THE Lighting Thread (merged)

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2560 Location: MA

If they can keep the costs down (and world demand)... This glow paint could help make for a brighter and more interesting future. I can't wait till Halloween! Very Happy

Seriously though, you know it will have a big impact on fashion. Radium lighted buttons were all the rage back in the day, back when radium was considered safe. Now Radium is not, but honestly tritium is a very safe radioactive element. The radiation cannot penetrate skin, but it can make phosphorus glow.

Also, this will make glowing gun sites much more common and be used in many applications like watches. However, just remember boys and girls that the worlds supply of tritium is very limited. It's a byproduct from reactors. I think the world supply of tritium right now is something like 18 kg and most of it is already slated for one use or another. So I think this will be seen in watches, buttons, markers, flashlight handles and emergency doorway lighting... But I don't expect people to be painting their houses with it.

yesplease · Fission Joined: Oct 03, 2006 Posts: 2569

edit- I got it. Very Happy

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mistel · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 20, 2005 Posts: 139

what if you look at it like this. Use the above example of a 20W CPFL verses 100W incandescent. The 20W costs about $3 to buy. If I use it 1000 hours per year, which is about 10% of a year I would save 80 Kwatts.
100Watt bulb x 1000 hours = 100 Kwatts x %80 = 80 Kwatts.

Here in Ontario I pay approx 20 cents per kwatt. So I would save $16 per year in this example. If the bulb only cost $3 surely the shipping is a small part of the price. Just a guess, $1 at most?.

So economically at least, it makes sense for me to buy Chinese made CPFL bulbs.

My question is, what would a CPFL bulb cost if it were made in th US?

Blacksmith

mistel · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 20, 2005 Posts: 139

I am going to start working with a small company that installs solar pool heaters. It is a new company that has only done a few installs and we are looking for solar or environmentally friendly products that we could import. I am thinking a good product right now would be LED lights, as they are not in the big box stores yet.
Does anyone have any experience with LED lights ?(the kind you can plug into a standard light socket) Do they work well? Does anyone know the name of any manufacturers?

Thanks

Peter

WatchfulEye · Tar Sands Joined: Jun 07, 2007 Posts: 54

I bought one as a test - It was a 'GU10' fitting, so a direct replacement for mains-voltage dichroic halogens.

It was a 1 W, compared to 35 W for the halogens - it was also about 3 times the price.

In short, it's dire. I mean, it's a complete and total waste of money.

The light output is miniscule - yes, it uses 3% of the energy, but it produces about 4% of the light. Instead of producing a nice 'flood' of light like the halogen, it produces a 'pencil' beam which projects a tiny bright spot of light (like a flashlight).

The color is terrible. They are a vile ice blue. Colors of food, skin, flowers, clothes, decorations, etc. are hideously distorted, with skin taking on a ghastly greenish hue. Food looks awful, although I suppose they might be quite useful as a way to lose weight!

They flicker - badly. Worse than old-style fluorescent striplights.

I suppose they might be useful for task lighting - e.g. desk lamps. But even then, you couldn't use them for visual arts because they make colors look so distorted.

Compact fluorescents are light-years ahead. CFLs don't flicker at all (unless you get cheap junk), and produce a reasonably warmish light similar to normal incandescent. CFL colors are inaccurate compared to halogen, but are miles better than LED - CFL light tends to mute reds, wheras LED tends to enhance turquoises and blues making things look very unnatural.

vision-master · Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject: Re: I want to import LED lights

mistel · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 20, 2005 Posts: 139

Thanks for the replies.

I bought a few different types off Ebay from China. They were cheap, I suspect they will be crappy.

mistel · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 20, 2005 Posts: 139

Well I got the LED lights and they are a little disappointing. It is like WatchfulEye describes, kind of a cool blue light. I actually don't mind the color so much, and the 48 LED GU10 are not that bad. I would guess they are about 1/2 the brightness of the halogens that they replaced. I could live with them. The 18 LED regular base lights are pretty bad. They are really dim. I am not sure what they could be good for, maybe for outside lights where you don't really need a light but just need a marker of some sort, like at the end of a driveway?

WisJim · Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 10:28 pm Post subject: Re: I want to import LED lights

I have bought a number of LED lights that fit regular 110 volt fixtures, mostly from http://www.superbrightleds.com/edison.html Some of them are the sickly ice blue color, which is okay for a night light etc., but not for a regular light or reading light. However, they do have some that are a nice "yellower" kind of loight, but so far they don't offer the practical style of multi-LED bulbs in the "yellower" colors.

I have a Model E27-W57 that has 57 LEDs and uses only a few watts (they say 5.5 but my meter says less), and it covers quite a reasonable area, but it is the bluish color that people don't seem to like. I think we have some E27-WLX-1W which is a 1 watt warm white LED that is a much nicer color, but it is a very concentrated spot. Use it in the shop on a light on an arm for lighting up detail work--and it is the most expensive of the ones we tried. The E27-x24 LED was only $10 or $11 in the "white" color--bluish again--and works for a wall light in a ceiling fixture that is on a lot of hours. We are always trying different types of efficient lighting, but haven't been real happy with the LED bulbs for house lighting most of the time. They are great in flashlights, though.

A thought about prices. When we started using CFLs about 20 years ago, they were in the $15 price range, which would be equivelant to $30 or $40 now, I think, and I figured that they still paid for themselves in energy and bulbs saved. Now they are usually available for $2 or $3 (CFLs I mean), and are hard to beat. I think that LEDs will be constantly improving, and prices will keep dropping. Keep checking them out.

SpringCreekFarm · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 03, 2006 Posts: 950

I'm just curious whether any of those CF lights are still going after 20 years.

mistel · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 20, 2005 Posts: 139

Hopefully people will keep buying these LED's. They are really just a work in progress at this point. Eventually, some company will come up with a good design that works well and can be mass produced cheaply. Then they will take off.
The LED's I ordered just 2 months ago have been changed from 18 to 27 LED's. Eventually they will get it right.

WisJim · Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:10 pm Post subject: Re: I want to import LED lights

jedinvest · Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:54 pm Post subject: Re: I want to import LED lights

I use about a 50/50 mix of CFLs and incandescent around the house. I often mix incandescent and CFL in one fixture if I can so they even out each other's weaknesses.

I must admit the 100-watt equivalent CFLs are a great energy saver and good for the workbench for sure. Some have lasted a long time in certain fixtures -- possibly the ones I've paid more for, but I loose track after a while of which one I bought for how much.

Some are pretty crappy, take a long time to turn on, die a premature life, even catch on fire -- one time! It's important to put them withing fixtures with non-combustible glass. I am still looking for appropriate fixtures in some cases.

LEDs are ghastly: I still have a bunch of Christmas lights that no one likes. Always get colored bulbs as the imitation white lights give a death-like unrealism to everything.

Revi · Fusion Joined: Apr 25, 2005 Posts: 3537 Location: Maine

We have LED lights in our solar back up light system. I figure that they will get us around the house without candles if something happens. They don't cast a very bright light, but they will be on for 50 years, so that's ok. We also have a few sockets to plug in a radio or charge a cell phone. I like the fact that they only draw .18 milliamps, so they won't tax the batteries at all, even though we never turn them off.

They aren't the bright lights, but they will look pretty good if we have no grid electricity.
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