LED bulbs ready for prime time?

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Alan
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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by Alan » March 26th, 2013, 3:45 pm

How do some of the bulbs you guys are talking about handle dimmer switches? I know some bulbs don't play friendly with them.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by SW315 » March 26th, 2013, 3:47 pm

Alan wrote:How do some of the bulbs you guys are talking about handle dimmer switches? I know some bulbs don't play friendly with them.
The Cree bulbs are dimmer friendly, but you have to use certain dimmers

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by andy10917 » March 26th, 2013, 7:26 pm

It's actually that the quality of the dimmer needs to improve. While CFL's and incandescent bulbs work by glowing (which is slower to decay), LED's react instantly and some dimmers make seem to create a bit of flicker.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by jglongisland » March 26th, 2013, 7:30 pm

So I have this one fixture where I have a terrible time finding a bulb that can fit in it because of the decorative glass, I need one with a long/narrow "neck" similar to an old fashioned GE bulb.

These Cree bulbs are nice, quality is the same as Philips at less than 1/2 the price.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by HanLawn » March 26th, 2013, 8:46 pm

Lutron makes many dimmers specifically rated to dim both CFL and LED bulbs,as do other manufacturers {a fast growing market}


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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by andy10917 » October 26th, 2013, 9:24 am

LED bulbs in the home may be about to take a big step forward. Cree's latest consumer offerings have now crossed over the requirements for Energy Star ratings, and some utilities are now offering instant rebates. With a rebate, the cost of a 60-watt replacement bulb would drop under $5 -- the point where many experts feel that widespread adoption would happen.

In the lab, Cree is now right around the 300-lumens-per-watt point - and the lab potential seems to lead real consumer product potential by 2-3 years. The lab numbers that seemed crazy when this thread was started two years ago are today's consumer products.

NYC announced this week that street lighting will be converted from Sodium lights to LED. The expectations are that the savings will be about $14MM a year.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by jglongisland » October 26th, 2013, 10:07 am

If Cree comes out with an A-19 100 watts equivalent then the last piece is done. I spent a lot of money on 4 sylvan dimmable 100 watt bulbs for my family room (that seemed about 20% brighter than the incandescents they replaced).

Last year I replaced every bulb in the house except the dining room (we have two fixtures with 8 40 watt bulbs, all different colors), spent a lot of money for flame type candelabra bulbs for our foyer and two bedrooms but used the Cree wherever I could.

I'd estimate I spent about $1100 and am saving about $60-90/month. I did it in the late spring, the real test is during the winter when lights are on more often.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by BoatDrinksQ5 » October 26th, 2013, 12:34 pm

Highly recommend the CREE BR30 flood bulbs for can lights! Exact same length of bulb, dimmable, and good light angle/spread.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by HanLawn » October 26th, 2013, 1:30 pm

we have been running 6 Cree 60w equivalents dusk to dawn since early spring in outdoor fixtures,so far so good.Before that,it seemed that I was out there replacing at least one burned out incandescent every other month-what a time and energy saving solution these have turned out to be.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by kevreh » October 15th, 2014, 6:03 pm

andy10917 wrote:My approach is to actually mount the Cree LED's with Silver thermal adhesive to 1" Aluminum square tubing (four of them), which have 120 gph of aquarium water circulated through it. This captures the heat and also keeps the LED emitters right at the 25C optimal operating temperature.

Obviously, the Aluminum could not be used as a saltwater tank solution, but this is a 135g freshwater planted tank. LED mix is 70% 6700K emitters and 30% Royal Blue Emitters.
Andy,

Do you have any pics of your planted tank, maybe on another forum? I have a nano planted tank. Had saltwater off and on for years, lost interest.

Back on topic, Im ready to convert my mr16 and gu10 bulbs to leds. Price is right not to mention the power cost savings. Buying the dimmers will suck though...$30ea. I have about 6 mr16s, 8 gu10s, and a number of regular socket bulbs.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by andy10917 » October 15th, 2014, 6:40 pm

Nope. There are no pictures. PM me about details about how you're trying to dim stuff though. There are many sources of dimmers, depending on whether you're handy and can build your own. I don't know if it's worth the effort for a nano tank though - with 75 LEDs, though, it certainly is...

Here's the LED lighting (6' current version) under construction:

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by Tony alony » October 15th, 2014, 8:27 pm

Like everything man-made there are drawbacks. See here: http://www.cnet.com/news/which-led-ligh ... r-dimming/
Maybe, since June of this year, all the negative aspects of the newest, greatest , technology have been ironed out? Just a thought.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by andy10917 » October 15th, 2014, 8:33 pm

People who wait for perfection never get anything done.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by Tony alony » October 15th, 2014, 8:42 pm

Agreed; and those that seek perfection have a benchmark to work from. In other words, the mistakes of others always fuel the path to perfection.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by kevreh » October 17th, 2014, 8:33 am

Just installed the lutron led/cfl dimmer with 8 phillips br30 and couldn't be happier. Very bright, the light color is close to incadescents, and the dimming is smooth.

When shopping at HD and lowes the common bulbs are pretty good price wise. The unique bulbs, like the gu10s and mr16s are better bought online.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by paulr » October 17th, 2014, 10:12 am

The other day I installed a no-name home depot LED in my closet for $23.
It is insanely bright, I then went to check out the package details, and figuring lumens per watt, and the LED was putting out something like an 85 watt equivalent. Very nice, very pleased.

I've got all CFL's in the house now, sans 3 LED's, I'll be very happy when all the CFL's are gone.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by kevreh » October 17th, 2014, 12:24 pm

CFLs were a bump in the road, I think LEDs are a much better alternative. CFLs had too many issues, and never saw them dim as well as LEDs. Not to mention their fragile and toxic nature.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by JustAGuy » October 17th, 2014, 12:32 pm

I dumped all my CFLs about 6 months ago for LEDs. I did not see a huge savings in electricity in doing so, but the LEDs have much better light and turn on instantly.

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by BoatDrinksQ5 » October 17th, 2014, 12:36 pm

It is great to see so many great LED bulbs (Cree, Phillips, Sylvania/OSRAM) now going for around 9.99

Wish i would have nabbed even more of the CREE 60w bulbs at HD when they were on sale for a few weeks at 4.99$!!!! Figured they would go on sale again....but now its been a few months :(

Hope their new high CRI bulbs drop in price and/or increase in efficiency(same as CFL lumuens/watt).

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Re: LED bulbs ready for prime time?

Post by kevreh » October 22nd, 2014, 8:09 am

Btw, I just bought 8 gu10 warm color bulbs on amazon for $7 ea. For some reason hd and lowes is selling these and the mr16s for around $20. Dont know why they dont have them at a better price.

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