As Of Yesterday It's (Incandescent) Lights Out

[45Doll 5,881]

There were a couple of stories yesterday about this, but not in the left wing media as far as I can tell.

The Incandescent Light Bulb Ban Starts Today – PJ Media

[raz-0 1,259]

"Life Hacker reports that your average incandescent bulb costs $2 to $3. LEDs price out in the neighborhood of $5 to $7 a pop. Life Hacker says that according to the DOE, LED bulbs use 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs and last 25 times longer."

What's everyone's experience with this? 

I've never really seen the numbers put in articles represent either real world numbers or the actual real world comparisons people are doing. 

First I'll say I hate incandescent bulbs generally. Mostly because everything had become sylvania grade dog shit. But that dog shit, in my experience, was about a buck a bulb unless you bought them in two packs. They also MAYBE lasted a year. I was living in a place where I had a lamp near the front door. Those sylvania bulbs would burn out if you closed the door to hard.  IMO peak incandescent was late 80s and early 90s when you could still get the funny shaped phillip's bulbs. Those things lasted like 3+ years if you didn't abuse them. 

Second, most people aren't deciding between incandescent and LED, they are deciding between CFL and LED. 

Cost wise, incandescent was about a buck, CFL and led cost about the same and seem to have settled at about $2-3 a bulb and they took a similar cost path to get there (starting out being rare and scarce and about $30 a bulb to ~$15-20 to ~$5-7 to ~$4 then about $2). 

As for lifespan, IMO CFL wins. The cheap ones were the longest lasting as lifespan was something that improved over time. having them last 4+ years for the non ultra compact versions wasn't uncommon. The LEDs started out great. I jumped in at like the $15 ish dollar mark for the fixtures they would fit in, and those things lasted well over 10 years. The new ~$2 ones? Maybe 2 years. 

Energy savings are much bigger. Incandescent to LED is huge. But most people were shifting from CFL to LED. And the energy savings there was not huge. 

[father-of-three 243]

I have had some cfl bulbs in my basement for several years.  The squiggly look is kind of cool.  I have had an led bulb outside on my garage exposed to the weather for at least 5 years.  Led bulbs do often get an annoying stobe flash when they get old.  Yes, cfls and leds  last longer, but im pretty sure incandescent bulbs are not anywhere near the top of the so-called climate change no-no list.

 

That slippery slope of is getting darker now due to a light bulb ban.

[10X 3,306]

43 minutes ago, raz-0 said:

"Life Hacker reports that your average incandescent bulb costs $2 to $3. LEDs price out in the neighborhood of $5 to $7 a pop. Life Hacker says that according to the DOE, LED bulbs use 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs and last 25 times longer."

What's everyone's experience with this? 

 

I never had an issue with incandescents, but I really like LEDs, as long as I get the 'warm' ones (which mimic incandescent light), not the 'daylight' ones.   I've never, ever had one fail, so they do last a lot longer than the alternatives.   I tend to believe the energy efficiency claims, since they're not wasting energy as heat, but I've never made a direct measurement.   I do wish they were more dimmable...even the ones marketed as dimmable don't have nearly the range of incandescents when used with a dimmer.

Mostly I'm happy that they've pushed the CFLs out of the market.  I hated those things.

[Scorpio64 5,163]

I like LED but they don't seem to last as long as the advertised life.  The LED itself may be good for a bazillion hours, but the electronics are crap and die from heat.  I think they are engineered to die at a pre-planned interval.  To me, the value in LED is when I'm using my generator.  When you swap LED for incandescent, you free up as much as 1000 Watts  that can be used to power up a major appliance, or just reduce the demand and use less fuel.

Overall, I think CFL is a better bulb, but there is the cold start problem and they are not dimmable.  Also, I think they are better able to handle line faults.  Had an overhead fixture where incandescent lasted 6 months tops, replaced with CFL and the bulb lasted several years until I replaced with LED.

One issue with LED lights is the "lights out" problem.  LEDs are semiconductors and will get fried in an EMP.  I suspect CFL may be subject to the same effect as there is some solid state circuitry in them too. 

Halogen is often overlooked.  I used halogen when I did video production years ago, and also had some nice track lighting in the rec room too.  Halogen lasts forever, at least that's been my experience.  Halogen bulbs use more electricity than LED, but if you compare the overall cost to own and use, halogen breaks even with LED because they are less expensive to buy and will last ten years.

[1LtCAP 4,264]

this makes me wanna dig out the incandescents i have and replace the led's with them.

[brucin 923]

My problem with LED bulbs is they don't dim near as well as incandescent. I have mostly dimers throughout my house. I have a few LED G 10 bulbs in a fixture that dim barely acceptable. The halogens are far superior.

I received a freebee pack from JCP&L a few months ago that had a few standard Edison LED bulbs that said on the packaging dimmable. They didn't dim at all. Once I dropped the voltage they would blink rapidly or shut off. I'm running Cync dimmers and changed the settings to use LED bulbs and once that failed I tried both incandescent and halogen and nothing worked.

I want to try top of the line LED but if they don't dim to my standards I will return them. I guess Amazon will be the way to go.

Anyone out there have experience with dimmable LED's?

[Displaced Texan 11,757]

14 minutes ago, brucin said:

Anyone out there have experience with dimmable LED's?

I haven’t found one yet that works worth a damn. 

[SmokenClay 21]

13 minutes ago, brucin said:

Anyone out there have experience with dimmable LED's?

Recently found EcoSmart dimmable LED bulbs.  I have one above my kitchen sink next to an incandescent.  They are practically indistinguishable in as far as brightness when dimming and color temperature.  I give them 2 thumbs up coming from someone that hated LED/CFL as the color would give me a headache (too institutional.)

The only hiccup is when I first turn on the switch the LED takes half a second to come on.  It's a little annoying but waiting for the incandescent to fail before I replace it.

[silverado427 10,760]

FJB.

[Scorpio64 5,163]

1 hour ago, brucin said:

Anyone out there have experience with dimmable LED's?

I had a similar issue when I replaced the bulbs in a bank of ceiling lights.  I replaced the dimmer to one that was marked LED compatible and the problem mostly went away.  Sometimes I have to fiddle with the dimmer to get a position where the flicker goes away.

I think it's a combination of quality bulbs and a dimmer switch meant for LED. 

[brucin 923]

6 minutes ago, Scorpio64 said:

I think it's a combination of quality bulbs and a dimmer switch meant for LED. 

The Cync dimmers say they are LED compatible so I'm hoping for at least something I find acceptable.

I imagine this ban does not apply to theatrical lighting. If it does the lighting designer is really going to earn his paycheck.

[planenut 60]

2 hours ago, brucin said:

My problem with LED bulbs is they don't dim near as well as incandescent. I have mostly dimers throughout my house. I have a few LED G 10 bulbs in a fixture that dim barely acceptable. The halogens are far superior.

I received a freebee pack from JCP&L a few months ago that had a few standard Edison LED bulbs that said on the packaging dimmable. They didn't dim at all. Once I dropped the voltage they would blink rapidly or shut off. I'm running Cync dimmers and changed the settings to use LED bulbs and once that failed I tried both incandescent and halogen and nothing worked.

I want to try top of the line LED but if they don't dim to my standards I will return them. I guess Amazon will be the way to go.

Anyone out there have experience with dimmable LED's?

Anything that's a variable voltage device is probably going to have issues with LED's. I have ceiling fan lights in my bedroom, office, and living room. On my office and bedroom ones if I put all LED's in the lights don't always turn on when the should. Sometimes it's a noticeable delay, other times they don't come on at all and these are the ones that are advertised as "dimmable" (which is what I've been told to use). I found if I use one incandescent bulb in conjunction with LED's the lights on my fans function just fine. It's just a sick irony that in order to properly use these energy efficient light bulb I have to rip out energy efficient ceiling fans that I use to keep cool when an air conditioner would be over kill.

[Malice4you 627]

Been using LEDs exclusively for years. Have had 2 go out prematurely, 1 was replaced under warranty, the other one of the 'panels' flickers for a few seconds when turned on, then works fine, so it was moved to the basement.

Had CFLs before going LED. No comparison, I will take LED any day. No bullshit dim warmup, you can turn LED on and off quickly/often without severely reducing lifespan, far less fragile, usually way brighter in a more compact size, etc.

 

Get high Color Rendering Index (CRI) bulbs if you want a bulb that reproduces colors accurately. Cheap bulbs may make things look duller or less vibrant. Unfortunately, most bulbs fail to list this value.  I believe 100 would be a perfect score, so 90+ is optimal.

 

Learn about color temperature (°K)

3000K +/- 400 should reproduce the warm colors of fillament bulbs. Most likely to match old bulbs if using a mix

4000K +/- 500 is IMO a good compromise of warmth without being too warm or too cool

5000K +/- 500 is a cool color and will be very blue if mixed with fillament bulbs. May match better if used with florescent bulbs

The lower the K number, typically the more orange or yellow hue the light will have, the higher the number, the more blue. Many bigger stores have a display of the different colors side by side.

 

My biggest complaint about LEDs: Some (not all)  have a perceptable delay between being switched on and the light output. I do find it annoying, but I'll take that over a dim CFL startup that takes a while to get to full brightness.

Many LEDs cannot be used on dimmer switches. None of my bulbs flicker (excluding the faulty one, which only temporarily, partially blinks for a few seconds).  I've found good deals on Amazon of 10+ packs for replacing many lightbulbs all at once, so everything matches. That said, buy spares because some will inevitably die early and getting an exact match later may be hard.

 

Power savings and less heat are significant. So is lifespan - some of my old LED bulbs (in fixtures where itd be annoying to replace em yearly) are still in use 8+ years in, and are used daily multiple hours a day. I can run 6-8 LED bulbs for same energy 1 old bulb used. As someone said, helps for the generator, too.

[45Doll 5,881]

Has anyone asked "When did this law pass?"?

Executive Orders and the End of Liberty - American Thinker

[Displaced Texan 11,757]

36 minutes ago, 45Doll said:

Has anyone asked "When did this law pass?"?

Executive Orders and the End of Liberty - American Thinker

Joe did it by EO. 
 

 

I have an executive order for Joe….kiss my ASS!

[Bomber 1,092]

7 hours ago, Displaced Texan said:

Joe did it by EO. 
 

I have an executive order for Joe….kiss my ASS!

Actually, we can thank baby Bush and republicans, they passed the original legislation that got the ball rolling in 2006 or 2005.

Remember when you couldn't buy incandescent 100w bulbs anymore, then 75 watt etc, that was the republicans doing.

Thats the problem with republican presidents and republican controlled congress, they'll pass shitty laws that would never get approved if proposed by a democrat president.