Anyone use LED lights yet?
madmadscientist
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
I’m looking for any info an quality LED lights.
I was at a green building products store and they had these LED lights from a company called Cree that are meant to be used as recessed cans. They had 4″ and 6″ cans and the light looked really good.<!—-><!—-> <!—->
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The sales person there said that he didn’t think there were yet any good LED lights that are meant to screw into <!—-><!—->Edison <!—-> sockets as incandescent replacements. The ‘real’ LED lights seem to be big and ugly and bulky.
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
Replies
As much as LED lighting is my life now (municipal and commercial, though), I haven't seen that residential versions are ready for prime time - consumers don't know enough yet about CRI and CCT to push for characteristics that make LED lighting look better but pull the efficacy down.
The Cree guys are jerks, anyway.
Forrest
So LED residential applications are resigned to accent lighting for the foreseeable future?Or do I just need to break out my residential pitchforks and torches and go have a chat with the Cree Indians.'Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it' ~ Chinese proverb
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Well, the future's happening pretty fast - maybe not so long. I was thinking of putting an incandesent/fluorescent/CFL/metal halide/HPS/LED/OLED comparison sheet together "for the layman", and posting it here.
Might be a good way to cut through the BS you hear in advertising and unschooled reviews.
As an example, LED efficacies are still quoted to us, who know better, in "instant on" lumens per watt.
Okay, that's really a good number for twenty-five milliseconds, but not really useful.
Forrest
Of course, you're right. As that old philosopher Ferris Bueller remarked, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look once in awhile, you could miss it."I'd be very interested in seeing that comparison sheet. Thanks.'Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it' ~ Chinese proverb
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It strikes me that a comparison sheet might be of interest to the honchos at FHB. Might pay for your time.Steve
We installed some fancy ceiling fans (OK, Home Depot but they looked nice) which had LED lights in the light globe. The lights are horrible. They are too dim to be of any use except to find the switch for the halogen or CFL lights.
On the other hand, I would not have been able to work on the tahoe house without the LED headlamp. 50 hours on three AAA batteries! For real! And the light is great. Plus they have a red light that I use on the trailers with burned out tail lights.
My energy auditor friend (who gave me hell for my plasma TV and halogen lights) did not recommend LED lights when we took her money (SDGE energy saving rebates) to replace the office lights. She didn't feel that LEDs were ready for civilian use.
I'd love to see a comparison but I bet the market is evolving too fast.
Eric
Hmmmm!
One of the issues for residential is ROI payback - who's going to be in their house 6-8+ years for initial cost recovery?
I'm an EE, and I get asked a lot about LEDs, particularly for streetlights. One or two of the local cities have installed a few of them on a trial basis, but they haven't been very satisified with their color or output. We've been watching the development of LED streetlights for a while, and even though I don't think they're ready yet to replace high pressure sodium or metal halide, I expect they will eventually.
About the only places where I regularly specify LEDs is for traffic signal lights and for aircraft clearance lights on top of water towers. They're pretty slick for this application; anything that will minimize how many times you have to climb to the top of a water tower to change a light bulb is a good thing.
Do you know who's lights they are using?
I swear I'm not a shill for Cree but since I've just been all over their webpage..
They've got this program called LED City and it looks like they've gotten some places to sign up?
http://www.ledcity.org/participating/
Do you know who made the LED street lights your local city didn't like. I'd like to talk to people who have actually used the products. I'd hate for my local city to buy a bunch of lemons
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
One city was Brooklyn Park, MN. They used lights from Relume Technologies. Here's a newspaper article about them: http://www.startribune.com/local/north/37387079.html
Thanks,
I was just reading about a company Beta LED's that did a street light retrofit in Oakland here. The before and after pictures look pretty amazing. I've neverl iked the yellow light from high pressure sodium lights.
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
Cost recovery has a good side that I seldom hear mentioned. It is a motivator for the buyer. If folks take the initiative to invest in home improvements, including green directions, it could lead to a quicker sale or to a better price. If the buyer knows that high quality LED lights, solar water heating or high quality windows are a part of the house, I think that can be quite helpful.
On the other hand, I would not recommend certain renovation and painting projects just before selling a house as they can bring out issues of taste. I would rather pay less for a home that needs a new kitchen and have the kitchen designed to my specs than to pay more for a home with a beautiful new kitchen that doesn't have the features I want, or maybe has oak instead of cherry cabinets, for example. If I buy a home, I would also rather paint it with my choice of colors.
Some people just want to move into a finished house right away and do not want to do any thinking. These are not the only buyers out there.How can you understand God if you can't understand people? How can you understand people if you can't understand yourself?
Hey - here's something cool. I built this yesterday (got to be home in my own personal shop) for our big trade show, LightFair, coming up soon in NYC.
It shows the new shape, a "Slot" fixture from our Mark Lighting division. The actual one has about 1500 tiny warm white LEDs on (16) "sticks", or circuit boards. The fixture fits a standard 2x2 ceiling grid, and a cut-down piece of the acoustical tile fits in the center.
The startling colors are just to grab your attention at the show. There are about (200) three-color LEDs driven by a little pre-programmed sequencer in different color blends. The diffuse lens and internal reflectors spread the light into a pretty darn perfect distribution along the output face.
Does anyone know how to save this as a .wmv?
Forrest
Here you go. You can do this at http://media-convert.com/What's all that heavy breathing in the background?'Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it' ~ Chinese proverb
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Check out these sites.http://www.ledwaves.com/http://www.ccrane.com/lights/index.aspxhttp://www.superbrightleds.com/led_prods.htm
Please do tell about why the Cree guys are jerks?
I'm actually thinking about commercial uses for the lights in my little town with our muni-utility. We're going to get stimulus money and one of the things they are thinking about is upgrading the lighting in the public buildings.
At the green build store I saw the Cree can light products and their flourescent tube replacement product. They looked pretty good.
Doesnt Cree have a patent or something out on a better white light LED? I agree that most cheapo LEDS are waaaaay to blue.
The green build guys also like lumenas <sp?> lighting for things like under cabinet and behind crown molding on cabinets type of lighting.
Please tell me more Forrest!
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
Yes, Cree has a lot of patents on LEDs and they've been working on high power LEDs for a long time. But I've never dealt with them so I don't know about their attitude...
Billy
I'm still looking for them. Please post here if you find them.
Family.....They're always there when they need you.
I have the Cree lights in my office and reading nook. The ones that screw into the edison base in a regular can light. Really nice light for reading or other tasks, diffuse and good color. Side by side with other options as seen at the IBS you really can appreciate the wide dispersion of the light and reduced glare and softer shadows.
I may not have the right dimmer but I can only get them to dim about 20-30% before they just turn off. so I just use them for task areas. I paid about $80 each and they are alleged to last 20 years. I think they have a good place in a home and are better than CFLs but not the thing for a romantic dinner etc.
I don't think the Cree guys are jerks. But they definitely drink the Kool Aid, as in they think their product is the answer to the worlds problems.
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Guys, none of the major lighting manufacturer's people think that LEDs are ready for general use. I meet with some of them each December. they all say it will take about three to four more years. Right now, the Dept of Energy is offering a $10 million reward (the "Bright Tomorrow Award") for the first true solid-state replacement for a 60 watt light bulb. Furthermore, they will require the government to buy them. Nobody has yet claimed the reward.there are several problems with LEDs:+ Color rendition is generally unattractive, and filters to modify color reduce efficiency.+ Independent and government efficiency tests find them to be far less efficient than manufacturer claims.+ The life of the LED is highly dependent on temperature - and they do not radiate heat well. Therefore, in many applications, their lives will be shorter than advertised.+ Replacement usage is very limited, because they just don't work as screw n units. You have to have the whole fixture.+ Technology is changing rapidly, so today's LED luminaire may be tomorrow's obsolete junk with no replacement parts available. + Light output in an LED declines from the first minute of use and just gets dimmer and dimmer until it is no longer acceptable. Of course, it takes quite a while for this to matter to the user, but just how long? There are no good metrics available.All that said, they are truly the bee's knees when it comes to some specialty functions like those mentioned in a prior post, and also including signage.
Great thanks for the feedback,
Is it one of these products?
http://www.creelighting.com/LR6.htm
http://www.creelighting.com/LR4.htm
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
The ones I have are made by Cree as I ubderstand but marketed by LLF here in Morrisville NC 919-991-0700 http://www.LLFinc.com the model I have is the LR6. I think I paid $85 each for them. Hope this is helpful.------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."