Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

[lektrode]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

I have been doing residential electrical service and repair for the last 25 years so I have seen what works and doesnt work. Its usually as much about quality manufacturing as it is the technology. ....

no doubt you have, flint.
and like you, have been around awhile - like.. i've been an 'electrician' since me dear departed mother bought me a trainset fer xmas when i was 15, went to a voc-tech HS for 'industrial electronics' - '76 grad..
and have been an electromechanical type more/less ferever

and my obs is that if one paid attention to things like the k-value = light color, bought 'quality' product and use some of the savings in KWH to apply to lumens then they were a really good bet to replace edison's heatbulbs

has the LED tech been a good thing?
absolutely.

are they 'better than CFL' ?
maybe...

its just i've learned the hardway that being a bleeding edge early adapter is usually not a good bet (anymore)

[flintlock]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

My only complaint about LEDs is that I have not found one that doesn't buzz when in a single pole dimmer circuit. I still have incandescent bulbs in those locations. Any recommendations or suggestions flintlock?

It differs from brand to brand, both dimmer and bulb, but you may need to buy a "LED" approved dimmer to avoid the buzz. I installed some LEDs Friday that buzzed on a standard dimmer. The customer didn't mind it so I left it as is. Kind of a crock, I know. My experience is its hit or miss if you will hear a slight buzz with an older dimmer. Most of the new dimmers being sold are compatible. Also need to make sure the LED is sold as a dimmable. Not all are. Room acoustics play a part too. Vaulted ceilings tend to reflect the sound and you hear the buzz more.

Some incandescent bulbs are also guilty of this buzz in the right situation. Right now I have a CFL in my kitchen that is buzzing like crazy with no dimmer installed. Technology.

[flintlock]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

no doubt you have, flint.
and like you, have been around awhile - like.. i've been an 'electrician' since me dear departed mother bought me a trainset fer xmas when i was 15, went to a voc-tech HS for 'industrial electronics' - '76 grad..
and have been an electromechanical type more/less ferever

and my obs is that if one paid attention to things like the k-value = light color, bought 'quality' product and use some of the savings in KWH to apply to lumens then they were a really good bet to replace edison's heatbulbs

has the LED tech been a good thing?
absolutely.

are they 'better than CFL' ?
maybe...

its just i've learned the hardway that being a bleeding edge early adapter is usually not a good bet (anymore)

I agree with you on the early adopter thing. I have been burned before. But LED have been out long enough now that I feel they are a definite advantage over anything else in most applications. Perfect, no, just better. I am only just now offering to install LED that I provide. Before it would be on the customer to provide( and deal with warranty issues!). A lot of the problem I face now is convincing some that just because something is different doesn't mean its inferior.

People tend to want things to look and act exactly like they always have. The LED does a good job of doing that, only with much less energy use and longer life. Some of the cost of making LED bulbs is making them look like an incandescent. That glass bulb shape around them is generally unnecessary. Its for aesthetics. Fixture styles will change in the future to look completely different than the ones we use now that were designed around an incandescent. We won't screw in a light bulb anymore. It will all be built into the fixture itself.

One more LED tidbit. That 30,000 hour projected lifespan? It's when the bulb reaches only 70% light output. They will still be working, just below the 70% threshold. So they may last longer than people think. I have no idea what the effect of cycling the switch will have on longevity. But it has an effect on CFL and Incandescent as well.

[GRG55]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

I agree with you on the early adopter thing. I have been burned before. But LED have been out long enough now that I feel they are a definite advantage over anything else in most applications. Perfect, no, just better. I am only just now offering to install LED that I provide. Before it would be on the customer to provide( and deal with warranty issues!). A lot of the problem I face now is convincing some that just because something is different doesn't mean its inferior.

People tend to want things to look and act exactly like they always have. The LED does a good job of doing that, only with much less energy use and longer life. Some of the cost of making LED bulbs is making them look like an incandescent. That glass bulb shape around them is generally unnecessary. Its for aesthetics. Fixture styles will change in the future to look completely different than the ones we use now that were designed around an incandescent. We won't screw in a light bulb anymore. It will all be built into the fixture itself.

One more LED tidbit. That 30,000 hour projected lifespan? It's when the bulb reaches only 70% light output. They will still be working, just below the 70% threshold. So they may last longer than people think. I have no idea what the effect of cycling the switch will have on longevity. But it has an effect on CFL and Incandescent as well.

I installed thin "warm white" LED strips for over-counter task lighting in the kitchen when I built the bunker. These are probably the highest duty cycle lighting in the house, and have been in service for almost 5 years now without any issues whatsoever. I would never think about going back to the hot, relatively short lifespan halogen pucks used previously.

[don]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

The iconic story of "Too Good To Last" is the razor blade, which was pushing out the straight razor. After receiving letter after letter congratulating them on how long lasting their new replaceable blades were, planned obsolesence - in this case planned dullness - was engineered and implemented. How long does current LED long life/performance work for the manufacturers? Once we're won over to the new lamps this may prove to be the LED's Happy Time.

[GRG55]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

The iconic story of "Too Good To Last" is the razor blade, which was pushing out the straight razor. After receiving letter after letter congratulating them on how long lasting their new replaceable blades were, planned obsolesence - in this case planned dullness - was engineered and implemented. How long does current LED long life/performance work for the manufacturers? Once we're won over to the new lamps this may prove to be the LED's Happy Time.

Could be some of this is behind Philips and Siemens decision to sell off their lighting divisions.

As for razor blades, I have been using Gillette for decades and have not noticed any change in blade longevity (they seem to last quite well imo). What I did notice, when I was living in the Middle East, is Chinese knock-offs (very popular there because the useless legal systems offer no recourse) in almost perfect replications of the original packaging were duller out of the box than a heavily used original Gillette blade.

Philips to Sell Lighting Unit to Investors for $2.8 Billion

11:18 PM MDT
March 30, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- Royal Philips NV agreed to sell a majority stake in its Lumileds lighting components unit to a group of investors as Chief Executive Officer Frans van Houten focuses the Dutch company on the consumer health-care market.

The buyers led by GO Scale Capital beat a rival consortium consisting of KKR & Co. and CVC Capital Partners and will pay Philips $2.8 billion for the 80.1 percent stake. GO Scale is a fund sponsored by GSR Ventures, which has offices in Beijing, Hong Kong and Silicon Valley, and Oak Investment Partners...

...The sale marks a turning point for Philips, which has sold lighting products since its founding in 1891. The separation of the unit, the world’s biggest maker of lamps and bulbs, mirrors Munich-based Siemens AG’s move in mid-2013 to spin off Osram Licht AG as an industrywide shift toward more-efficient light-emitting diodes intensified competition...

...The new company will continue under the name Lumileds. Sonny Wu, co-founder and managing director of GSR Ventures and chairman of GO Scale Capital, will serve as interim chairman. Wu, a Chinese investor in solar power and lighting technology, has made co-investments with Cheng Kin Ming, a Hong Kong property tycoon who has amassed about $20 billion in solar manufacturing assets.

Lumileds, which sells lighting components to the general illumination, automotive and consumer electronics markets, has operations in more than 30 countries. In 2014, it generated sales of about $2 billion...

...Philips will retain the remaining stock. As part of the transaction, the company will transfer about 600 patent groups tied to LED manufacturing and automotive lighting and expects the transaction to be completed in the third quarter, the CEO said...