It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 6:18 pm

All times are UTC






Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 8 posts ] 


Author Message
PostPosted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:48 am 
Offline
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2009 12:48 am
Posts: 6227
Images: 1729
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/25 ... nergy_not/

An interesting read, and very possibly true. As LED's become more developed it is likely that people will use them more and more, and instead of using a 3w LED to replace a 60w bulb we could see more LED lamps used (whether 20 LED's would be used to replace the single 60w I don't know)... but the modal step to LED's could follw the pattern set in the past and see more of the new lighting used in general, leading to a brighter world

_________________
Tesco brings all the mums to the yard...
and they're like "do you have your club card"
Image


Top
 Profile  Personal album 
 
PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:39 am 
Offline
Member
User avatar

Joined: Mon Nov 09, 2009 5:27 pm
Posts: 1814
Images: 200
I can see this happening to a fair extent. You only have to look at street lighting for example. There are main roads in Portsmouth, for example, which 60 years ago were lit by 250w MA mercury lamps and are now lit by 250w SON lamps. Efficiency has improved, but rather than saving electricity they have increased lighting levels. Or there is residential area lighting in Hampshire. I'm not sure what wattage the old tungsten lighting was, but let's say it was 100w, and it was also part night. If you replace it with 70w SON, full night at half the spacings then you haven't got an energy saving.

Something you are seeing more of nowadays is decorative lighting. Kitchens are one example. Whether decorative lighting uses LEDs or not, electricity is still being used.


Top
 Profile  Personal album 
 
PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 9:42 am 
Offline
Site Administration
User avatar

Joined: Mon Nov 09, 2009 5:38 pm
Posts: 3402
Images: 27
Location: Salisbury
A 50W halogen downlighter bulb can be replaced with say a 9W CFL equivalent or a 7W LED version.

Attachment:
7w led.jpg
7w led.jpg [ 6.12 KiB | Viewed 13427 times ]


So in that case there is a potential power saving, trouble is as others have commented, it is likely to result in more downlighters being used.

The current "fad" for putting a blue LED on just about anything is another example. Look at kettles for instance, many of the less budget examples have a "illuminated water window" lit by LED(s). These will require a capacitive mains dropper circuit to run them so a small PCB with say a dozen components in them, which increases the complexity of the kettle, and produces electronic waste which isn't easily recycled at end of life. Is this really necessary?  What happened to a good old red neon indicator?  :x


Top
 Profile  Personal album 
 
PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 11:20 am 
Offline
Member
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 1529
Images: 12
My point exactly. Try telling people this and they look at you stupid and cannot grasp it.


Top
 Profile  Personal album 
 
PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 6:11 pm 
Offline
Member
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 8:46 pm
Posts: 540
Images: 11
Location: Colchester, Essex
I must admit that, aside from the toxicity concerns, and possibly the energy required to manufacture them, the move from GLS to CFL in domestic households can be considered quite successful in this regard, probably because the packaging clearly states the equivalent GLS wattage so the consumer knew what he was buying. It is still possible of course to use such an opportunity to increase lighting levels with the energy saving being a secondary matter, but with CFLs it is quite hard to obtain bulbs over 25 watts, which still forces an energy saving on any consumer switching from GLS.

I already have two 2 watt LED bulbs in my apartment...

Image
From www.lighting-gallery.net.

These ones emit light uniformly in all directions like a GLS of CLF, claim to be equivalent to 15 watts and one happily lights my hallway to a good standard. The hallway one replaced a 3 watt CFL, which at the time was hard to get hold of, but the size of the hall never justified using a larger wattage bulb.

Should domestic LEDs come along in the next few years while the memory of the brightness of 40 watt, 60 watt and 100 watt GLS bulbs are still fresh in peoples' minds, it would be good to repeat the example set by the CFLs by stating an equivalent wattage on the LED packaging in order to prevent consumers from buying needlessly brighter lights.

In my personal opinion, LED technology got off to a very poor start when some overly-grand and rather arbitrary words like 'super-bright' appeared on their packaging at a time when such products - especially those woefully dim LED downlighters and equally dim LED torches - were nowhere near as good as the existing filament-lit products on the market. In this respect, I hope the consumers' mind has a short lifespan and doesn't automatically associate all future LED bulbs with inferior lighting levels, like I unfortunately do now.


Last edited by David on Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:02 pm 
Offline
Member
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 8:54 pm
Posts: 2977
Images: 210
Are the LED (GLS shaped) lamps available in a bayonet cap version?

If they are I may purchase some.

_________________
From streetlighting to radio, dance through the night whilst the streetlights are glowing outside.


Top
 Profile  Personal album 
 
PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:17 pm 
Offline
Member
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 8:46 pm
Posts: 540
Images: 11
Location: Colchester, Essex
Yes, both mine were bayonet cap. I got mine from First Light Direct (scroll down for the 2 watt ones). This page from Lamp Specs shows the most popular versions of the bulb and additionally lists handy details such as lumen output and colour temperature.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 11:02 pm 
Offline
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2009 12:48 am
Posts: 6227
Images: 1729
You can also get those in some shops. there's such a shop in Manchester Arndale, called Clas Ohlson... it's a real Man Shop that you'll be just wandering around in for ages looking at everything thinking "that may be useful"! (and recently one opened in Leeds on the Headrow)... but they have GLS and BC leds in the standard bulb package.

We have two LED GU10's in our kitchen - it was supposed to be one that I'd bought off ebay, but the seller sent one and a week later another one arrived! I'm not complaining, I got 2 3x1w LED lamps for £12! they're equivalent to 35w Halogen, and at a push can replace 50w, but the downside to these and the 3x 2w (total of 6w or 7w depending on manufacturer) ones is the bulb itself is slightly longer, so unless you have open-backed recessed downlighters then the bulb hangs out slightly. Even though I got 'warm white' ones, Mum isn't happy with the light output itself, apparently it's "too intense" and is a "tiring light". Personally, I'd like to see them with a wider beam (possibly using lenses with bobbles at one end to diffuse the light outward a bit), and the ones in the kitchen do seem to have a slight green tinge to them when you look at the light output at certain angles.

We are looking towards more efficient lighting in the kitchen. When we moved in we had three fittings running 50w lamps on one circuit (550w total, 11 lamps) - we dropped 4 lamps to 35w and three to 20w (two of these now have the LEDs fitted, as they've been shifted across there for now) leaving four in the darkest part of the kitchen at 50w. I rewired the kitchen lights to have the far end two fittings on one circuit (two way plus intermediate switch) and the 4x 50w on a seperate circuit, so we don't need them all on at a time. But we want them replaced... Homebase sells fittings that run 3x 13w PL-T lamps, but at £50 each they're not cheap - plus I think they run 2 pin lamps so it'll be a cold start switchstart operation, but they're the only thing I've seen that looks as decent as a halogen bar whilst giving out light just as good if not better (as the ceiling would get light on it too). We don't want battens because their appearance isn't very decorative plus you have the startup time of the tube to think about, and single lights running circline or 2D lamps won't give out enough light. there's not enough space in the ceiling void for commercial PL-T downlighters and we can't afford fixed LED downlighters, so not much choice at the moment!

As for domestic energy savers, a lot of them are not correctly rated and do not give out as much light as they say they're equivalent to on the box. I can't remember when it will start but soon boxes will not show "equivalent to" ratings but just the lumen output, or at the very least the lumens will be more prominent than the eqiv to rating... personally I don't think the former is a wise idea.

_________________
Tesco brings all the mums to the yard...
and they're like "do you have your club card"
Image


Top
 Profile  Personal album 
 

Display posts from previous:  Sort by  


Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 8 posts ] 

All times are UTC



You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests



Search for: