LED shop lighting -- basic guidance? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: chconnor
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2017, 08:46:16 pm
content: Hi! - I'm wanting to add a bunch of lighting to my dingy basement to make it more usable.I was hoping to avoid fluorescent tubes or bulbs and thought about LED strips. I was impressed with the LED strip lighting Dave installed in one of his videos, and I was hoping to find something more basic/cheap for my situation. I don't need any kind of dimming or remote controls or color options or anything like that; just the most white light for the buck, and something relatively reliable.I'm sure there are pre-packaged options out there, but I was wondering if there was a semi-DIY option: e.g. I buy some power supplies and some LED strips and hook 'em up and put them in salvaged fluorescent light fixtures, or something on that order.I'm no EE, but I've played with circuits and done home wiring. The trouble is that when I search the Great Oracle to research this, I'm buried in an avalanche of LED-related spam sites.So my questions, if anyone is so kind to give me some pointers:- is this approach reasonable? Meaning, will I be able to get this done without spending 5X what fluorescent tube fixtures would cost?- are LED strips the way to go for area lighting, or would I be better off with cheap LED bulbs?- is there a current "this is the best cheap brand to try" option, or a trustworthy website that sells good options, or website where I might research it more efficiently than stabbing in the dark on Google?Thanks for any ideas![and please excuse me if this is the wrong subforum -- first post; seemed the appropriate place.]

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2017, 09:24:04 pm
content: First, check out this short thread:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/weird-phenomena-with-my-eyes!!/For area lighting, fluorescent is mature and well known, no big surprises there.LED is in comparison still immature, and the number of cr*p products out there is immense.You seem to be focusing on cost, which will lead you directly into that dilemma.Brand products (Osram, Philips etc.) will have well-documented products showing color rendering. China and eBay will not.It's your call.

author: Johncanfield
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2017, 10:14:26 pm
content: You can buy strip LEDs in a roll from Amazon but it would take a bunch of them for good illumination in a large area. In my shop, I use electronic ballast lamps with some kind of instant on tubes (green cap ends.) I have no idea how 'clean' they are with RFI though.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2017, 10:30:45 pm
content: Led strips are definitly NOT for area lighting, they are way to inefficient with their series resistors and low voltage. For area lighting you want 60x60 indoor office ceiling led tiles from brand manufacturers. 90% efficiency good color rendering but expensive.If you want cheap and led go for the led t tubes, the replacements for fluorescent tubes. But if you can score cheap t5 led fixtures with high frequency drivers that is almost as efficient as led tubes.

author: mmagin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2017, 10:33:27 pm
content: I've been fairly happy with everything I've bought from these folks:https://www.superbrightleds.com/For example, I've used a Meanwell wall-wart, low voltage PIR switch, and a pair of rigid (PCB) LED strips to provide undercabinet lighting in the kitchen. You can barely see it's there. I have also installed some lighting on my wife's loom (i.e. for weaving) using self-adhesive LED strips from them.However for larger scale / more permanent installation, as when I replaced some cheap fluorescent surface mount fixtures in our garage, I am quite happy I spent the money on some Cree LS series surface mount fixtures. I think I bought them through some online retailer and they drop-shipped from Cree, so the wait was kind of long, but I'm happy with what I got. I used them with some Lutron 0-10V dimmer, switch module, and occupancy sensors.

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2017, 11:10:11 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on March 05, 2017, 10:30:45 pmLighting-grade LED strips do exist, look for the LumiLEDsL235series. These don't have any series ballast resistors, so they need a CC power supply brick to drive them. I've had good luck with Mean-Well's LPF and APC series supplies. You can connect the strips in series to get larger illuminated areas. They are available in a variety of color temperatures, LED densities and lengths. They require mounting to a metallic substrate for heat-sinking, you can look for aluminum channel made byKlus Designand others. I've put in 40W of LED lighting (3500K, four strips total) for my workbench, and it's held up well.

author: coyote20000
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 05, 2017, 11:30:55 pm
content: I'm giving up on LED lighting (at least for now). The 20year bulbs at the home warehouse stores die in about a year, or about 20% of mine did. Just installed a high output florescent fixture 4 x 50w tubes and I'm very happy with it. 200w ~20000 lumens. I wired it to be able to only use half the tubes if need be. Two tubes are still bright enough for almost everything I need to work on.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2017, 11:49:29 pm
content: Quote from: radar_macgyver on March 05, 2017, 11:10:11 pmHow about the Yuji LED 24V strips? Supposedly very high CRI at warm white as well.

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 01:39:05 am
content: The Yuji ones are nice, but were somewhat above my price range. Also, all the ones I found on their website accept constant voltage, and use a dropper resistor (less efficient than using a CC supply).

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 01:54:57 am
content: Also fluorescents give a well diffused non-directional light, and 20K hour tubes with daylight equivalent phosphors with a very high CRI are readily available.The only reasons *NOT* to use fluorescents would be:* If there's low headroom or your 'shop' is used for activities that frequently result in flying projectiles as impact resistant fittings are significantly more expensive than bare tube ones, and are more of a PITA to keep clean enough to get full light output.* or if your 'shop' is unheated and you live somewhere with very cold winters as Fluorescents are notorious for requiring a long warm up time to reach full output after switch on in sub-zero conditions. Even so, with a remote switch so you can turn them on 10 minutes beforehand to let them warm up while you make a thermos of hot coffee to take down the 'shop' and get your cold weather gear on, they will be satisfactory. Its not like you are running them under an open porch in northern Alaska!

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 02:34:12 am
content: I bought some LED shop light fixtures from Home Depot and really like them. If there are any large home improvement stores in your area, go check out what they have for sale.http://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-3-ft-LED-Black-Shop-Light-54254141/206028863

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 04:45:17 am
content: Quote from: radar_macgyver on March 06, 2017, 01:39:05 amVoltages would get a little high for constant current driving of a LED strip.How do the constant current (but not really) LED strips which can take a larger voltage range work BTW? Do the the ICs on them use PWM to keep brightness constant?

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 04:52:20 am
content: Quote from: Ian.M on March 06, 2017, 01:54:57 amI definitely prefer fluorescent lighting myself, especially with modern tubes -- much nicer than the old green-cast ones. It seems they really put effort into improving the phosphors during the whole CFL era.Regarding reasonably priced impact resistant fixtures, I have had success with these:http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-Lighting-Industrial-2-Light-White-Outdoor-Fluorescent-Hanging-Fixture-XWL-2-32-120-RE/202034431Also from the other thread people are talking about LED lights in, just because I found it exceptionally informative, a good review of LED lighting quality (from a cinematography perspective):http://www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/LED_Lights.html. It explains, in detail, a lot of the issues with LED output and color rendering / spectrum.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 05:06:16 am
content: Quote from: coyote20000 on March 05, 2017, 11:30:55 pmWhat bulbs did you use?I converted my whole house over to LED bulbs in the period from late 2010 to mid-2012 and since then I've had a grand total of one bulb fail, a cheap one that I put in a fully enclosed fixture despite the package saying not to and then left it on while I was out of town for a week. The rest look as good today as the day I installed them. Most are a mixture of Philips and Cree. I have a few GE LED bulbs in lamps. 5 of them are on dusk till dawn every night, average of 12 hours a day. We have few lightning storms out here though, that's one thing that may lead to short lifespans of any type of electronic light source.As far as DIY, there's no way you're going to be able to DIY something that works as reliably and efficiently for as low a cost as off the shelf LED bulbs and tubes. Today you can get Philips LED bulbs for about 4 bucks each that are nearly 100 lm/W and rated to last 15,000 hours. Tubular fluorescent style LED lamps have similar ratings.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 05:11:46 am
content: Quote from: Elf on March 06, 2017, 04:52:20 amThe breakthrough was the trichromatic rare-earth phosphors, they can be driven much harder than the old halophosphate phosphors used in the older tubes and they can be blended to achieve CRI in the 80s compared to mid 50s for the old Cool White phosphor. The high loading in the compact lamps required a phosphor that could take a pounding without deteriorating. Rare earth phosphors also enabled high T8 and T5 tubes, the smaller diameter resulting in considerable material savings in manufacture.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 05:15:01 am
content: There are a range of suggestions here, from perfection on down. I am not too picky about my lighting, so wouldn't totally discount LED strip lights, with the following observations.1. As raw strips they use no meaningful amount of room. Great if there are low ceilings or if you are very tall. But that leads to comment two.2. The raw strips don't diffuse the light very well. They benefit a lot from some sort of external diffuser. Which takes up room and adds cost. But if your room is reflective enough (white walls and ceiling with light colored flooring) you may not need it.3. There are a lot of deals out there. I have found lights like those Dave installed, including remote controller and power supply for less the best deals at the time for simple strips. Don't know why, and it isn't always true.4. Because of the competition in this area it is almost impossible to roll your own supplies cheaper than what you can find in package deals. Even when some of your material comes out of the scrap bin.5. They are far cheaper than any other option I have found. I have found 10 meter strips with controller and supply for well under $15 US. That provides significantly more light than a single 4ft two tube LED shop light fixture where the best deal I have found is just under $20 US. Other options provide superior light, but at substantially higher prices.6. While all of the cautions about low costs association with low quality are valid, I have had very little problem with any of the 60 or 70 meters of these strips that I have purchased for various uses. The worst problems have been marginal quality on the adhesive backing, and a strong chemical odor from two 10 meter single color strips. The odor dissipated after a few weeks and I am not dead yet.

author: Fungus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 07:41:09 am
content: Quote from: james_s on March 06, 2017, 05:06:16 amAnd where do you live? How filthy is your mains supply?

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 08:49:52 am
content: Quote from: radar_macgyver on March 05, 2017, 11:10:11 pmYes but they are not designed for general area lighting, they are intended for effects and special lighting such as coves, bars, small hard to reach area's that kind of thing, accent lighting, not general lighting.Big difference.

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 10:28:00 am
content: I've installed a cheap LED strip under my over-bench equpment shelf, which is about 25cm above the work surface. It's just far enough back from the front edge so it isn't directly visible. It works great at breaking up the hard-edged shadow from the overhead lighting, and illuminating the gloomy cavern into which small, hard-to-see parts gradually migrate. The main room lighting is CFL, with three LED 'spotlight' fixtures on support arms above the bench. The LED spots are great, but they do generate significant EMI.One thing I'd like to do is to install a similar stripunderthe bench to illuminate the storage shelf, back of the PC etc area, which is positively stygian at the moment.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 12:16:05 pm
content: I have Lithonia single LED bulb fixtures over my desk and my ham radio desk. I have a 6 bulb 12,000 lumen Envirolite fixture over half of my workbench and another on the way. All are 4,000K and are more than bright enough for my needs and nothing causes RFI. Off or on, the fixtures have no effect on 80 meter SSB

author: chconnor
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 06:44:42 pm
content: Thanks everyone -- I knew I came to the right place. :-) Looks like I have a bunch of research to do on the basics, still.Our basement does have very low ceilings, with lots of head-bumping plumbing and such here and there, so a low-profile solution is appealing. It's a dark and dingy space: sandstone block foundation, concrete floor; not reflective or bright in any sense of the words. We're currently working like trolls down there, with a couple bare CFL bulbs offering just enough light to find tools. :-)I'm not picky at all about the quality of light. Well, maybe I am a little, because I'm hoping to avoid fluorescents, but maybe I have an outdated notion of what those are like; the current fluorescents in our house are unappealing, but they're old.We had a bunch of "long-lasting" CFL bulbs burn out, and I developed a negative opinion of them before we figured out that our house mains had a semi-floating neutral, and the crazy voltage surges were blowing out the bulbs.I'm starting to think about just using regular 120V light fixtures in a variety of places and using whatever LED/CFL bulbs I can come by -- part of the logistical issue is that the low ceiling is also complicated with lots of plumbing and such, so it might be nice to have a variety of distributed point sources rather than a couple panels that cast a bunch of shadows.But the idea of cobbling something together with LED strips seemed like it had potential. E.g. strips on the bottom of a bunch of the floor joists over the work benches and so forth.The perspectives you are all giving about what the practical realities of that look like is exactly what I need; how bright they really are, how much they cost, what you can find deals on and what you can't, what just burns out in 6 months, etc etc.And I guess I won't be able to avoid slogging through google to some extent just to learn about the options. I had my fingers crossed that someone would say "these strips are great and cheap, and paired with this power supply make for good basic lighting option" and indeed I got some of that here so far.So, thanks a lot! Any other suggestions are very welcome.-c

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 06:59:44 pm
content: A good first step to brightening it up would be to whitewash the joists and underside of the floor!Personally I find that individual LED lights are typically far too directional with an uneven illumination pattern and are extremely annoying for close work (except as a single gooseneck spot or ring light) compared to any sort of fluorescent or incandescent.IMHO, start by grabbing a 4ft bare tube fluorescent fitting, with a good daylight tube, and temporally screwing it to the side of a joist, as low as possible without protruding, over one of the benches, with a flex and a plug to hook it up.If you like the resulting light you'll have a path to move forwards, probably with 6ft fittings if you've got room for them.For a permanent installation, if you use side mounted tubes, stick Aluminum foil to the underside of the floorboards as a reflector and optionally protect against impact with a wire mesh cage screwed to the bottom of the joist its mounted on, though that makes ceaning and tube replacement more of a PITA.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 07:13:49 pm
content: I have had basement situations like yours, and would seriously consider the LED strips in your situation. Fluorescent tube lights give good light, and installed between joists would not have too much negative impact on headroom (In the house I grew up in, working in the basement shop required standing with your head between joists, after ducking under pipes and ducts). The downside is that they do have a finite lifetime and at least in my area are being treated as hazardous waste with significant disposal fee. That is driving me to gradually replace the dozens of fluorescent fixtures I have. LED lights have thus far lived up to their potential for extremely long life. I am still waiting for the first failure. Very different experience from CFLs which for me exhibited failure rates comparable to or worse than incandescent.The light dispersal problems of the LED strips can be resolved, at least partly, through the use of strips rip sawed out of the acrylic diffusers marketed for fluorescent lighting. It comes in sheets that are roughly 100 cm by 60 cm so you can cover a lot of LED strip with on sheet in a few minutes on a table saw. If you have access to a shaper or router a very low profile and long light strip can be created easily. Still hasn't quite lived up to the style requirements of the SO, but that is an art design issue, not engineering.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 07:31:23 pm
content: CFLs never really lived up to the promised lifespan for most people because household lights are often switched on and off frequently. Each time you switch on a fluorescent lamp, a small portion of the emissive material on the cathodes is sputtered off, and this is especially true for the instant starting variety. Starting is also relatively stressful on the ballast circuitry which is already cost-reduced to the max and not particularly robust. I saw very long life of CFLs in dusk till dawn service, they regularly lasted well beyond the rated lifespan but I had a lot of early failures indoors. On top of that they took a few minutes to reach full brightness so in bathroom lights for example I was drying my hands and leaving right about the time the CFLs had started producing useful light.LED bulbs have proven far superior in so many ways. It's the reason I was initially spending 40 bucks a pop to replace still-working CFL bulbs, it was such a big improvement. Not a single one of those early $40 LED bulbs has failed.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 07:51:46 pm
content: Led bulbs also have a limited amount of soso actions.Good brands put this on the package. Mine says 30000 hrs or 12000 soso actions.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 08:34:28 pm
content: I think 12,000 cycles is more than adequate for anything other than perhaps an animated sign or scrolling marquee, that's probably greater than an order of magnitude more cycles than a typical CFL can tolerate. CFLs gained such a bad reputation so the early LED bulbs were over-engineered, manufactures knew that they weren't going to be able to sell expensive bulbs if they didn't live up to the claims this time around. It's pretty nice, I have not had to change a light bulb in 3 years. I've never been able to say that before. In fact the one new "problem" that I have is that I occasionally have to remove a bulb to clean the dust off it.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 08:52:26 pm
content: The first cfl bulb called the yelly jar from the 80s had an average lifespan > 20 years, it had an copperiron ballast

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 09:21:44 pm
content: Quote from: coyote20000 on March 05, 2017, 11:30:55 pmInteresting, as I've replaced pretty much every ligth bulb in my house with an LED one, usually the Utilitech ones from Lowes, not the fancy name ones. I even have some that specifically say not to use in enclosed fixtures in my enclosed fixtures int eh kitchen - for 2 1/2 years now. Not one has failed. I gave up on the can that was at the landing for the basement stairs - every CFL I put in there died in a month. I finally got an LED replacement one - been there for a year now, still works even when SOME people in my house leave the dang thing on 24/7. Even my backyard floods I replaced with LEDs, 4x 150 watt incandescents replaced with LEDs that in total are less than 100 watts.The garage lighting I really need to replace with the tube replacements, but I often don't use the lights out there. I am redoing the basement to accommodate my model railroad, which will use the LED strips to light Room lighting will be a few 2x4 fixtures int eh drop ceiling with either LED tube replacements or panels, but they will only be used during construction and so forth. The train layout will have 2 decks, each deck lit by multiple LED strips. The ones I installed on my electronics bench are super bright, but too bluish, but the same ones are available in a warm white color. I have another reel I got cheap on Amazon to mess around with. Based on the brightness, I figure 2 rows of the white plus a row of RGB (use to do a reddish dawn/dusk transition as well as blue for night effects. One thing I need to do is build some controllers for dimming - I need far too many strings to run it all from one power supply. Won;t be too difficult, Arduino using PWM driving some power MOSFETs, I'm thinking some low power RF to link the master to each slave controller to dim the white and control the color of the RGB. The RGB reel I have comes with a controller than can feed multiple downstream slave controllers but talk about Wun Hung Lo quality products... plus it only does 16 steps per color, so the range of colors is very limited. With 255 steps per color it should eb able to make a much nicer range of colors. Mostly just thought experiments for now but once I finish a few other projects I plan to order some parts and mock some of this up to see how well it works in practice.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2017, 10:39:50 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on March 06, 2017, 08:52:26 pmThe Philips SL, I had one of those a Philips rep gave me when I was about 5 years old and my dad took me to a lighting industry convention. Choke ballast with preheat start, that's about as gentle on the cathodes as it gets. They were not very efficient by modern standards though, and they had rather lousy color rendition, and they were bulky and heavy, but they were quite revolutionary at the time.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2017, 01:22:26 am
content: Quote from: Kjelt on March 06, 2017, 07:51:46 pm8+years for a light that is turned on and off twice a day. Sounds fairly good to me. Also probably conservative (in the sense that it defines that start of the uptick in the failure rate curve with a moderately broad distribution of actual failures) since the power on and off transients shouldn't be nearly as stressing as they are in a CFL. I suspect the real life limit for LED bulbs is solder fatigue in the joints at the LED chips themselves due to thermal expansion and contraction. So there will be a real separation between the houses which operate high quality solder lines and those that don't.Every CFL failure I have ever had was in the ballast/start electronics, and was much earlier than necessary due to the choices that were made to reduce costs. I have literally never seen a CFL bulb with the darkening associated with cathode erosion.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2017, 09:07:43 am
content: I personally thought it was the onoff inrush current stress on the capacitor that limited the lifetime but can be mistaken

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2017, 04:39:47 pm
content: I had lots of CFLs wear out the cathodes. The ones in my outdoor lights that switch once then run all night would get heavily blackened at the ends. The cathodes got so worn out that they ran hot and melted the plastic the ends of the tube sat in. The whole tube would take on a gray look as the phosphor was so hammered. I had one in the hall light which was typically turned on when I got home and run all evening, it eventually got noticeably dim and the color had become a bit yucky. One night I heard a small crack noise followed by a brief hiss. An autopsy revealed the arc had moved to the cathode support post, melted that and the thermal shock cracked the glass and let air in.Most of them though failed due to the ballast. I repaired a number of them that popped the capacitor between the cathodes that allows preheating.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2017, 06:18:12 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 06, 2017, 10:39:50 pmStill have a number of CFL adaptors, that are a regular B22 base, but you can fit in any regular PL lamp from 7W to 13W, with integral starter ( thus any 2 pin PL lamp) and it will run them. The lamps typically lasted 5-8 years on 24/7/365, and for those as dusk to dawn use the lamps did over 10 years, though of course I did use decent Osram or Phillips lamps. Those that are off brand do not last long, worst was a emergency relamp ( stock was due in a week, but needed the lamp now) that lasted 3 days before failing.Now with the LED lamps I have a string of downlighters that used R80 reflectors, and I used to get around a year out of the Phillips R63 lamps I used, but started to use LED A shape lamps instead where they fitted in there. Interesting in that there are still 2 R63 lamps in there doing sterling duty, while there have been 4 LED lamp failures, which is sad considering the lamps have a rated life of 30k hours, but do not seem to be able to reach it based on the early data.So, changed lamp type, and made a note that Radiant is not a good supplier of ANY lamp, and the fittings are no good either, just that they often are Hobson's choice in a pinch. Now using a cheaper one ( and saw yesterday Osram has one for the same price, just have to see if they are available in the cool white E27 base, and if they fit the downlighters) and have started marking on the base the install date, to get a life term.Did pull out an old ( circa 1995) CFL adaptor I repaired around 1997 ( when they cost around $30 each, so fixing the stock faults of blown 1N4002 diodes and fusible resistor, yes a 200V rated diode on a 230VAC mains) and which had been sitting in a rarely used foyer since then. Still worked, though of course did take 5 minutes to come to full brightness, and still had the 10W PL lamp from there in it. Replaced with a 60W B22 incandescent, as this likely will last decades.Funny thing is the metro still will install incandescent lamps in substation rooms and service corridors, where the light might only be turned on once a decade or so, but must work when needed, as CFL and LED lamps are not guaranteed to still work after 10 years sitting baking in the sun every day.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2017, 10:35:09 pm
content: Incandescent lamps do still have a place, at least so long as they are in mass production. If it's only going to be used once in a rare while, the electricity saved by a more efficient source is not outweighed by the higher cost. For a long time, traffic signals retrofitted to LED were done only on the red and green, the amber was left incandescent because it gets so little use in comparison. The new ones are all LED though, the cost has fallen to where it doesn't matter and the same will likely eventually happen with things like the metro lamps you mention.For 95% of domestic use though it baffles me why so many people still use incandescent bulbs. Sure they're cheap, but unless your power is free you will pay vastly more in electricity to run one than it costs to buy the LED bulb. I haven't used incandescent in my house in 15 years, except for the bulbs in my oven, microwave and a couple of lava lamps. Even my refrigerator has had an LED bulb in it for about 6 years.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2017, 12:51:58 am
content: It is actually fairly recent that a dispassionate analysis left incandescent completely behind.CFL beat incandescent by analysis, but the real life results had the higher price of the bulbs with much shorter than projected life eat up the power savings. They had other flaws like lack of dimming and RF noise generation (unless you further killed the economics by buying very high end products).LED prices have dropped dramatically over the last few years, and they have been out long enough to demonstrate real reliability. So now they are clearly the answer. It has only been 2-4 years since the tipping point was reached. That is a very short time to change peoples minds who have been doing something one way for decades, and have had the last time someone told them to change to something better blow up in their faces.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2017, 01:29:37 am
content: CFLs certainly did have disadvantages, but for the most part I was still able to apply them well, resulting in significant money saved. Where they really worked well was outdoor lighting that is on a photocell, starts once a day and runs all night, and indoor lighting like my hall light that is typically turned on when I get home and turned off when I go to bed. For more frequently switched applications like bathrooms and bedside lamps incandescent still compared favorably.LEDs are far superior to both for almost everything. Prices are now down to where the cost is less than incandescent even not factoring in the energy, $5 bulb lasts ~20 times as long as a typical 750 hour incandescent. So far I tend to believe this, having had only one failure and I was abusing that bulb by running it for prolonged periods base-up in a fully enclosed globe despite explicit warning not to do so.

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2017, 07:54:03 am
content: LEDs still suffer from problems of EMI, though!While the economics of replacing incandescents with LED are more or less a walkover now, the economics of replacing CFLs with LEDs are definitely not. I've replaced all incandescents except for the outside lights in the wood yard (which are on a PIR switch), and a couple of G9 halogen fittings which cannot accept LED bulbs*. but I'm swapping CFLs out only when they fail, get annoyingly dim, or I get too cross with the sloooow increase in brightness on switch-on.* Yes, I know you can get G9 LED bulbs. They fit, but are so big they peek out of the top of the shade, and so poorly designed they cook the LEDs - one lasted less than 9 months

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2017, 07:37:35 pm
content: True, and some are much noisier than others. I had a couple of older EcoSmart bulbs that would totally swamp some of the bands on my scanner. The Philips and Cree bulbs seem to be reasonably clean but I lack a spectrum analyzer to do a proper test.