Light bulb life incandescent vs LED
#31
meackerman said:


odd. my store has so many of these they've got them lining the center of the aisles with them.




same here, and they're scattered around the store a bit too -- with the bulbs, with the lights, around the electrical stuff.
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#32
and they have 3 Cree 40w dimmable daylight (2700K) LEDs that look similar but cost different and use different amount of watts.

So do you get the $5 one that uses 6 watts, the one that costs $7 and uses 8.5-Watts or the one that costs $8 and uses 6 watts.

I went with the $5 ones, which at the time I bought them were $4.

<shrug>
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. - Philip K. Dick

Mark

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#33
at least for me, i look at output first, then dig down in a little further if need be. then again, i'm not picky . . . just kinda cheap.
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#34
465 Lumens, 450, 450.

So $3 a bulb worth 15 Lumens?
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. - Philip K. Dick

Mark

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#35
JTTHECLOCKMAN said:


[blockquote]Cooler said:


I ordered dimables (Cree, daylight) they arrive today. They are rated for 25,000 hours which is approximately what I am getting from the dimmed incandescent bulbs. If they don't get much better life than 25,000 hours then it is a bad investment for me. They cost about 10 times what an incandescent bulb costs.

If they go 6 years instead of 3 years the money does not work but the convenience does. But if they last the same 3 years I will have wasted about $30.00.




If your math is correct you could have bought 10 light bulbs to one and for the little inconvience of changing them will outweigh the cost. The savings in the bill is not that noticable when dealing with such low wattage. Good luck though. You are helping the enviroment.


[/blockquote]

Just to be clear, if the cost savings in energy consumption is too low to notice, then any helping of the environment will also be too low to notice. In fact, the additional energy & materials to manufacture the more expensive bulb gives you an idea of the additional environmental impact of its fabrication.

In short, no help to the environment. But saving yourself some ladder work is a safe and good thing.
Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty! - Samuel Adams
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#36
probably wouldn't be for me!

we had these kinda funky LED ones we got at lowe's a few years ago. well, one of 'em finally took a dump. lowe's showed no longer available, so i found something one # off the model # on amazon.

was in lowe's the other day, and they had a small box of 'em in the lighting section for less than i just paid . . . crapola.
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#37
Cooler said:

......It dims to about 1/3 brightness. I have Lutron dimmers and I don't know if they are "rated" to work with LEDs, but they seem to work fine. The dimmest setting is too bright to use as a night light....



We have a "100 watt equivalent" bulb in the shower with an LED dimmer. It dims from almost too dark at night to too definitely bright for the morning. Wonder if that is the difference between a "regular" dimmer and an "LED" dimmer??? I was replacing a regular switch with a dimmer, so I bought an LED one instead of a regular one. I asked what the difference was, and they said "I don't know...sometimes others just don't work".
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#38
A standard dimmer is a rheostat adding resistance but a CFL/LED dimmer is a pulse width modulator microprocessor. CFL's and LED's draw too little wattage to be effective dimmers so a digital approach is used. PWM's pulse the voltage instead of lowering it. The duty cycle occurs so fast that the eye does not perceive the oscillations of the square wave. Be sure to check the LED dimmer is compatible with your particular LED bulbs. Some work better with certain bulbs than they do with other dimple LED's. You would have to find the spec sheet from the switch manufacturer and not product packaging.
Any free advice given is worth double price paid.
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#39
Woodenfish said:


A standard dimmer is a rheostat adding resistance but a CFL/LED dimmer is a pulse width modulator microprocessor. CFL's and LED's draw too little wattage to be effective dimmers so a digital approach is used. PWM's pulse the voltage instead of lowering it. The duty cycle occurs so fast that the eye does not perceive the oscillations of the square wave. Be sure to check the LED dimmer is compatible with your particular LED bulbs. Some work better with certain bulbs than they do with other dimple LED's. You would have to find the spec sheet from the switch manufacturer and not product packaging.




I wrote to Lutron asking about that. My switch is at least 10 years old and it is not likely that it is rated to operate LED bulbs. There was not much demand for those switches back then.

I will post the Lutron response when I get it.
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
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#40
I just wrote to Cree also:

Customer Service,

I have three 9 watt (60 watt equivalent) bulbs in a home light fixture controlled by a dimmer switch.

Will operating the bulbs on a lower setting of the dimmer extend or reduce the bulb life. I like to leave the bulbs on the lowest setting at night as a night light. With standard incandescent bulbs that practice will yield about a 3 year bulb life (about 25,000 hours).

If it does not extend the bulb life I will get a dedicated night light for that purpose.

Regards,

Packard


(I will report their reply when I get it too.)
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
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