LED lights

I had a really cool experience yesterday. We had the electricians install the 12 light fixtures in the ceiling. They were set up as 3 banks of 4.
 
I used 4 new 390 lumen LED bulbs and 8 new 390 lumen incandescent bulbs. (I intend to go all LED but thought I'd start slowly.)
 
Anyways, the electrician was curious about the LED lighting so after we got it running we ran a current draw comparison.
 
We all agreed that the lights seemed equally bright.
 
The 4 LEDS drew 0.4 amps and the 4 incandescent drew 1.6 amps. The LEDs are 4x times as efficient.
 
Pretty cool.

I'm gonna figure out how much money I'll be saving:

http://applications.nam.l...ips.com/ecocalculator/
 
 
best regards,
mike

Mike.... very nice. 

From what I know...seeing these lamps on the shelves in the stores, they are fairly expensive at this point so the ROI will likely be pretty far in the future at this point.  

As they produce more of them, hopefully the cost will drop way down. 

Our state has been using the LED lamps in the traffic lights here. While one of the benefits of LED's is supposed to be long life, the traffic lights don't really seem to be lasting nearly as long as the state had hoped. I see them all the time with banks of the LED's out or flickering. 

Another thing....  I'm not sure if this affects the LED's or not.... I need to do more research.... but the  toxic florescent lamps that people use are not supposed to be run for more than 4 hours at a time to get the maximum life out of the lamps.  I have a few of those in a few places in my house. Generally where the lamps are hard to reach for relamping. They have lasted quite well since they run a few hours or less.  I think they got the issue with some of the ballasts catching on fire resolved when left on for extended periods. 

Another big consideration is the quality of the light... or the color temperature.  Incandescent lamps give a warm color light while the florescent lamps give a harsh blueish light. My daughter's college dorm room had those in it. It was a horrible light source.  she used an incandescent desk lamp to do work assignments. 

I use an LED flashlight and like it quite well. But the "white" light has a blueish tint to it. Working on an attic or a dark crawlspace, any light source is appreciated. If I have to identify wire colors however, and in my line of work that is a constant, this color temperature light does not work well in many cases. Brown and black look the same and many other colors are very hard to ID. 


Let me know how you like the lights.  BTW.... did you miss a zero in the lumen rating? Lumen is a brightness rating and 39 is quite noticeably different from 390.

I installed some new spotlights on a rental house and on a whim, decided to experiment and bought the LED spotlights to see how they do. 

One more thing..... at a trade show for low voltage (security products) one of the vendors had the 400w metal halide LED replacement wall packs. I was impressed. A 400w MH lamp gets extremely hot. The vendor had this wall pack on a table with a towel thrown over it to keep from blinding everyone at the table. It was barely warm and yet extremely bright. The current the light drew was very low, nothing even close to the MH variety. 

They are moving in the right direction with lighting technology, and just like everything else, the price will drop if the consumers buy the products.

Jonbouy

I'm gonna figure out ow much money I'll be saving:

Off the top of my head that will be a 75% saving in energy costs.

Off the top of my head you're 20% to 40% better than most at figuring savings; even when it means that savings is an extra cost to me.

Jonbouy


Have you done a spectral analysis of the light quality between the respective lamps?

Whilst the LEDs may 'look' right there's no way of knowing what elements of the spectrum the light contains.  You can't trust your eyes here, you have to test.

Placement is important too.  Are you using reflectors, any diffusion, do you know the reflectance values of your wall finish?  These are all things that need to be carefully considered.

All this testing is just a fancy way of escaping (i.e. ignoring)  the placebo effect, no?

Jonbouy

bapu

Jonbouy


Have you done a spectral analysis of the light quality between the respective lamps?

Whilst the LEDs may 'look' right there's no way of knowing what elements of the spectrum the light contains.  You can't trust your eyes here, you have to test.

Placement is important too.  Are you using reflectors, any diffusion, do you know the reflectance values of your wall finish?  These are all things that need to be carefully considered.

All this testing is just a fancy way of escaping (i.e. ignoring)  the placebo effect, no?

No it really matters.

How can you record successfully if you are not seeing straight?

Lighting affects mood, that has been scientifically proven

As usual, I was looking at it form a different angle.

Why would you debunk myths? 

Myths Mermaid seems like a nice gal to me. Was she eating crackers in the bunk?

Jonbouy


Ja!

That ethplains it then. 

Guitarhacker


The spectral analysis means the color temperature of the light. 

testing that requires lab equipment. A better way is to look on the packaging. Normally, aside from the incandescent lamps, florescent and hopefully the LED's would have that information clearly visible. 

the fluorescent lamps are commonly called Cool White, Warm White, Day Light, or by generic such as Kitchen/Bath, Office, etc.... a look at the packaging has the color temp on it and some even have a picture or graph showing where the color temp is in relation to the sun. 

Indeed that's why you can't be too careful in a studio setting.

Traditional lamps can introduce too much warmth and colour which will likely cause poor decisions to be made when it comes to mixing.

We need to introduce as near to a full daylight spectrum in a reference setting.

Windows can help but they can also lead to daydreaming and wishing you could sit outside in the fresh air.

Clearly, we have to strike a balance here.

For those of us that can't use a calibrated lighting setup in the home studio for whatever reason can use these.



They are the lighting equivalent of wearing cans.

Jonbouy

ARC lites?

bapu

Jonbouy


 

ARC lites?

No, these are not just subtractive filters these offer the full range daylight spectrum at source.

Subtractive filters will only get you so far.

They're not cheap though obviously.

bapu

Jonbouy

ARC lites?

3D glasses?

Sorry, JB, I'm REALLY late posting this one!

LED efficiency is unfortuantley highly overrated due to the testing procedures used to compare the different forms of illumination. The basic problem is that the usual tests compare lumens at a point in the field of illumination. For an LED, which is basically a narrow beam illuminator, a meter placed in that beam may show equal lumens to a low temperature incandescent (old style bulb) or halogen incandescent at a given distance from the source. But the incandescent is radiating light over a nearly spherical dispersion. So the same meter measuring light from an incandescent moved 180 degrees (now on the other side of the bulb from the point where the first measure was taken) will measure the same. Move the meter behind the LED and it will measure zero, because the LED only throws light along one axis. To make the LED light up a wide area a disperser will be needed which will result in fewer lumens at the same distance. A focusing reflector behind that incandescent will produce far more lumens along the same axis than the LED would normally produce. In fact if you measure the total light output per watt of electricity from LED vs incandescent they are fairly close.
For a flashlight or reading lamp, the LED is an appropriate and efficient device. To evenly illuminate a living room it (actually they because you will need a bunch) is not substantially more efficient than an incandescent. LED lifespan far exceeds an incandescent, but the price is extremely high. The old style incandescent selling for a fraction of a dollar may not last as long, but is probably cheaper in the long run. Huge lifespan is not an issue so long as the lamp can be replaced easily.

slartabartfast


LED efficiency is unfortuantley highly overrated due to the testing procedures used to compare the different forms of illumination. The basic problem is that the usual tests compare lumens at a point in the field of illumination. For an LED, which is basically a narrow beam illuminator, a meter placed in that beam may show equal lumens to a low temperature incandescent (old style bulb) or halogen incandescent at a given distance from the source. But the incandescent is radiating light over a nearly spherical dispersion. So the same meter measuring light from an incandescent moved 180 degrees (now on the other side of the bulb from the point where the first measure was taken) will measure the same. Move the meter behind the LED and it will measure zero, because the LED only throws light along one axis. To make the LED light up a wide area a disperser will be needed which will result in fewer lumens at the same distance. A focusing reflector behind that incandescent will produce far more lumens along the same axis than the LED would normally produce. In fact if you measure the total light output per watt of electricity from LED vs incandescent they are fairly close.
For a flashlight or reading lamp, the LED is an appropriate and efficient device. To evenly illuminate a living room it (actually they because you will need a bunch) is not substantially more efficient than an incandescent. LED lifespan far exceeds an incandescent, but the price is extremely high. The old style incandescent selling for a fraction of a dollar may not last as long, but is probably cheaper in the long run. Huge lifespan is not an issue so long as the lamp can be replaced easily.

Luckily for me I have a Gossen Luna Pro Lumen meter, and amp meter, and a basic understanding of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index


So, when I report that I have just installed 4 $9.99 bulbs that put out an equal amount of similar light, compared to the 4- 40 watt incandescents that cost $0.50 each, it means that they actually put out the same amount of light at 1/4 of the energy use.

I've used the calculator I linked to above to compare costs.

Even if the LED only lasts as long as the $0.50 bulb it will saves enough energy that the total cost of operation is almost identical. So the expensive bulb pays for it self even if it doesn't last as long as advertised.

If the LED does last as long as advertised and I use it 1000 hours a year it will save me $12.00 per bulb per year in operating costs.

So for that single ceiling with a bank of 12 lights I may save up to $144.00 per year.

I'm in for the gamble...I'll end up somewhere between no savings and $144.00/year depending how long the lights actually last... plus I have plenty of current left over to crank the HVAC!!!


I was a doubter, but I started buying LEDs to experience them and I am finding that they are getting comparable to standard lighting in look, feel, and practical usefulness.

I doubted that you could save much money with the energy savings... but the calculator demonstrated that I just didn't imagine how much energy really costs.


Anyways...



all the best,
mike

I have an 800 lumen example as well... it makes most people stop and think about everything bad they have heard about LEDs.

It would..