LED lighting: A bright new idea

Brian Owen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:11:54 GMT

Gary,

Thank you for being a supporter of LED technology. I am with greenTbiz in Toronto, Canada, a non-profit program that provides small business with energy conservation assistance. One of our areas of focus is energy efficiency and energy efficient technology such as LED. We are pilot testing a TUROLIGHT MR16 that replaces a 50-watt halogen with a 7-watt LED solution. Also, it emits a beautiful 2700K color of light (CCT - Correlated Color Temperature). We have actually retrofitted an entire retail store's track lighting (grassroots - a prominent Toronto environmental products retailer). Our programs also include a number of LED outdoor lighting pilots in street, pedestrian, park and area lighting application. With the 'cooler' white light, the perception of brightness, visibility and safety is increased. Being 'pioneers' of LED applications from the inception of the holiday lights programs and consumer turns-ins of old incandescent to today's more recent LED general illumination pilots, as well as the illumination of the CN Tower, the world's tallest free standing structure, Toronto was recently accorded the designation of LED City in partnership with Raleigh, NC and CREE.

I would like to add that we all have to be reserved in the promotion of LED, as it is great for some applications currently. With thoughts of 'ban' the incandescent bulb and a bit of negativity towards CFLs, there is so much interest in LEDs, however, this also advances the opportunity for inferior product that could create dissatisfaction at a pretty steep cost. One thing is certain, whether it is banning incandescent, CFL technology or the future of LED, the consumer has to be provided with the light quality which they desire in order to want the product and thus adopt the technology. With respect to entirely replacing lighting, it is not a case of 'if', it is just a case of 'when' and 'when' is coming at us fairly steady.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Peter Hoagland Warrenton VA — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:41:38 GMT

Great article Gary, thank you. Attention should also been given to lighting control systems. People are still using outdated technology in the toggle switch. Sure it works but like the incandescent is not very smart.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Joe, New Jersey — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:40:27 GMT

Great article. I work in aviation and there is a huge push towards LEDs for airfield lighting fixtures. There is very little maintenance, low power consumption and bulb life is incredible. Our only problem is that now if a grass cutter or jet blast knocks down an incandecent fixture it costs around a hundred dollars to fix. If a C-5 or 747's jet blast knocks out a line of lights it would cost us thousands of dollars. Once mass production and acceptance of these fixtures occurs I'm sure the prices will come down. In the meantime, even small airports airports must continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on electricity bills because they cannot afford the installation costs of solar powered (solar power assisted), LED fixtures.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Cole — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:24:13 GMT

While I'm not sure that one can call this exactly a new idea, it does need support to bring it to the forefront. Mythbusters gave it a bit of showtime, as the bulb they used used less power than any of the devices tested, and was the most resistant to repeated turning on and off (though the segment wasn't focused on it).

A number of laptop manufacturers are beginning to replace the old tubes in laptops with led backlamps, for the reasons stated above, including Asus and Apple. LCD televisions and monitors seem not too far off as well.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Keven Tremblay, Quesnel, BC — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:41:30 GMT

What about the amount of energy it takes to create
and recycle these new type of lamps? What about the
chemicals, and plastics they use? An incandescent bulb is basically sand and carbon....these new lamps
are NOT green.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Rick Lee, Ma. — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:57:00 GMT

While led lights are useful in certain circumstances, when a large amount of strong light is needed, they fail. Miserably. I work at a ski area and we make snow. We tried the ( much ) more expensive led flashlights and up close they were adequate. When trying to light up a broad area at a distance of a few feet, they did not have the range a regular two cell incandescent has. Off we went to the dollar store and bought a dozen rubber coated, water resistant, two d cell flashlights which did the job nicely. At a much lower price. When the technology catches up to the original as far as performance is concerned we will probably make the switch. Until then, no thanks.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

J.Brzez, Oxford, MI — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:45:58 GMT

Switched every bulb in my house over to CFLs last year. There are still some flicker issues with some of the older CFLs but just the thought of replacing 3 60watt bulbs in a kitchen with 3 CFLs that use 36watts total appealed to me. So much so to my "Mother Nature" wife that she is planning on giving a 4 pack to everyone in the family for a Xmas present this year.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

W. H. Heydt, Albany, CA — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:09:39 GMT

What I'm waiting for (besides the prices to come down) is a "100 watt equivalent" LED bulb that can be used in a conventional fixture. When that comes on the market at a price I can afford, I'll be changing out my CFLs as fast as I can.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

gREG VT — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:50:53 GMT

THEY ARE AWSOME AND SMALL. COME ON, REALY NOT GREEN, THESE THINGS HARDLY TAKE ANY MATERIALS, LED'S ARE SO SMALL, AND EFFICIENT, ONCE THE PRICE COMES DOWN SOMEDAY EVERYBODY MAY HAVE THEM. STILL IT WILL BE A LONG TIME...fLOURESCENTS ARE STILL TO EXPENSIVE FOR SOME WHEN YOU CAN GET A PACK OF YE OLD BULBS FOR ONLY .99CENTS

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Jim S., Portland, ME — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:26:58 GMT

Slightly off-topic, but lets not forget the mercury content in the CFL's. We've worked for decades to get mercury out of the consumer waste stream, and the expanding use of CFL's will put most of it back in. No free lunches...which is why development of LED lighting matters.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Steve M., Fort Lauderdale, FL — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:24:36 GMT

Home use is still some time away, but not in the heavy duty truck industry. Virually every large on the road now has or will have LED lighting. Much, much brighter and lasts (almost) forever. I can not wait for LED to get to the affordable level for home use.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Pete C Los Angeles, CA — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:19:29 GMT

One word.... Tesla

LED lighting: A bright new idea

G Suzuki, San Francisco, CA — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 00:21:00 GMT

RL in MA didn't say what type of LED flashlight he had, but it was undoubtebly a simple single or multi-5mm LED which is designed for close in, long-lasting light. A high power LED from Maglite, Luxeon or Cree will have more brightness and just as much distance lighting capability as an incandescent bulb. An LED will also maintain the same level of brightness for a MUCH longer time and the bulb will not require replacement after 20 hours of use. For example, a regular 2D Maglite has 50% of it's brightness after 2 hours and declines steadily to zero at 10 hours. A Mag LED maintains 50% of its brightness for 22 hours.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Caleb, Rolla, MO — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 01:34:55 GMT

Yes, while Arsenic is used to 'dope' the silicon in order to excite the electrons in an LED, it is still such an insignificant amount to cause any damage. Someone said that all an incandenscent bulb is just sand and carbon...so is an LED since it is made of silicon(sand).

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Bryan, Brooklyn, NY — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:57:28 GMT

I would like to replace my 50 watt halogen MR 16 bulbs with LED. Does anyone know how bright these LED bulbs will be in comparison? I recently bought some CFL MR 16 bulbs to try out, and they were miserably dim. I ended up just returning them and putting back in the halogen bulbs. Any advice?

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Tom Lee, Stanford, CA — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:49:59 GMT

Just a small correction to what Caleb wrote: An LED is not made of silicon. Standard chips (like microprocessors and memories) are, but no LED is made out of silicon. Depending on the color they emit, LEDs may be made out of substances such as gallium, arsenic, indium, phosphorus and the like. Although silicon does many things well, emitting light efficiently is not one of them, unfortunately, which is why more exotic materials have to be used.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

icetug The Big Apple — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:48:28 GMT

While led's are great for some apps. They are not yet ready for prime time. They are now being used to great effect in lighting Maritime Aids to Navigation in the US and around the world. Not primarily because of their efficiency but long life. The US Coast Guard is using a commercially produced solar powered light on buoys around the country. The technology is still too expensive per lumen compared to CFL for most residential needs.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Sean, NY — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:26:37 GMT

I have found LED flashlights and headlamps to be indispensable for home use. You get a clean, even flood of light (not the spotty distorted and yellow tinged kind derived from incandescent) usable for about 25', the batteries last a great deal longer than with incandescent (at low settings they will run continuously for days and with the power grid the way it is that could be a life saver) and the size of the actual unit can be minuscule; that of a quarter while producing an outrageous amount of light for that size. Every keychain should have one on it. And the tiny bulbs are practically immortal.
Where they fail is intensity over distance, they are useless to throw light across a yard (investigating a sound in a row of brush 20 yards away? Forget it.) and lose impact in twilight conditions. These two I use all the time and couldn't be happier with them...
http://www.survivaltoday.net/wp-content/photon_keychain.jpg
http://www.e-headlamps.com/images/photon_fusion.jpg

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Gordon, Stockton,Ca. — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:07:31 GMT

I have seen several cities replace their traffic signals with LEDs and a few months later half of the LEDs have failed????????

LED lighting: A bright new idea

vish,Aurangabad,India — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 03:25:09 GMT

there is need to increse LED's efficiency & in some case
power also. it's great

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Dave W, Brooklyn, NY — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:02:36 GMT

Love the LED's. Hopefully more of them will be in use, soon ...they save energy and are brighter. They're being used more and more in traffic light applications
BTW, how does the NBC parent company [General Electric, a literal descendant of Edison] feel about this, after all they're big on incandescence and flouresence and sell millions of them ...

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Lighting Employee, Danvers, MA — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:53:49 GMT

A few things people leave off when taking about LED's.

Lumens per watt measurement is made after only .02 seconds after powered up. The lumens will drop off as the LED heats up. Unless you can keep the LED die at room temp there is no way you will ever get the lumens published.

In order to keep the die at room temp you will need to have some sort of refrigeration unit running since the leads of the LED are always hotter than the die.

The max opperating temp for an LED is about 124-150C. However, to get the 100,000 hrs of life the LED die must be kept below 40C (room temp is 23C).

Normal lights radiate heat away, and LED can only transfer heat via conduction. This is the same way your computer processor transfers heat to the heatsink. Notice that you compuer has numerous fans, a powerful and bright LED system will need fans as well. Reducing the effeiency and adding noise to your lights.

LED's need a power supply to convert 120AC to ~2.5-4 volts DC. The efficiency of these power supplies is ~85% at best the lower the power the worse the efficiency.

Currently the systems out there today the lumens per watt (Amount of light per unit of energy comsumed) does not compare to CFL's or High Intensity Discharge lamps.

As someone pointed out above, LED's do not do a good job of projecting light. That is because they do not produce as much light as a regular incadencent light bulb. Their intensity is higher because the light producing area is much smaller. Those they do well at short range lighting applications but not long range.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Richard Wessels. Dallas, TX — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 02:35:03 GMT

I have seen a lot of teno babble in here, and I am in the tech industry myself, so I can spout it off too, but lets face it, we need to change how we see and use lighting. CFL is not going to work for most applications.. Can you use a dimmer switch on a CFL? LED's are most likely the only thing that can perform with the same applications as an old fashioned bulb.

The point we all seems to miss here is that maybe the question is not what will replace the ICB but should we change the way we use lighting? Lets face it, we waste so much energy in lighting unnessecarily. Why flood your house with light when task oriented lighting is better and preferable. Take the home office for instance. If you are using a computer, it is better to have less light in the room then more, and to use task lighting for reading printed matierials. Or the living room? Don't flood the room with light when watching TV, again, task lighting is best.

In fact, short of a dinner party or other rare occasions, there should be little need to flood the entire room in 100 watts or more of light.

Also consider that if throwing light long distances is what you want to do, then what you really need is a focused beam of light, which can be accomplished with a different lense. Just ask the makers of laser pointers.

I have use certain products available at REI that are LED based and have a focused lense, and provide better quailty light for a flashight then any ICB based flashlight I have used. They are a fraction the size and the batteries last forever.

Also imagine a time when you can program the color you want because your LED based bulb will most likely have multiple different colored LEDS to acheive a warmer and more natural light.

Just some thoughts I had. But, I think the real answer is to change how we use lighting as much as the technology we use.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Greg Indianapolis, Indiana — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:04:56 GMT

IF IT SAVES ENERGY, LESS HAZARDOUS TO THE OZONE (I.E. FLOURESCENT BULBS)AND ONE DAY CHEAPER......EPA WILL MANDATE IT...........EVENTUALLY(OR THE PUBLIC WILL WAKE UP TO A $2000 DISPOSAL BILL FOR EACH FLOURESCENT BULB, A NEW LAW ESTABLISHED BY THE EPA 8-13-07) NOW WOULD A 100 WATT EQUIVELANT LED COST THAT DISPOSAL FEE AMOUNT????

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Lighting Employee, Danvers, MA — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 03:06:27 GMT

I am not too sure how a CFL is bad for the ozone layer. The only reason you can not throw them in the trash is the mercury inside. Which is a heavy metal and nero toxin not exactly a problem for the ozone layer.

Currently the cost of a 100watt led bulb would be pretty high. Just the LED's would cost more than $15. The power supply would be a couple bucks for the bill of materials. Then you need to add in labor, over head, manufacture and reseller profits and LED bulbs will be about twice what cfl's were 20 years ago. LED's may be able to replace normal bulbs 10-15 years from now, but the technology is not there yet. There is stuff on the market or coming out shortly t

The general consumer does not want to walk around in a dim house. Task lighting is usually used to supplement the general lighting in the room, not the only lighting.

FYI: CFL's can be used on dimmers. You need to buy a CFL fixture and bulb, not a twist style cfl. Certain ballasts will allow you to dim the cfl.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

John, Fort Collins, CO — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:40:15 GMT

Another thing to remember is that CFL's only have a long life if they are not turned on and off quickly. If you have a light that you typically turn on only for a few minutes before turning it off, you may not want to use a CFL in that application, because an incadescent bulb will actually last significantly longer in that type of application, and you won't even gain a lot in terms of energy savings if the bulb is not on very often.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Michael Ham, Waleska, GA — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 11:43:32 GMT

The effort to conserve electricity by using power efficient bulbs requires consideration of the bulbs application. I use as many CFBs in my house as possible, but there are a few requirements for which incandescent bulbs are the best choice. We don't have to switch to LEDs all at once or even completely switch to them. We can use them in as many applications as possible in which they are suitable. As the cost of LEDs comes down and the the LEDs are improved, more suitable uses will present themselves. Currently, I use LEDs for step lights for my deck. They are the best choice for this use. I know I'll find other uses for which they are effective but I realize it could be years before I could use them for floodlights. Also, other energy saving devices, such as dimmers, timers and motion detectors can be used to help save lighting dollars.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

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LED lighting: A bright new idea

C.Johnson — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:06:47 GMT

Everybody, do not get your panties in a knot. Stand by for maybe another 6 months,"Ploybrite"is developing all new bulbs and will be on the market soon. These new ones are awsome. They will be sold by westinghouse and others. Borealis will be the brand for the consumer.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

b. henninger — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 08:46:02 GMT

Phillips makes dimmable cfl curley Q bulbs as does other manufacturers. Most home centers do not carry these bulbs and I would not expect them to begin carrying these bulbs due to there much higher cost and lack of demand (other then recess par's @ 14.50 a pop the dimmable curley Q bulbs average between 11.00-25.00) if you want them you have to find a actual electrical supply house that carries them.

Being a residential electrical service technician the CFL bulbs have created many problems with the consumer in regards to dimmers.

Most people do not read about what they buy and assume they can use a standard rotary dimmer or fancy toggle dimmer to control the bulb. I have been replacing alot of dimmers as of late considering our local power company is offering rebates for changing over to cfls.

I have replaced all bulbs in my own home with the CFL type and hardly notice a difference between the color output of a 60 watt incan and a 60 watt (non-daylight) cfl bulb. My wife did not like them at first because she "thought" the color was differn't then a incan but hadn't noticed when I changed the most commonly used light bulb in the house over to a CFL. CFL's suffer from the technology acceptance disease that is all the problem is with most people. They are so used to something for so long they do not want to give it up.

CFL's are a much better option then long life incan's also (250 volt rated bulb, due to the higher voltage bulb being used on a lower voltage or 120v circuit the life of the bulb is greatly extended and operation cost is less but low light level output).

GE is working on lowering the price of led bulbs as are several other manufacturers, most of the price issues will change if california title 24(extremly stringent) is more widely accepted across the united states .

If it saves you money it will cost you money. Every product has a poison to offset the convience or cost savings.

Pay attention to the color output of the cfl bulb and you can get extremly close to the quality of a incan bulb, and the brand in most cases really does matter.

Here is an interesting thought though, what happens when we get more energy efficent and the cost of electricity still climbs? I mean the power company's will still want to make money.

LED lighting: A bright new idea

Don — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:01:21 GMT

anyone know the LED that throw out a squre pattern..that use to power dentist's headlight?

LED lighting: A bright new idea

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LED lighting: A bright new idea

Linda — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:52:10 GMT

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