LED lighting

[Mr T]

I was doing some digging about lightbulbs for the thread below this one and stumbled across this article about efficiency of lights.. Decided to give it a read.. all I can say is WOW!

http://www.ledtronics.com/pages/applications/ap_hyatt.htm

The article is a bit long, the good stuff starts down the page next to the picture of one of these LED bulbs.

In a nutshell (or if you dont want to read the article) it talks about a hotel that has a light display on the side of their building that they need to service 3 times a year to replace burned out bulbs.. THey switched to LED lights and the electricity bill alone for these lights was reduced from $1300 a year to about $15! :eek: :eek: :eek: And over the life (im calculating 22 years---perfect world) of these 'bulbs' they are calculating to save about $30,000. They also mentioned that they spend about 5 grand a year just to change them (3 times).

If stuff like this becomes mainstreamed (and I think it will in time), the cost will drop sharply. Anyone wanna guess how much less energy we would need to produce?

[flickit]

I was doing some digging about lightbulbs for the thread below this one and stumbled across this article about efficiency of lights.. Decided to give it a read.. all I can say is WOW!

http://www.ledtronics.com/pages/applications/ap_hyatt.htm

The article is a bit long, the good stuff starts down the page next to the picture of one of these LED bulbs.

In a nutshell (or if you dont want to read the article) it talks about a hotel that has a light display on the side of their building that they need to service 3 times a year to replace burned out bulbs.. THey switched to LED lights and the electricity bill alone for these lights was reduced from $1300 a year to about $15! :eek: :eek: :eek: And over the life (im calculating 22 years---perfect world) of these 'bulbs' they are calculating to save about $30,000. They also mentioned that they spend about 5 grand a year just to change them (3 times).

If stuff like this becomes mainstreamed (and I think it will in time), the cost will drop sharply. Anyone wanna guess how much less energy we would need to produce?
use them to replace the miniature CCFL's (fluorescent tube) backlights as do cell phones, Laptops, PDAs, Handheld games, Handsets, etc. They are here to stay and we consumers are already driving the price down. Theoretically will last forever...

[Mr T]

Dont forget stoplights, and brake/tail lights in trucks (even though you often see alot of elements out in them, probably due to being on the road all the time)

I am a electronics tech, standard LED"s are a few cents each anymore, and I have run them off of charged up capacitors before. But if you look at the ready made screw in "bulbs" they are still significantly more expensive then the indessant comparison. (or even the compact fluorescents)

I can see them getting to the point of costing the same as a indescent bulb, or I can see companies doing stuff to them to keep some profit in them. (Notice how much more the "true light" indescents cost compared to the standard soft whites? As far as I know its just a color filter made into the coating on the bulb) Only time will tell.

I'm waiting for LED Christmas lights to come out.

[suemarkp]

I'm waiting for LED Christmas lights to come out.

They came out two years ago. I bought 3 strings last Christmas. They look neat, but my only gripe is that my X-10 lamp controller, which I used to turn them on and off, doesn't turn them all of the way off (when the room is dark you can see them slightly lit up, certain colors being brighter than the other ones).

I understand the reason for this, and can modify the X-10 modules so they don't do this. But this is only a problem when lights use such little current. A normal filament wouldn't glow at all with the small current they leak through the module.

[Mr T]

Yup, less then 1 volt is needed. (normal diodes "turn on" at .7 volts)

Are you trying to dim with your X-10? Sounds like your using the triac based lamp module. If you really wanna click emoff use a applance module with a relay in it instead.

[suemarkp]

It doesn't matter (I tried both types and it still does it). Both the lamp and appliance modules have a feature that helps to kick on the module when someone works the switch on the lamp or appliance. This is called "local control", and it used to be that only the lamp modules worked this way.

It works by allowing a trickle current to flow when the module is commanded OFF. The module senses for a change in this trickle current (indicating that someone turned off the lamp or appliance switch) so it will automatically turn on the X-10 module. But if the user doesn't understand this, it still doesn't help much because he just turned the appliance off with the switch. He needs to be trained to turn the switch off and then on. If you do that, the module will kick on allowing it to work without an explicit X-10 ON command.

I don't think it is that difficult to remove the local control feature, but it is nice if you know how it works. But most of my house visitors don't, and I'm finding lamps turned off at their switch which should be on....

[mdshunk]

On the LED lighting topic... I was once an in house electrician for a large manufacturer. We replaced all the exit sign incandescent lamps with retrofit LED modules... hundreds of them. The retrofit LED lamp assembly had a 20 year guarantee, and was touted to last much longer. We observed failures within the first year, and then regularly after that. Upon disassembly, the LED's were actually fine, but the resistors were always burned out. Switching to another manufacturer's LED retrofit system yeilded amost the same results over time. The resistor(s) always failed. I did doctor some up (as an experiment) with a little higher wattage rated MIL spec resistor(s), and seemed to eliminate the failures. I no longer work at this place, and I'm relatively sure that no one is even remotely concerned with the exit sign LED lighting's short lifespan.

[Mr T]

I found a theory of operation for X-10 a while back.. not sure where it is anymore. (probably have it on my computer if someone really wants it)

I never knew that this feature existed. I just got one of their "free" starter kits back when they were giving them away. Never had a real use for it personally. BUt it is neat stuff. My kit came with the PC adaptor. Never had the time to figure out how to write my own code for the PC adaptor.

[gbeichho]

I found this link after reading a newspaper article a few months ago:
http://www.glenhunter.ca/lights.html

It is a link to someone who built a straw house off the grid. He created a number of stylish LED lights for home use. Pretty neat story.

The whole story is quite entertaining, but the light section is interesting as well.

[Unregistered]

Many LED products here and priced competitively.

http://www.led.hightechlighting.com