More LED bulb options

[apostolakisl]

I picked up the Lowe's $9.95 utilitech pro 7.5 watt (40w eq) bulbs. Except for the price (my Lowe's had about a dozen more on the shelf and a sign stating that the sale ends 5/30), I'm not a huge fan. The light is somehow not the most pleasant. I would guess that it is a blend of a few narrow spectrum colors which gives it the unflaterrering aspect. I put it in a celing can on one side of an open passageway and left an incandescent in a can on the other side and compared the two. The two areas were eseentially a split of a hallway with both areas having the same physical characteristics (cream color paint on walls, same ceiling height, floor, and general dimensions) The color had a more magenta-ish hue to it, but it wasn't the color so much as a sense that it is harsh. It seems very contrasty. I don't know how else to describe it. It is as though it is dark and light at the same time. The light doesn't seem to bounce off of stuff to fill in the shadows.

To date, the only LED I have used with what I would call good soft white light is my Cree LR6. That is not to say there aren't others, I have personally only tried about 10 different LED's. The Cree, in my opinion, is a perfect incandescent replacement when used at full brightness. I have some of the cold blue LED's that I do like for one application, in a glass cabinet crystal display. Those looked really aweful in other applications.

The bulb also has the "out the top only" thing that most of the LED's of this style have. This pretty much rules out using it in a floor or table lamp unless you want all the light shooting out the top of the shade.

The first one just burned out. 22.8 years. .. or 2 months, whichever comes first.

 

[tmbrown97]

Wow - I have 32 of them and no issues. Not perfect, but with last month's electric bill being $650, I'll take all the savings I can get!

 

[Neurorad]

Popular Mechanics has a bulb review this month, covering incandescents, CFLs, and LEDs. No mention of Cree.

 

[batwater]

OP - have you tried an electronic dimmer, like a zwave/insteon/x1-/upb dimmer with your LED bulbs? I heard that they require a load in order to work/dim the light.
One fear I have with my investment in lighting control is that it will not be compatible with LED.

I have an Home Depot ecosmart 110 watt equiv 18 watt 4900k bulb in my breakfast bar soffit. There are 2 cans, 1 has the ecosmart, the other has a 60 watt incandescent. These lights are on an x10 switch. Had to leave the one incandescent in order to provide a load for the x10 switch to work. Will be converting the switch to UPB or insteon and will test again. Have a 2nd echosmart to test with that I've relocated to my basement for now. Love the lack of heat from the LED

Dimming of the LED bulb is excellent, stays same color at all dimming levels. At a certain point it does start flickering, I just bump back up past that point. The incandescent of course gets more yellow as it dims.

-Ben

 

[apostolakisl]

Wow - I have 32 of them and no issues. Not perfect, but with last month's electric bill being $650, I'll take all the savings I can get!

I wasn't mean to it. It was in a can ceiling fixture with no covering, in an air conditioned room with an air conditioned room above it.

 

[bbruck]

If anyone hears about the Lowes bulbs going on sale for $10 again please post it here. I wish I had bought more of them!

Question - can bulbs like those - standard edison LED - be used in vibrating situations like a garage door opener? My incandescents (even the heavy duty vibration resistant ones) seem to burn out a lot there.

 

[linuxha]

If anyone hears about the Lowes bulbs going on sale for $10 again please post it here. I wish I had bought more of them!

Question - can bulbs like those - standard edison LED - be used in vibrating situations like a garage door opener? My incandescents (even the heavy duty vibration resistant ones) seem to burn out a lot there.

Bill, since the LED bulb has no filament to get damaged I'd venture a guess that the answer is yes. I intend to use some in situations where a normal bulb gets damaged (my front door porch lights which hang down). I've experienced the same problem with halogen bulbs. I discovered that you need to purchase halogen bulbs that support being hung 'upside down' after several burned out within a few months of purchase.

The reason for the halogen bub is that my wife likes the crystal bulb and I now need to figure out how to cut off the bulb and put in the LED guts. :wacko:

 

[apostolakisl]

If anyone hears about the Lowes bulbs going on sale for $10 again please post it here. I wish I had bought more of them!

Question - can bulbs like those - standard edison LED - be used in vibrating situations like a garage door opener? My incandescents (even the heavy duty vibration resistant ones) seem to burn out a lot there.

I have had cfl's in my garage door opener for almost 3 years now without any burn-out. Not sure what brand.

 

[tmbrown97]

I gave up on the lights in the opener - I use the sensors on the doors to just turn on the big overhead lights - works much better!

 

[apostolakisl]

I gave up on the lights in the opener - I use the sensors on the doors to just turn on the big overhead lights - works much better!

I have that in addition to the ones in the opener itself. Nonetheless, I haven't had any problems with my 75w eq cfls in the oepner itself.

 

[apostolakisl]

Just returned my 2.8 month old Lowe's LED Utilitech bulb that burned out and they gave me credit.

I picked up a Sylvania Ultra LED 2700K bulb 40w eq 8w actal (sku 046135787317) in its place. It was more expensive ($30ish). It claims a 50k hour life. . . we'll see. Anyway, put it in a table lamp. It has the same issue with only throwing light out of the northern hemisphere, however, the color temp is very good. It really looks incandescent. And it almost gets orangeish as it dims. It still cuts out before going the full way to dim, but not too bad.

I think this bulb may be a great bulb for ceiling cans where the northern hemisphere of the bulb gets turned upside down and it throws light south which is the only direction needed in a can.

All in all, except for the CREE CR6, this is the closest thing I have seen to an led matching an incandescent. I have a CREE CR6 in the same room and it is a good match. And it is less than half the price.

Now if they can get the bulb to glow out of the all sides and drop the price to less than $10, I think America might go for it.

 

[kwilcox]

I'm really liking the Phillips 60W equiv 2700K A19 "Ambient LED" bulbs. They throw light in all directions and are fully dimable. I've got 3 in the living room so far. I bought them for $40 each when they first came out. The price is down to $30 now.

 

[fwd03]

For LED bulb to be dimmable, I guess it can not use switching power supply inside. I am making my own LED bulbs for fun. I made one using a single 20W LED chip, that can produce close to 150W light output. But it is kind of warm, requiring to have a little fan to cool it. I made another one using a single chip 10W LED, attached it to two Intel CPU heat sink -- I removed the fan, have two of heat sinks gang together. It can get to about 120F. but running fine without fan. Its output brighter than 60W GE halogen bulb. I don't think they are dimmable due to I use switching power supply. I ordered 100 1W LED chips, I will try to make one bulb using bridge rectifier and connect 30 of them in series. I think that will be dimmable.

 

[BLH]

I have one of the Ecosmart Dimmable LED bulbs.
It uses a National Semiconductor LM3445 IC. Made just for controlling LEDs and use with dimmers.

I found the data in a tear down of the bulb.

http://www.leds.edn.com/blog/leds-blog/home-depot%E2%80%99s-20-ecosmart-led-light-what%E2%80%99s-inside

 

[michelkenny]

Hmm tempted to jump on the LED bandwagon, but it's hard to justify the cost when our power up here in Canada only costs $0.06 / kwh