LED or CFL ?

[theservicegroup777]

I just purchased 10 Led bulbs. I was told they were 10W white bulbs. They only draw 3W so we will call them 3 watts of course. I got stiffed. The lighting was very poor and directional that of an LED. I also have some 13W CFL bulbs.

I feel, I may be wrong ... That it would take a 10-15W Led to put out that many lumens disbursed the same way 1 13W CFL would do.

So it seems like I have to choose between having great lighting or almost none for the same amount of watts.

There are a multitude of thing that come in to play mostly cons on the cfl (life hours, warm up times, mercury)

That aside and just looking at brightness / Lumens not what a package say either.

Lets say side by side 13W both LED and CFL.. I think the LED should able to light up a room just as good as a CFL. Given the other benefits of an LED I would have no problem switching entirely. I feel that a 13W Led should be brighter than a 13W CFL though after all the hype they talk about them.

How many lumens are expected from 1W of Led?? 100??

[SunEagle]

I just purchased 10 Led bulbs. I was told they were 10W white bulbs. They only draw 3W so we will call them 3 watts of course. I got stiffed. The lighting was very poor and directional that of an LED. I also have some 13W CFL bulbs.

I feel, I may be wrong ... That it would take a 10-15W Led to put out that many lumens disbursed the same way 1 13W CFL would do.

So it seems like I have to choose between having great lighting or almost none for the same amount of watts.

There are a multitude of thing that come in to play mostly cons on the cfl (life hours, warm up times, mercury)

That aside and just looking at brightness / Lumens not what a package say either.

Lets say side by side 13W both LED and CFL.. I think the LED should able to light up a room just as good as a CFL. Given the other benefits of an LED I would have no problem switching entirely. I feel that a 13W Led should be brighter than a 13W CFL though after all the hype they talk about them.

How many lumens are expected from 1W of Led?? 100??

Based on the information from Cree on their 13.5 watt LED you will get about 800 lumens or about 59 lumen/watt.

Sylvania 13 watt CLF states it give you about 62 lumen/watt or 806 total.

Both state their 13 watt lamp is equal to a 60 watt incandescent lamp but the LED will last longer than the CLF but has the same wattage and same amount of lumen output.

Now the biggest difference when comparing lamps is the color. Depending on what they are classified as they can be "soft white" or natural white or warm white. A different color could give the impression of being not as bright. Just something to think about when you are comparing.

[theservicegroup777]

Would it be fair to say that even replacing a CFL twice or 3 Times is still cheaper than the LED. I havnt looked at sylvania but Menards here had a sale on GE CFL i think 4 bulbs for $1.79. SO I more than STOCKED up. Ill have to see what kind of normal price cfls run , then it may not be as cheap to replace.

Im 95% sold on LED if CFL wasnt putting up such a damn good fight...lol..

Why couldn't my choice be simple as either incadesent or led...

LED hands down

I will take into account the tint/shade of the bulb. Im assuming I want Cool White?

[SunEagle]

Would it be fair to say that even replacing a CFL twice or 3 Times is still cheaper than the LED. I havnt looked at sylvania but Menards here had a sale on GE CFL i think 4 bulbs for $1.79. SO I more than STOCKED up. Ill have to see what kind of normal price cfls run , then it may not be as cheap to replace.

Im 95% sold on LED if CFL wasnt putting up such a damn good fight...lol..

Why couldn't my choice be simple as either incadesent or led...

LED hands down

I will take into account the tint/shade of the bulb. Im assuming I want Cool White?

I guess it comes down to a matter of choice. A couple of years ago I eliminated all of my incandescent and standard fluorescent lighting in my house. All of the bathrooms, laundry room, closets and kitchen now have LED lighting of various types. The rest of the house lights are CLF with a couple of the Cree LED mixed in.

The initial cost for the LED's was high but I do not expect to have to replace any for many years. It took a while for my wife to accept the CLF's but they grew on her. She does like the light (color and amount) that the LED's put out which made it an easy sell.

The LED lamps are getting brighter and more energy efficient as they continue to do research but there is a cultural barrier to people that don't like to spend $15 up front for one lamp. Especially those people that grew up on them cheap incandescent.

[inetdog]

Why couldn't my choice be simple as either incandescent or led...

LED hands down

I will take into account the tint/shade of the bulb. Im assuming I want Cool White?

The tint you want is very much an individual choice and may vary from room to room and use type to use type.
I find cool white very annoying most of the time and it gives an impression of greater glare to most people.
For any work involving color vision, it is just as important to look at the details of the spectral distribution (as indicated imperfectly by the Color Rendering Index, CRI) as to look at the color temperature.
Although I do not favor warm white, especially in CFLs, because I consider it too yellow, an intermediate color temperature often known as neutral white in LED terminology seems to me to be the best for general use.
My rule of thumb: Warm white (3000K or lower) for general living areas, where your personal preference is for a warm fire/candlelight feel.
Neutral white (between 3500K and 3800K) for cooking and working, and cool white (4000K and up) only for safety and outdoor lighting where more simple visibility per watt is more important than light quality.

The light distribution in space varies extremely from one type of LED bulb to another, much more than the variation found with a CFL using the common spiral design.
LED bulbs with a "band" of high intensity perpendicular to the axis of the bulb may work well in ceiling fixtures for wide area lighting, but will be very poor in table lamps with shades.
LED bulbs which direct most of the light away from the base are great in can lights (track or recessed) but also poor for table lamps where the bulb is oriented base down.

Rather than generalize too much, you really need to look at the exact models of LED bulb that are available and see each of them lit to decide which will be best for a particular purpose.

[Mike90250]

LED's give fairly directional light, CFL's are much more omnidirectional. Select a bulb for the purpose. And LED's need to be cool, enclosed spaces will BBQ them much quicker than a CFL in the same space. But CFL's need cooling too!

[SunEagle]

LED's give fairly directional light, CFL's are much more omnidirectional. Select a bulb for the purpose. And LED's need to be cool, enclosed spaces will BBQ them much quicker than a CFL in the same space. But CFL's need cooling too!

I agree that most of the original style LED lamps were very directional.

Now with the introduction of the Cree style light bulbs you get the same omnidirectional output of a standard screw in type bulb. It is a combination of how the LED chips are arranged and how the "cover" will provide a more uniform light dispersion.

Another thing is that while the LED lamps need to have some type of cooling I can unscrew one that has been lit for a while and not burn my fingers.

[thastinger]

What type of inverter are you planning to run these lights from?

[bcroe]

CFLs & LEDs

LED's give fairly directional light, CFL's are much more omnidirectional. Select a bulb for the purpose. And LED's need to be cool, enclosed spaces will BBQ them much quicker than a CFL in the same space. But CFL's need cooling too!

The whole field needs more development, better quality, and truth in advertising. A couple
years ago, I tried to use a lot of CFLs & LEDs to replace incandescents. Half of those devices
have failed, so much for the claimed "very long life". They were quite expensive, and claims
like "replaces a 60 watt bulb" were simply not true. I further worry that some of them can
catch on fire as the electronics fail; no such modes for my incandescents.

I have used 4' fluorescents for decades, nobody mentions they are as efficient as CFLs without
all the other issues. Other sizes get far more expensive as you leave the 4' standard, I avoid
the others. Even got rid of my 8' & used twice as many 4' instead.

About the ONLY thing CFLs have going for them, is they screw into the incandescent socket
without any thought or planning. Places where on time is extremely limited can't justify the
expensive lights, and I would like the (incandescent) lamps to IMMEDIATELY come on when I
drive in, in below zero winter.

LEDs I expect to eventually meet the challenge, but I put extra heat shields around this mod
stuff "just in case". I care less about some lighting loss with my power coming from the sun,
and none at all in the heating season trading light losses against straight heating. Bruce Roe

[SunEagle]

The whole field needs more development, better quality, and truth in advertising. A couple
years ago, I tried to use a lot of CFLs & LEDs to replace incandescents. Half of those devices
have failed, so much for the claimed "very long life". They were quite expensive, and claims
like "replaces a 60 watt bulb" were simply not true. I further worry that some of them can
catch on fire as the electronics fail; no such modes for my incandescents.

I have used 4' fluorescents for decades, nobody mentions they are as efficient as CFLs without
all the other issues. Other sizes get far more expensive as you leave the 4' standard, I avoid
the others. Even got rid of my 8' & used twice as many 4' instead.

About the ONLY thing CFLs have going for them, is they screw into the incandescent socket
without any thought or planning. Places where on time is extremely limited can't justify the
expensive lights, and I would like the (incandescent) lamps to IMMEDIATELY come on when I
drive in, in below zero winter.

LEDs I expect to eventually meet the challenge, but I put extra heat shields around this mod
stuff "just in case". I care less about some lighting loss with my power coming from the sun,
and none at all in the heating season trading light losses against straight heating. Bruce Roe

I just read an article stating that all 60 and 40 watt A-line incandescent lamps will not be allowed to be manufactured or imported into the US as of 1/1/14.

There are still lamps that have "instant on" capabilities like quartz but boy they do get real hot and are energy hogs compared to anything else out there.

[OvertheSun]

I just read an article stating that all 60 and 40 watt A-line incandescent lamps will not be allowed to be manufactured or imported into the US as of 1/1/14.

That's true, but you'll still be able to buy them until the stocks run out. 100 Watts were banned two years ago, and 75 Watt this year, but you can still find them online.
I think it has had the intended effect on the market because there are a lot more and much better LEDs out there now than a few years ago. I had stocked up on 100 W bulbs because i have some very expensive lamps in one room that have integrated dimmers and neither LEDs nor CFLs worked in these lamps at the time. But I tried the new Cree "60W equivalent"bulbs in these lamps and they work like a charm and dim very nicely. Almost as much light as the 100 Watt bulbs they replace. I've now replaced the three-way bulb sockets on the rest of my lamps with continuous dimmer sockets and LED bulbs. My family didn't even know i had made a change.
There's still some low quality bulbs out there, but it's fairly easy to identify them by reading reviews on Amazon. Some of the best bulbs are not sold at big box stores, but are widely available from online retailers like polar Ray and Earth LED that specialize in LEDs, and these sites have a wealth of information on various bulbs.

[russ]

You should experience the incandescent lamps we get here in India - the company pays the electric bill so guess who doesn't buy the more expensive CFL units. The average lamp may last one month with normal usage - some pop after a single day - they are cheap though.

[OvertheSun]

I think they sell some of those on amazon and ebay - and LEDs too!

For me, this issue was more about the heat incandescents generate. The builder put in 35 can lights and in some placese, there isn't a viable alternative. A lot of them are wired together and you have to turn on 4 or more at the same time to light a hallway or the entry. Even with dimmers, the house got hot. 10 degrees or more an per hour. I almost never turned on the heat, but the A/C was working overtime. So i was heating the house withnthe lighting and then paying to cool it at the same time.

I tried various dimmable fluorescents, but they hissed, and hummed and flickered and lost 30-50% of their light in a few months - and they were nit cheap!

The LEDs are awesome! They put out twice as much light as the incandescents did, and they generate almost no heat. We've reduced our electric bill by about 60% since i started putting these in, most of which is from reduced A/C.

[Sunking]

The LEDs are awesome!

Someone has been drinking the Kool-Aid.

[paulcheung]

Like it or not, we have to change most of the 4' lamps to LED Tubes. They brighter than the old 4' tubes and use less than half the electricity. They are still expensive though.