh, it was going to take about 14 months. Overall, I would recommend replacing as many lights as you can afford with LEDs. To me, they have proven to be reliable and much cheaper than the alternatives.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2015 04:23
|
|
|
I had replaced all the bulbs in my house except for the decorative ones in the bathrooms with CFL bulbs, and then a few years ago started slowly replacing the CFL's with LED's. Many of the CFL's were 'Home Depot Specials', purchased on the cheap. One day I was sitting at my computer when I heard a pop, then a strange sizzle, and then the smoke detectors all went off. I went into the other room to find that one of these cheap CFL's had failed, and was on fire. If I wasn't home when one of them failed like that, it could possibly be very very bad depending on what fixture / location it was in (like a ceiling fixture). Since then I've replaced every CFL in the house that might possibly be left on when I'm out of the house with LED's (and not cheap/bargain ones). The only CFL's I have left are in metal torch fixtures that are not near anything, and are rarely used. Eventually I'll replace those.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2015 17:17
|
|
|
johnny sack posted:As for an overall cost savings, I calculated it at the time. When I bought my bulbs, the upfront money was something like $250. To get that kind of a return, based on the power consumption estimate of $0.12/kWh, it was going to take about 14 months. Overall, I would recommend replacing as many lights as you can afford with LEDs. To me, they have proven to be reliable and much cheaper than the alternatives. I didn't bother really calculating anything like that, and figured even if it were to take me years for the bulbs to pay for themselves, I would rather pay up front than always worry about how much money it's costing me leaving the lights on down the hall.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 05:54
|
|
|
B33rChiller posted:Is that 14 months worth of your typical usage, or is that 14 months of cumulative run time? Normal usage. It would take less time now than when I did it to make up the difference in power savings, as LEDs are cheaper. I did not consider using incandescent bulbs in the summer and the heat they generate into these savings. +95% of the power incandescent lights consume is wasted as heat. In the summer, this means you have to pay extra to cool off that extra heat. In the winter, it slightly alleviates the amount of work your furnace must do to keep your house warm. Where I live, we get hot summers and cold winters, so the energy savings in that regard is essentially a wash. If you live in Arizona, where you almost exclusively use your A/C, you would see even quicker payoff times yet.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 06:59
|
|
|
I don't really trust the concept of incandescent bulbs carrying the heating load. Sure, they do heat the air, but you need to consider the location of the light bulb. A lot of the bulbs are going to be up near (or sunk into) the ceiling. You just end up with a layer of hot air up near the ceiling, while the air down near your thermostat stays cool. Your kilowatt chandelier isn't going to heat your room as efficiently as a kilowatt baseboard heater, or a space heater on the floor, where the heated air has to rise through the space, mixing and heating the rest of the air, rather than stagnating near the heat source.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 08:29
|
|
|
Wachepti posted:I sold commercial lighting for about 5 years. Don't buy lights from Ikea they are complete trash. This summer, I furnished my entire house (I moved and had little to furniture) with IKEA lamps and IKEA LED bulbs, their whole range from 200 to 1000 Lumen, both E14 and E27 sockets, and dimmable/non-dimmable. The light quality is great, they fire up instantly, only make a very very minute hum (inaudible unless it's dead silent at night), and they have a 5 year warranty (in Denmark at least). I couldn't be happier and would recommend them to anyone. I have also read several tests online that crown them as winners. They also really aren't that cheap; a 1000 Lumen bulb is about the equivalent of $12 where I live, but they are in the cheapest range of reputable brands. johnny sack posted:Normal usage. It would take less time now than when I did it to make up the difference in power savings, as LEDs are cheaper. I can't comment on the summer aircon issue since I live in a fairly cool country where it's only really blazing summer 3 weeks per year, and with very long days (Scandinavia), you don't even need to have so much light turned on anyway. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 12:49
|
|
|
B33rChiller posted:I don't really trust the concept of incandescent bulbs carrying the heating load. Sure, they do heat the air, but you need to consider the location of the light bulb. A lot of the bulbs are going to be up near (or sunk into) the ceiling. You just end up with a layer of hot air up near the ceiling, while the air down near your thermostat stays cool. Your kilowatt chandelier isn't going to heat your room as efficiently as a kilowatt baseboard heater, or a space heater on the floor, where the heated air has to rise through the space, mixing and heating the rest of the air, rather than stagnating near the heat source. I can provide an anecdote that was a factor for me switching to LED. In my kitchen, I have a total of 10 flood lights. Previously, they were all 75W incandescent bulbs. When we had all 10 of those lights on, that room would heat up more than the rest of the house (even without the stove or oven turn on). Most personal space heaters are in the range of 800-1500W - so running all those bulbs was, power-wise, equivalent to running a small space heater on max. Even with the bulbs in the ceiling, flood lights direct the light in 1 direction. You could feel the warmth projecting out from each bulb. It may not have been exactly the heat produced as would have been by a small space heater, but there was heat produced. Pilsner posted:
I'm not saying it's apples to apples as far as the heat produced by incandescent bulbs goes. I'm just saying that it's another factor that, depending on your geography, will influence the payoff time for switching to LED bulbs. johnny sack fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Dec 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
johnny sack posted:I'm not saying it's apples to apples as far as the heat produced by incandescent bulbs goes. I'm just saying that it's another factor that, depending on your geography, will influence the payoff time for switching to LED bulbs. You are probably paying more per Joule of heat to heat your house with lightbulbs than by burning natural gas in your furnace, though. If both your heating and electricity come from burning natural gas either in your furnace or in the power plant, it is much more efficient to heat your house by directly burning gas to release heat instead of converting from heat->electricity at the power plant back to heat again in the lightbulb. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Dec 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 17:23
|
|
|
silence_kit posted:You are probably paying more per Joule of heat to heat your house with lightbulbs than by burning natural gas in your furnace, though. Nobody is saying otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 17:40
|
|
|
Pilsner posted:What's your source for saying that? Same experience here - we changed all our lights to IKEA LED bulbs. Quality (both build and light) are perfectly good, and the price is fine. We had zero defects accross 50-odd bulbs.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 19:07
|
|
|
Put a half dozen of these in my house, thinking I would switch over to LED. They all, every one, stopped working in under a month. Sorry, I don't recall the brand, but I think it's safe to say that not all LED bulbs are made the same.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2015 21:01
|
|
|
For what it's worth, Home Depot seems to sell a lot of Phillips' last generation bulbs pretty drat cheap. Non-dimmable, 60W replacements, generally $5 for a two pack. They're not nearly as omnidirectional as cheaper LEDs. Not as good as Cree, but much cheaper; I use them for the lights outside and for lights that generally stay on all the time. I still have a stack of CFLs, but as I run out of a particular style or wattage CFL, or if it's in a fixture that's kind of a PITA to get to, I'll switch fixtures over to LEDs. Omne posted:So you're saying I shouldn't go with a Philips HUE light kit? Only because you need to buy a hub to go with them.  I have a couple of ilumi bulbs, they're pretty awesome, and tie into several music apps to make your own rave. Expensive though. Pilsner posted:This summer, I furnished my entire house (I moved and had little to furniture) with IKEA lamps and IKEA LED bulbs, their whole range from 200 to 1000 Lumen, both E14 and E27 sockets, and dimmable/non-dimmable. The light quality is great, they fire up instantly, only make a very very minute hum (inaudible unless it's dead silent at night), and they have a 5 year warranty (in Denmark at least). I couldn't be happier and would recommend them to anyone. I have also read several tests online that crown them as winners. You can easily find Ikea's bulbs (unbranded) on Alibaba. Exact same bulbs. So they're not the highest quality. And in the US, Ikea doesn't warranty any of their light bulbs, at least from what I saw reading their website. That said, I have a few of their floods, and they produce a very bright, very white light, have a beam that's somewhere between spot and flood (which works really well in the room they're in), and dim just fine on the non-LED dimmer we have (though there's still one incandescent in the circuit). What's annoying is they've changed the design at least once since I got these about a year ago, so I can't get bulbs to make all of the recessed lights match. Their written warranty for bulbs here in the US is "no warranty on light bulbs". I haven't tried to test it out yet. The Locator posted:I had replaced all the bulbs in my house except for the decorative ones in the bathrooms with CFL bulbs, and then a few years ago started slowly replacing the CFL's with LED's. Many of the CFL's were 'Home Depot Specials', purchased on the cheap. One day I was sitting at my computer when I heard a pop, then a strange sizzle, and then the smoke detectors all went off. I went into the other room to find that one of these cheap CFL's had failed, and was on fire. If I wasn't home when one of them failed like that, it could possibly be very very bad depending on what fixture / location it was in (like a ceiling fixture). I've had this happen several times, once with a bulb that was only a week old. On the week-old bulb, contacting the bulb maker got a "we never made that bulb, go away" response (I got it on clearance at Walmart, in a package branded as Lights of America, with a Lights of America model # that came up on Amazon when I searched...). Its twin is still in use today, 8 years later, though it's in the attic (so it sees very little use). Only reason I still have it is it's a 150W replacement and I need a ton of light in the attic when I'm actually up there. The last CFL I had go up in flames was actually from Ikea. It'd started flickering, so I tried turning off the fixture for a few seconds, then turning it back on. It was in a ceiling light fixture too, I had to haul rear end to the garage and grab a ladder.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 12:20
|
|
|
I replaced almost every light in my house with Cree LED bulbs last year. At $4 each or $3 when they go on sale (CT Light and Power subsidizes them statewide even in areas they don't service) they've paid for themselves. I stuck the receipt and UPCs in an envelope and filed it because they have a 10 year warranty, although I haven't had a problem with them yet.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 18:43
|
|
|
some texas redneck posted:You can easily find Ikea's bulbs (unbranded) on Alibaba. Exact same bulbs. So they're not the highest quality. And in the US, Ikea doesn't warranty any of their light bulbs, at least from what I saw reading their website. I don't see how being able to find them on Alibaba invalidates them. Virtually all LEDs are Made in China, some are junk, some are good.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 20:53
|
|
|
List of things that can not be found on Alibaba:
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 21:13
|
|
|
johnny sack posted:Outdoors, I have a bunch of low-voltage landscaping lighting. I think there are 12 lights on my property, all aiming at my house or trees or whatever. I replaced the halogen lights (each used 20W) with LED bulbs (each use 3W). I can run my entire system on less power than 2 of the halogen bulbs that came with these lights. The LED colors produced are just what I want, so they are great in that regard. However, I have had to replace 3 or 4 of them in about 2 years. These lights are supposed to be sealed by a rubber gasket from rain/snow/whatever. I suspect that water gets in and fries them. melon cat fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Jan 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 21:48
|
|
|
I've had some led bulbs that have been moving with me as I move. One of them has been in 4 different apartments!
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 22:32
|
|
|
We've got two big floodlights outside as security lights (that bathe the garden in light every time a cat or fox wanders through). They held up fine for two years, but I'm in Scotland where the temperature ranges from 'sometimes snow, mostly rain' to 'a bit warmer, still mostly rain'.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 23:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 04:56 |
|
|
Don't buy garbage cheap LED's off ebay from china. The lumens they list are lies and they over-heat and fade/die almost as fast as a grampa-style bulb.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2015 00:16
|
|
