In a very quick, unscientific use of the Cree energy savings calculator:
one 60w replacement LED (11w)
Vs.
one 60w incandescent bulb
Equals
roughly $6.00 savings per year (at $0.11 per kWh).
Bulb cost recouped pretty quickly.
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Never. Thereās just too much existing wiring to deal with such a massive change. I mean, parts of Japan run on different hertz, you think weāre going to change all the lighting to 12V?
People want the flexibility to plug other things into sockets to make this change. I canāt even imagine someone getting a 120/12V transformer for their house and then running different sized wires around to account for voltage drop over 10ā.
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Is that what the transformer manufacturer claims?
LED source? 10,000 hours. Transformer to supply said source? 3 year warranty.
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Iād like to. Iāll be re-wiring where I am in the next few years. Itāll mean stripping out everything but I was going to anyway.
Theyāll have to learn to run lighting completely separate right from the box, everywhere I look outlets and lighting are often shared.
Iām so looking forward to re-wiring. This is the first place Iāve been in with an Edison fusebox & I feel itās time to upgrade.
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Gosh no, I think the packaging on the Phillips I bought claimed 20 years. (with a warranty that clearly didnāt agree lol)
We use sparingly, and Iām intent on installing timers to better on that. Already have hot water heaters on a timer, it works incredibly well.
Yeah, separate conduit and various sized wires to account for voltage drop, which also demands that the amount of wattage being drawn out at the other end be calculated as well.
Running a separate 12V signal through a house would be a nightmare.
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Youāll want to read it closely, the three year timer runs whether itās being used or not.
Iām still an incandescent heretic, high color rendering til I die.
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They estimate their 3 year warranty on 21 hrs per week. But I donāt bother with warranty $2 lightbulbs because keeping receipts/proof of purchase and shipping these AND the bulb itself to get a refund or replacement would end up costing me far more than the $2.
I think they know that, pretty sure.
Itās true, someday we may have to jailbreak our effin lightbulbs. Imma leave that to the kids.
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Or drill airflow holes into the enclosure. If a bureaucrat says it has to be sealed, and the electronics disagrees, follow the wishes of the electronics.
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I had a LED lightbulb fail on me in such a stinky, breaker-tripping way. (I was able to salvage three of the five 1W LEDs, as one acted as a fuse and one lost a lot of brightness in the incident.) Postmortem shown the inside of the assembly (a metal can, the bulb was one big heatsink) covered with black grime, and one of the electrolytic capacitors was exploded, probably the culprit. (This may make me sound part-ist, but it is almost always the elyt caps. No prejudice here.)
Itās the power supply that does these spectacular(ish) failures. Replacing the light-generating part wonāt help much.
The power supplies will fail. They are made by the lowest bidder and parts of the circuit are quite stressed. The LEDs themselves also undergo a number of degradation mechanisms, with results ranging from sudden death to predictable gradual loss of brightness and efficiency; the end-of-life figure is defined as some percentage of original brightness remaining. Also beware of phosphor degradation, which will shift the color temperature a little, which may be noticeable when running newer and older bulbs next to each other.
Or broadcast your porn to the 'hood.
Or the opposite, if some do-gooder finds out that the minuscule amount of gallium or some other compound is Grave Risk, or that the silver in the alloys used for soldering these days is too dangerous for aquatic ecosystems, or any other reason to ban some of the components.
Maybe itād be enough to get both the L and N wire to the switch assembly, so the power supply can be located there, instead of being stuck in the lightbulb?
The warranty one, yes. The real lifetime, that depends on a lot of variables.
That. Also, incandescents are useful as current-dependent resistors for e.g. overcurrent protection.
Count with me on that one. Letās reverse-engineer the world!
ā¦I wouldnāt be surprised if the smart grid would end up hijacked with do-gooder bureaucrats enforcing all sorts of energy consumption restrictions via mandatory signalling; stupidity has a way in through quick temporary fixes that become permanent. Sometimes it may make some sense but my stuff shall have ābattle overrideā switches as a matter of principle and as an insurance against the unexpectedā¦
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Correct that these are not dimmable, but TCP also claims to make a dimmable version (one of the options on the Amazon page). However, I found that TCPās ādimmableā bulbs were not ā they still buzzed and only sorta dimmed. I returned them the next day.
ETA: It could have been my switch as the culprit - I havenāt tried another brand to confirm, so YMMV.
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Iāve been disappointed with how few daylight bulbs there are. I generally shoot for 5000k for color temperature.
Iāve been pretty happy with the Philips 433235. It used to sell on amazon for about $10/bulb but it seems to have dropped to ~$7 and itās been on sale for $4.97 for a few days recently. Iāve been using it while I wait for 5000k 100w equivalent bulbs.
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Have you ever found an LED bulb that was truly dimmable? My wife is very picky about brightness and is always fiddling with our dimmers, and the dimmable LED and CFL bulbs weāve tried had so little range from brightest to dimmest that we might as well not have had them on a dimmer altogether. Our dimmers are supposed to work well with dimmable LEDs and CFLs, too.
Weāve been sticking with the 72W halogens that are equivalent in brightness to 100W traditional incandescents and they give off fantastic light and have a full range of dimmability. But they also donāt last as long as I think they should (probably because we play with the dimmers so much) and theyāre kind of expensive and donāt really save much electricity.
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Home Depot has a 2 pack 60w equivalent philips for $4.97. This is not a sale price but an all-the-time price.
Itās the best deal Iāve found so far, you can find them locally (in the US at least), and they have good reviews. Probably not dimmable.
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What kind of dimmers do you have? Thatās always my first question for any LED dimming concern? After you tell me that Iāll find a lamp for you.
Medium base, A-19 shape, or are you looking for something else?
Halogens for the win. How long are they lasting for you? Dimming them should extend the lamp life, given the lower voltage thatās getting to them in the first place.
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Thanks! Our dimmers are Lutron DVCL-153Pās from about 4-5 years ago (I believe the āCLā stands for āCFL and LEDā). The fixtures all take standard medium-base A-19 bulbs, although they all have some sort of frosted glass or plastic cover so it doesnāt matter much what the bulb looks like as long as it fits. The most important thing is to have a wide range from bright to dim.
I have Cree 60W Soft Whites in my kitchen ceiling fan for the past 6 weeks. They are a little pricier, but put off light in all directions and dim well. Iāll be converting my remaining fans to them as their incandescents die off.
I had to remove some LED bulbs that had been on for 5-10 minutes. The bulb was fine to touch, but the base was incredibly hot - hotter than any incandescent - and remained so for a good time.
Got a guide to drill airflow holes?
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Donāt modify the housing and void UL, thatās just not how things work. UL is there to make sure your house doesnāt burn down. Air sealing fixtures is there to prevent your AC from flowing out into the world.
Just use a halogen and stop worrying about it.
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Depends on the specific device. You want the air to go from bottom to top, over the parts that heat up but otherwise not much obstructed, in order to facilitate heat-driven convection.
If you have low voltage to tap, and the situation warrants it, you can use forced airflow using a small fan. My favorites are those little 12V ones salvaged from dead CPUs, powered from 5V or from 12V but with a series resistor, to lower their rpm and make them run quiet.
Or you can break the whole thing apart, scrap the housing, and mount the electronics and LEDs separately, possibly on a length of extruded aluminium rail or other heatsink of choice, or on a salvaged CPU heatsink.
