A better bulb (dimmable, instant-on, brighter LED bulbs)

Now if only the cost will come down....

Perhaps the most neglected area requiring power conservation in the home is lighting, specifically the incandescent bulb. Last year we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the invention of the incandescent bulb. It is widely acknowledged that there have been few improvements in one and a half centuries. No other lighting source produces the warm yellow light so familiar to all of us. So why try to improve it? Because, bluntly put, it is one of the worst power consumers in the home.

Lamps with LED light bulbs
Until recently, lower power-consuming fluorescent alternatives have received minimal acceptance due to undesirable color tones, lack of good dimming capabilities and noisy ballasts. One would think that fluorescent bulbs should have outpaced incandescent bulbs based on power conservation issues alone, yet they are still a second choice for most homeowners. U.S. government requirements enacted in 2005 affecting ballasts, added to environmental concerns regarding mercury, as well as the introduction of white LED lighting, appear to be limiting the future of fluorescent bulbs in the home to the attic, basement, and workshop.

White LED lighting is creeping into the mainstream. Holding back progress, however, are issues such as variations in color rendition and intensity, heat management, cost of manufacturing, market entry issues and consumer acceptance. For general-purpose applications for example task lighting, changing customer’s expectations from using several down lights or a fluorescent tube to using a single linear fixture employing a bulb with multiple LEDs is a tough sell.

While these issues need to be addressed by all LED lighting applications, the greatest hindrance to entering the consumer market is incentive. There is little incentive to replace an incandescent or fluorescent bulb unless the alternative has clear advantages. This is difficult to achieve, and has not been accomplished since the introduction of electric lighting.

However, many of these issues are resolved with the new white light LED solutions. Among the many advantages of LED lighting are: low power consumption; long life expectancy, which reduces replacement costs; robustness due to absence filament; environmentally friendly; can improve color quality; can be directional for task and display lighting; variety of colors are available; delivers a wide range of illumination intensity by increasing the number of LEDs; instant-on capability; dimmable; can be designed so that damage to one LED does not affect the others; adaptable to mobile and battery powered applications. Last but not least, the new generation of LEDs are expected to significantly outperform incandescent and fluorescent alternatives...cont'd

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/features/2/8/2/1


Some new bulb selections:
http://www.betterbulb.com/products.html#xenon

fllorescent substitute long ones?

What are they made of?

inside an actual glass bulb. Would make no sense to do so, though. Since they produce next to no heat there's no need for glass to stand up to it.

candelabra bulbs (and they cost the earth), others look like tube florescent bulbs (at almost a hundred thirty a pop) that go into and replace tube florescent fixtures.

That's why I was asking. If they were plastic, well, that would be the ticket!

They're CCFL, which is a kind of fluorescent, rather than LED. Sorry for the confusion--I hadn't looked at the site, and thought that they were all LED. Even so, though, any sort of compact florescent lamp typically has much thicker glass than an incandescent bulb, which is like a glass film--unless you're dropping it six feet onto concrete, I'd bet on survivability.

Also, there are lots of places online that stock LED bulbs. You might want to look around.

http://www.ledbulbs.com/

and buy one, maybe 2 for a few dimmable applications. Hoping the $ will go towards development and research towards cheaper ones. By the time they burnout, then they will be more affordable. ? .

i'll just put them in the most unused lamps and prolong the life span.
dp

"can improve color quality"

"Soon after Berson's finding, Figueiro and others began testing how well blue light can reset people's circadian clocks. Over the past 3 years, for instance, Figueiro has worked with eight Alzheimer's patients who tended to fall asleep around 7 p.m. Their body clocks were running amok—probably, she says, because these shut-ins didn't encounter blue skies or other light that was bright enough to prevent circadian drift.

"Exposure to red light around suppertime for 2 hours each day for 10 successive days had no effect on the patients' disordered sleep. However, Figueiro found, a similar exposure to blue-LED light prompted the study participants to fall asleep later and then sleep longer and better than they had before the treatment.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060527/bob9.asp

My Mom has Alzheimers and suffers from 'sundowning' , when the sun goes down her symptoms get worse. I will definitely try this blue bulb, (and possibly a full spectrum one), ready to try anything at this point.

through google. check it out as best you can before you do anything else. (just some advice)

When lighting designers talk about this they are referring to the spectrum of the light, and their control over it. More expensive fluorescent lamps use 3 or more phosphors so that the light they produce not only appears to be the color they want it to be, but also the stuff illuminated by the lamps looks realistic (or at least "pretty"). Smart retailers have used "tri-phosphor" fluorescent lamps for a long time now to make their products look as appealing as possible. Nice new LED (expensive) lamps do the same sort of thing except with multiple colors of LEDs.

Low cost "white" LEDs are blue LEDs with additional yellow phosphor doping. This makes the resulting light appear bluish-white. The stuff the light is shining on, however, may not appear natural, particularly if it is colored red or orange, among others. These colors reflect far less when illuminated by these lamps than one would expect, and don't look right. This may not matter in a utility lighting situation, but is not desirable as a replacement for the nice broad spectrum of incandescent lamps. Using more colors of LEDs or more types of phosphors can give better "rendering" to illuminated objects and people.

Here's an example. I have one of the pricey LED lamps. These use 4 different colors of LEDs in a large emitter array. They're available in several different whites, so you can pick one you like. I put these in a track fixture in the kitchen, replacing a PAR CFL lamp. Suddenly, the carrots appeared a much more vivid orange. I can test this, by moving the carrot back under a remaining fluorescent or incandescent lamp, and the difference is striking. I would replace all 5 lamps in that fixture with those LED floods, but at $90 a piece, that may have to wait a while.

You can do your own experiments on color quality, etc. with an optical spectrum analyzer, aka "a prism". With sunlight, you'll see the familiar rainbow. Incandescent lamps will produce a similar rainbow, but with stronger oranges and weaker blues. Now try it on some LEDs and fluorescent lamps, and you can see distinct color lines. Three or 4 lines will render more realistically than 2. Congratulations, you are now a quantum physicist!;)

...to borrow your description. A lamp with several colored LEDs would seem to be more efficient to me. I have always seen low lumens/watt ratings for white LEDs.

A designer would just have to select the LEDs for the correct light levels to create a lamp that looks like "balanced" white light.

Good explanation in paragraph 1. I would add that quality here does not refer to reliability. Welcome to our forum :hi:

it was worth it--good for the environment even though all my light strings were still fine from last year. i bought 11 strands of them. after hooking them up i had one strand left over. two days later one strand goes out. i try changing the little fuse--nothing. it's dead. gone. a piece of shit. i take it down and replace it with the leftover strand. a week later a second strand burns out/dies out--whatever. that gets replaced with a regular strand from last year. couple days later a THIRD strand goes out! wtf??? $12 for a strand of led lights and they last anywhere between a few days and a few weeks?

i was so happy to have found them--and have never had such piece of shit lights in my life. what a major disappointment. i hope those $80 led bulbs have a better track record.

so when one burns out, the whole string goes. The strings are cheap because the quality controls are cut to reduce cost. I think they also use less lamps to increase the current and resulting brightness. This puts a lot of thermal stress on the LEDs. It also makes the string cheaper to manufacture.

LED light bulbs cost around $36. and are designed to last. The concept is still the same as the cheap strings, just a different layout and better quality control.

Some day the cost will come down.

I can remember when, in 1969, a single red LED was $50. That's over $200 in today's money.

Costco does not carry that product any more.

"call for price" pays a lot of P&E bills.

Blue LEDs really are brighter than their old-fashioned red and green counterparts. Barney O'Meara, vice president of Canadian LED manufacturer The Fox Group, said blue LEDs have at least 20 times the luminous intensity of old-fashioned red and green indicators. O'Meara said his company has developed technology to manufacture low-intensity blue LEDs.

"Blue tends to cause more discomfort and disability glare than other, longer wavelengths," said Dr. David Sliney, an expert on the harmful effects of bright light sources at the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine in Maryland.

Sliney said the eye's lens cannot focus sharply on the blue lights. While red or green light is focused precisely onto the retina, blue light is focused slightly in front of it, which causes a distracting halo around bright blue lights.

In addition, blue scatters more widely than other colors as it passes through the eyeball, Sliney said. Together, these two effects cause the intense blue light from a point source, like an LED, to spread out across the retina, interfering with other parts of the scene. It's called dispersion: Blue's shorter wavelength makes it refract at a greater angle than, say, red or green.

Also, human vision becomes far more sensitive to blue when ambient light levels are low, a phenomenon known as the Purkinje shift. So a blue light that is merely eye-catching on a brightly lit store shelf can become dazzling when the lights are low, such as when watching a movie on a laptop in a dimly lit room.

Some researchers report that, at night, even low-level blue light may be enough to trigger recently discovered receptors in the retina that can depress melatonin production, disrupt sleep patterns and suppress the immune system.
http://www.dcontinuum.com/content/news.php?id=209

For most homes, the greatest consumption of energy is in heating and cooling (refrigerators, air conditioners, furnaces, hot water heaters, etc.), not in lighting. It'd be great to see huge strides in making those things more efficient as well.

The other issues can (and have) been addressed with better insulation and more efficient motors.

heat would indicate more efficiency. Also, isn't the heat a fire hazard?

This loss is converted to heat. The whole idea is they are more efficient in generating a given amount of photons in the visible spectrum per unit of energy given of as heat. If we could all see well in the infrared portion of the spectrum, life would be much simpler.

If so, that's a very different animal. I won't use them because of how hot they get. I'm afraid I'll leave one on while I'm gone and come back to pile of ashes instead of a house. No halogens for me.

Do these ones have mercury in them? The flourescent ones have mercury,
and I won't switch for that reason alone. I read an article about a lady
who broke one in her home. She called to get a team over to measure
the mercury levels in her home and her entire home was condemned
for dangerous levels. For one bulb. With the light bulbs and the
thimerosol in the vaccinations, we're becoming walking mercury labs.

The latest LED’s are more efficient than compact fluorescent lights, are “instant-on”, dimmable, and could have 10-20 year lifetimes while using 10% of electricity of incandescents and avoiding toxic materials such as the mercury used in fluorescent lights. So SSL ( Solid State Lighting ) is one of the technologies that can impact the global energy balance and significantly reduce energy consumption.

> Do these ones have mercury in them?

Don't worry, LED bulbs don't have mercury in them. :hi:

> The flourescent (sic) ones have mercury, and I won't switch for
> that reason alone.

Keep them off your diet and you'll be just fine :P

> I read an article about a lady who broke one in her home.
> She called to get a team over to measure the mercury levels in
> her home and her entire home was condemned for dangerous levels.
> For one bulb.

Bullshit.

There is no way that the amount of mercury in one CFL would be enough
to condemn anything except any foodstuffs that might have been below
it when she broke the bulb.

You'd have to be eating it or sniffing it for the mercury in a CFL to
be harmful and, even then, you'll probably be taking in more from
seafood and certainly more from any old fillings that you have had
(not to mention breathing it if you are anywhere near a coal-fired
power station).

Why do some people try every poxy excuse under the sun to justify
their laziness when it comes to even making a start at becoming more
energy efficient?

According to www.lightbulbrecycling.com, each year an estimated 600 million fluorescent lamps are disposed of in U.S. landfills, amounting to 30,000 pounds of mercury waste. Astonishingly, that's almost half the amount of mercury emitted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants each year. It only takes 4mg of mercury to contaminate up to 7,000 gallons of freshwater, meaning that the 30,000 pounds of mercury thrown away in compact fluorescent light bulbs each year is enough to pollute nearly every lake, pond, river and stream in North America (not to mention the oceans

Many state governing agencies have adopted their own regulations regarding the disposal of fluorescent lights. In California, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, it is unlawful for anyone to dispose of fluorescent bulbs as universal waste. These laws are based on the well-documented toxicity of the heavy metal mercury.

Mercury (also called 'quicksilver') is a heavy, silvery transition metal most commonly found in thermometers, barometers, and other scientific apparatus. It is used in the electrical industry and in laboratory and medical instruments. Mercury is a known neurotoxin, and elevated blood mercury levels may lead to retardation and deformities in children. Chest pains, dyspnea, coughing, hemoptysis, and sometimes interstitial pneumonitis leading to death may follow acute inhalation exposure to mercury vapor. In America, 1 in 6 children born every year have been exposed to mercury levels so high that they are potentially at risk for learning disabilities, motor skill impairment and short-term memory loss.

If Americans adopt the use of even more compact fluorescent light bulbs, this ratio is like to substantially grow. Breaking one mercury light bulb in your home can contaminate your home to such a degree that hazardous materials experts are needed to remove the mercury. (At great cost, too. A typical mercury removal effort involving the breaking of a single fluorescent light can cost several thousand dollars.) The idea of allowing mercury to be placed in an easily breakable consumer product is fraught with public safety risks. In fact, it required a special exemption from the EPA to allow mercury-fluorescent lamps to be sold to consumers in the first place.

When a fluorescent light breaks, its vapors quickly escape and can be inhaled and absorbed through the skin. Most compounds of mercury are toxic, especially its organic compounds (such as methyl mercury).

A researcher at the University of Illinois at Springfield sums up the basic point behind these fluorescent bulbs: "People need to understand that these bulbs are considered "hazardous" and can cause long term damage to not only the environment, but if broken can cause health problems with people as well. Mercury has the ability to cause humans, as well as animals, serious health problems such as permanent nerve and kidney damage if exposed."...>


http://www.newstarget.com/021907.html

I'd like to point out now that I am NOT against LED bulbs (having replaced
several lamps in my house with them already) but I AM against the use of
fear-mongering to discourage people from swapping from incandescent bulbs
to CFLs.

Anyway ...

> According to www.lightbulbrecycling.com, each year an estimated 600
> million fluorescent lamps are disposed of in U.S. landfills, amounting
> to 30,000 pounds of mercury waste. Astonishingly, that's almost half
> the amount of mercury emitted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power
> plants each year.

I had a look at that claim but couldn't find any figure on that site
referring to the output of coal-fired power plants (and 60,000 lbs Hg
struck me as a bit on the low side from memory).

I did find this though ...

>> 187 incinerators nationwide emit approximately 70,000 total pounds of
>> mercury into the environment each year.

... which made me wonder if 187 incinerators had magically been transformed
into the entire USA's collection of "coal-fired power plants" ...?

:think:


Also, althought we are told that ...

>> 100 four-foot long fluorescent lamps contain about 4 grams of mercury

... I didn't see any figure on how many three-inch CFLs you'd need to get
the same amount of mercury ... shame really as it would give a bit of
perspective ...


Then I found a possible explanation:
>> "LightBulbRecycling.com is a division of Eco-Products, Inc.
>> Created to offer businesses and individuals an easy way to
>> recycle fluorescent light bulbs ..."

... so no conflict of interest there then ... especially when you see
their product range comprises of three items:

o A CFL recycling bucket + 30 bags = $120.95
o The equivalent for 8' tubes = $100
o The equivalent for 4' tubes = $70

I wonder why this company might exaggerate the Hg "threat" of CFLs ...


BTW, regarding your main article's author:
> "Mike Adams is a holistic nutritionist with a mission to teach personal
> and planetary health to the public. ...
> In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of super bright LED light
> bulbs that are 1000% more energy efficient than incandescent lights."

Hmmm. Wonder why *he* is interesting in promoting LED light bulbs at
the expense of CFLs?

:evilgrin:

As I said earlier, I love LED lamps and am totally behind CFLs too so
I'm not really digging at you. I just don't like "The Mercury Menace"
being used dishonestly - it's a nasty old substance but CFLs aren't the
big issue that certain parties would like people to believe.
:hug:

Fluorescent

Mercury toxicity
Because fluorescent lamps contain mercury, a toxic heavy metal, governmental regulations in many areas require special disposal of fluorescent lamps separate from general and household wastes. Mercury poses the greatest hazard to pregnant women, infants, and children.

Landfills often refuse fluorescent lamps due to their high mercury content. Households and commercial waste sources are often treated differently.

The amount of mercury in a standard lamp can vary dramatically, from 3 to 46 mg. <1> Newer lamps contain less mercury and the 3-4 mg versions are sold as low-mercury types. (A typical 2006-era 4 ft (120 cm) T-12 fluorescent lamp (i.e., F32T12) contains about 12 milligrams of mercury<2>.)

In early 2007, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association in the US announced that "Under the voluntary commitment, effective April 15, 2007, participating manufacturers will cap the total mercury content in CFLs under 25 watts at 5 milligrams (mg) per unit. CFLs that use 25 to 40 watts of electricity will have total mercury content capped at 6 mg per unit."NEMA Voluntary Commitment on Mercury in CFLs


Cleanup of broken fluorescent lamps
A broken fluorescent tube is more hazardous than a broken conventional incandescent bulb due to the mercury content. Because of this, the safe cleanup of broken fluorescent bulbs differs from cleanup of conventional broken glass or incandescent bulbs. 99% of the mercury is typically contained in the phosphor, especially on lamps that are near their end of life <3>. Therefore, a typical safe cleanup usually involves first opening a window and then leaving the room (restricting access) for at least 15 minutes, wearing gloves carefully dispose of any broken glass, as well as any loose white powder (fluorescent glass coating). You can use sticky tape to pick up small pieces... double bag any waste. Dispose of waste in accordance with local hazardous waste laws. Finally a wet paper towel should be used instead of a vacuum cleaner for cleanup of glass and powder, to reduce the vaporization of the mercury into the air.

The first time you vacuum the area where the bulb was broken, remove the vacuum bag once done cleaning the area (or empty and wipe the canister) and put the bag and/or vacuum debris, as well as the cleaning materials, in two sealed plastic bags in the outdoor trash or protected outdoor location for normal disposal <6>

It would be safer to use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter, because older-type vacuum cleaners don't trap really-fine dust. That dust is exhausted into the room, which spreads it.

Fluorescent lamps manufactured many decades ago had phosphors that contained beryllium, which is toxic. One is not likely to encounter lamps this old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp

----------------

CFL bulbs:



Mercury emissions
CFLs, like all fluorescent lamps (e.g., long tubular lamps common in offices and kitchens), contain small amounts of mercury<32><33> and it is a concern for landfills and waste incinerators where the mercury from lamps may be released and contribute to air and water pollution. In the USA, lighting manufacturer members of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) have made a voluntary commitment to cap the amount of mercury used in CFLs:

Under the voluntary commitment, effective April 15, 2007, NEMA members will cap the total mercury content in CFLs of less than 25 watts at 5 milligrams (mg) per unit. The total mercury content of CFLs that use 25 to 40 watts of electricity will be capped at 6 mg per unit.<34>

Coal power plants are "the largest uncontrolled industrial source of mercury emissions in Canada".<35> According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), (when coal power is used) the mercury released from powering an incandescent lamp for five years exceeds the total of (a) the mercury released by powering a comparably luminous CFL for the same period and (b) the mercury contained in the lamp.<36> It should be noted, however that the "EPA is implementing policies to reduce airborne mercury emissions. Under regulations issued in 2005, coal-fired power plants will need to reduce their emissions by 70 percent by 2018."<37>.

Some manufacturers such as Philips and GE make very low-mercury content CFLs.<38> In 2007, Philips claimed its Master TL-D Alto range to have the lowest mercury content of any CFL on the market, at 2mg.<39>

Safe disposal requires storing the bulbs unbroken until they can be processed. Consumers should seek advice from local authorities. Usually, one can either:

Return used CFLs to where they were purchased, so the store can recycle them correctly; or
Take used CFLs to a local recycling facility.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency publishes guidelines on how to clean up after CFL tube ('bulb') breakage <40> and recommends that, in the absence of local guideline, CFLs be double-bagged in plastic bags before disposal.

The first step of processing CFLs involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercury-absorbing filter or cold trap to contain and treat the contaminated gases. Many municipalities are purchasing such machines. The crushed glass and metal is stored in drums, ready for shipping to recycling factories.

According to the Northwest Compact Fluorescent Lamp Recycling Project, because household users have the option of disposing of these products in the same way they dispose of other solid waste, "a large majority of household CFLs are going to municipal solid waste". They additionally note that an EPA report on mercury emissions from fluorescent tube lamp disposal indicates the percentage of total mercury released from the following disposal options: municipal waste landfill 3.2%, recycling 3%, municipal waste incineration 17.55% and hazardous waste disposal 0.2%.<41>.

--------

And an NPR piece on this issue:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7431198



And from a waste management group:

Several researchers have found that a significant amount of mercury is released from broken fluorescent light bulbs disposed at solid waste facilities.

Fluorescent bulbs contain a small amount of mercury vapor and a larger amount of mercury in a phosphor powder or dust form. Researchers assume that the mercury vapor is immediately released when the bulb breaks, but they debate how much mercury is emitted from the powder (US EPA, 1998).

ORNL researchers estimate that as much as 20 to 30 percent of the total mercury in a bulb could volatilize over one week (Lindberg, 1999b), basing this estimate on measurements of the flow of mercury emitted from fluorescent bulbs in closed dumpsters over a week.

Researchers at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection have comparable findings. Simulating conditions at a solid waste disposal facility, they found that 17 to 40 percent of mercury was released from low mercury fluorescent bulbs over a two-week period following breakage, with higher temperatures contributing to higher releases of mercury (Aucott, 2003).

The US EPA in contrast estimates that broken fluorescent bulbs emit only 1.2 to 6.8 percent of the total mercury they contain-primarily the mercury vapor, based on studies by the Research Triangle Institute, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, and Tetra Tech for the Electric Power Research Institute (US EPA, 1998).

http://www.newmoa.org/prevention/mercury/landfillfactsheet.cfm

Less than a drop per bulb.

Over time the mercury is absorbed into the glass and, while I would never say it was safe, it is chemically locked up.

CFLs should be used in situations where they're left on for longer periods of time - the kitchen, bathroom, main lighting in the living room. Anywhere you're going to turn them on and leave them on for a period of time.

The metal contacts that "spark" the light have a limited number of on/off cycles since the metal is actually given off each time the light is turned on.

I'm on the energy and efficiency committee at my condo. We distributed about $1,600 worth of 13 and 23 watt CFLs to the community late last year and, due to our education efforts, we believe an equal number were purchased independently. By MAY, our electric bill was nearly $20K below budget. It's huge. EOM.

This is the best article I've ever seen on CFLs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

(i.e., with reducing your electricity bills)

:applause:

Why am I unsurprised?

Have bookmarked that for future reference when the next troll comes along!

:toast:

For anyone out there dragging their feet about switching to Compact Fluorescent (CFL) or LED light bulbs in the home, we’ve put together some data about long-term usage in comparison to incandescent bulbs. As anyone paying attention has noticed, incandescent bulbs are rapidly becoming a thing of the past in terms of price, output, and performance. In an attempt to shed some light on the issue, we’ve crunched some numbers and put together an Excel sheet that compares various facets of incandescent, CFL and LED bulbs. Read the rest of our analysis after the jump, and feel free to download our Light Bulb Comparison Spreadsheet ( http://www.productdose.com/LightBulb_Comparison.xls ),which you can customize for your own home bulb comparisons.

Next time you’re out looking for light bulbs for your home, consider your options and bear in mind a few factors that go into differentiating your options: individual bulb price, lifespan, lumens (brightness), and wattage/electricity cost (how much electricity it takes to light the bulb). Before you try to figure out which bulb you want to buy, consider what your goals are. Do you want to the longest-lasting bulb you can find? Do you want the most efficient bulb? Do you want to stop changing bulbs for 15 years? These days, there’s an option for each of these concerns....>

http://www.productdose.com/article.php?article_id=1142

...and there is already a post on it...
Contrary to a previous post, I feel CFLs do just fine in the cold. Ours just braved a Chicago winter w/ some extremely low temps. True, they take a little longer (a whole minute! <--sarcasm) to reach full brightness when extremely cold--but studies have shown that the boogie man takes a full three minutes to materialize-- thus rendering you far from any real danger.

I have had early failures with T8 (or T12) fluorescent fixtures that were rated for -10F. I think it was that sh!t "Lights of America" brand. I sold the house and now it is someone elses problem.