Light Bulbs

Texas Proud said:
I got a bunch at Home Depot.... and IIRC they say dimmable, but they do not work at my breakfast table where I want them... they will dim some, but the switch is humming pretty loud which I do not like... I have two of them in with two normal bulbs and it seems to work much better...
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You need to replace the dimmer with one that's compatible with LEDs.
 
Picked up 10 LED BR40's at Costco and they worked with dimmers that were originally installed 20 year ago.
 
misanman said:
Picked up 10 LED BR40's at Costco and they worked with dimmers that were originally installed 20 year ago.
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I don't think that's the norm. We replaced all of our bulbs w/LEDs and none of the dimmers worked properly. One hummed and one would barely dim. We replaced all the switches with LED compatible ones and they work great.
 
W2R said:
I have a floor lamp that was designed for 3-way 50/100/150W bulbs, and turning the lamp up to the highest level helps for reading. I think 3-way incandescent bulbs might be easier to find than plain 100W incandescent bulbs. I bought a package of two such bulbs from Amazon in January of 2014 and haven't had to buy any more. Since my cataract surgeries I only use that lamp occasionally, mostly when I am reading for a very long time.

Also, I have heard that LED bulbs can be nice and bright although I haven't shifted over to them yet myself.

I would urge you to ask about cataracts the next time your eyes are checked. Cataract surgery is great these days. Mine only took 7 minutes for both eyes, and sure brightened up the world.
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Got a 3 way LED for Mom's house. GE Brand. Works great , color tone good too. It was about $16 at HD or Lowes ?
 
The problem that most people have branded into their brains is that we incorrectly associated brightness with wattage. There is a correlation sometimes.

Wattage is the power the device consumes, lumens are the brightness of the lamp. Heat is the wasted energy that is given off when the filament(s) glow. That is why enclosed lamps are limited to 60 watts or less. Most but not all light circuits are on 14 gauge wire, which is usually limited to 15 amps in a 120 volt circuit, or 1800 watts.
 
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Actually we should start looking at lumens (a measure of light emitted) not watts. 100 watt incandescent is 1600 lumens, 40w is 450, 60 w is 800, 75w is 1100, 150 is 2600. By using lumens you can compare a number of types of lamps. Note that in many cases if you go to florescent tubes they beat leds.
 
We have LED floodlight type bulbs in the recessed cans in 10ft ceilings for our dining room and kitchen. We have them on dimmer switches. They work great - huge range of brightness from very dim "atmosphere" lighting to super bright see every detail lighting.

We originally had fluorescent with on-off switch and rarely used the lights because they were too bright.
 
Texas Proud said:
We bought LEDs for the kitchen and they work great... the 'lens' is not clear so it projects the light all over.... but we do have 4 in a pretty small area... not sure how they would work in a large living room with vaulted ceilings...



Similar to this... not sure if this is what I bought....

Philips 65W Equivalent Soft White BR40 Dimmable with Warm Glow Light Effect LED Light Bulb (E)*-457002 - The Home Depot
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Thanks for the reference, but those are showing as only 650 lumens. I think the ones that I have currently (incadescent BR40s) were 1800 lumens rated at 120V.

-gauss
 
MichaelB - in my experience wtih LEDs and dimmers, it depends. Real helpful, I know. The first "dimmable" LEDs that I bought (about 2 years ago) just wouldn't dim with the old dimmer switches, they would turn on at a certain point on the way up and turn off at some other point on the way down. So I replaced some of the dimmers with LED approved ones and everything was hunky dory. The last LEDs I bought (last week) I put straight into the old incandescent slots and they work fine with the remaining old dimmer.

So maybe the LEDs are improving so that they are more compatible. Or maybe I just got lucky.
 
NW-Bound said:
Supposedly not, if the LED bulb is of the dimmable type. However, posters have talked of having some problems like flickering. I myself have not used LEDs on dimmers, so do not know.
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We put an LED in DS's bedroom and it flickers when dimmed. Eventually we'll replace the switch to an LED dimmer switch.
 
I put a 6 watt small LED (60w eq) in my fridge to replace that 40 watt filament appliance bulb that was in there.

Works great, more light and I'm not putting 38 watts of heat in a cooled space anymore.

I only have 2 incandescent lights in my house now, the one in the oven and the one in the clothes dryer. The stuff with electronics in them can't take that kind of heat.
 
gauss said:
Thanks for the reference, but those are showing as only 650 lumens. I think the ones that I have currently (incadescent BR40s) were 1800 lumens rated at 120V.

-gauss
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I just did a link... I bought 90W equivalent... so mine are brighter than the one I linked... but I do not think they are 1800...


Here are more.... I do not think I got the Phillips.... either Cree or Feit....



http://www.homedepot.com/b/Electrical-Light-Bulbs-LED-Light-Bulbs/BR40/N-5yc1vZbm79Z1z0vvqx
 
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I just replaced a bunch of our indoor recessed lights with LEDs. We have dimmers on all the recessed lights in the house. In one room the dimmer took the lights all the way down to basically off. But in all the other rooms it only dimmed to about halfway. These are the same dimmer switches, 8 years old, and I have no explanation as to why the one works perfectly and the others less so. But at least none of them do the whine/hum that the incandescents sometimes did, and they at least dim partially without flickering, which is better than the CFLs I tried. It's not worth the effort to figure it out, and not worth the price to replace the bulbs or the dimmers. And I doubt I'll live here long enough to have to replace the bulbs again, so I won't know if improved technology will solve the issue. So, it is what it is. Try it and see how it works. If you're not happy with the results you can usually return the bulbs.
 
To everyone,
Thanks for your responses. I ended up with 100W LED it says it takes about 14.5W. Room is very bright now!!! Thanks again.
 
I replaced every bulb in my house with LED. I am a product tester, and was privileged to try many different brands. My conclusion:

Quality and operation differ greatly among LED bulbs.

I think we got used to incandescents basically being a commodity. They are all the same, more or less. Not so with LEDs. The product is still maturing.

The obvious difference is color, but beyond that there are three other things to consider:

  1. On-time. Some bulbs have an irritating start up time, up to 500ms (1/2 second) which is VERY irritating for lights on a switch
  2. Dimmability. Some are better than others. No LED that I've tried yet is good at the bottom end. For incandescents, you can tail off to 1% brightness. Not so with LEDs.
  3. Size and shape. Wildly different. This can affect the way it fits in your fixture, AND the way light is thrown from the bulb (the pattern).
Overall, I've seen huge improvement in product the last 2 years during this testing project. I've also seen signficant price difference. In about 5 years, LEDs will be the norm and we'll start forgetting about the CFL era for good. Incandescents will have a specialty role, but you won't want them normally because of the heat and cost.


Oh, and as for my electric bill? Well, this is the first project I've done on the house that materially and significantly reduced my electric usage. More than my new fridge. More than my new A/C unit. As a libertarian leaning voter, I have to admit, that the government regulation provided the kick in the pants to the manufacturers to move this LED project along. I hate to admit that!



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Texas Proud said:
I just did a link... I bought 90W equivalent... so mine are brighter than the one I linked... but I do not think they are 1800...

Here are more.... I do not think I got the Phillips.... either Cree or Feit....

BR40 - LED Light Bulbs - Light Bulbs -  The Home Depot
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Thanks Texas,

Your links prompted me to do some additional searching on my own.

These showed up: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Eagle-...s=p_n_feature_five_browse-bin:6104072011&th=1

Things are starting to get closer to what I need.
These are:

1480 Lumen (rated at 120V)
2700 degree K Color
Dimmable.

Hopefully these will eventually get up to the full 1800 Lumen that I am used to.

One item of concern on these is the mention in the spec-sheet of:
"Lumen Maintenance Factor at the End of Life": 1036

This suggests to me that some LED lamps significantly dim as they age. I wonder if this is true in the incandescent/halogen world also?

-gauss

 
I have not had LED bulbs long enough to know, but incandescents and CFLs all have dimmed outputs at the end of their life.

I had one of the early LEDs die recently. It was intermittent, so got some loose connection or a bad solder joint inside. I kept it, meaning to open it up to study on a rainy day (rare as hen's teeth in the SW).
 
RobbieB said:
I put a 6 watt small LED (60w eq) in my fridge to replace that 40 watt filament appliance bulb that was in there.

Works great, more light and I'm not putting 38 watts of heat in a cooled space anymore.
Click to expand...

You know that the light goes out when you shut the door, right? ;)
 
Bamaman said:
My problem is that a 60 watt bulb is not bright enough to read by.
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I recommend you go all the way and buy one of these:

Brightech_Litespan_LED_Reading_Floor_Lamp_Soft_White_Light_E_71_res.jpg


https://www.amazon.com/Brightech-Li...d=1479229171&sr=8-1&keywords=led+reading+lamp

Lena has that one, and I have the fluorescent equivalent (I'll buy the Brightech as soon as the "bulb" wears out).

Those types of lamps have a design flaw, however: They're too high. They'd be perfect if you read while standing up.

So I cut mine down so that I can put the light closer to the book.
 
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