LED lighting on the upswing....

[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9399209/

http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx

Can't wait

Dr. Mordrid

[Elie]

Meeee toooo

[PAugustin]

I use LED spots at home, it's great for power sonsumption and heat. But they are not as bright as halogen or fluorescent lights.
It's the only downside. even cost is ok as it lasts VERY long and draws VERY LITTLE power. I'm waiting for next gen brighter LED

[Marshmallowman]

I think fluro's are still more effiecient than LED's, but with LED's you don't have the startup consumption of fluros. Use LED's for light you turn on an off a lot , and fluros for light that you leave on for long periods.

Actually I think halogens are more effiecent(or close to) than LED's as well, but they certainly have a shorter life span

[Dr Mordrid]

I have flashlights that use the latest generation of LED's. BRIGHT AS HELL.....and the one that uses 2 D cells is 50 hours into those batteries with no sign of 'em failing yet. I have a smaller one for my van that runs on 4 AAA's and it's at least 30 hours into those and still no sign of 'em going dead.

Can't beat that....

Dr. Mordrid

[Dr Mordrid]

One more article on the subject;

http://www.livescience.com/technology/051214_electronic_walls.html

Dr. Mordrid

[GT98]

I got some LED xmas lights...they are bright as hell..but expensive compared to the regular lights you can get.

[Dr Mordrid]

We bought several strings this year. 75 lights ea. with traditional bulb shapes (conical) = $7.50

Dr. Mordrid

[Wulfman]

I think fluro's are still more effiecient than LED's, but with LED's you don't have the startup consumption of fluros. Use LED's for light you turn on an off a lot , and fluros for light that you leave on for long periods.

Actually I think halogens are more effiecent(or close to) than LED's as well, but they certainly have a shorter life span

from what I know, fluorescent tubes get you between 50-110lm/W. the linked page shows only 20-30 lm/W.

red & green LEDs might be better, but the white ones still "suck".

mfg
wulfman

[Claymonkey]

those rotating color bulbs look like they'd be perfect for a sculpture I designed back in college. One of our projects my senior year was to propose a sculpture for Boston University's new Photonics building. I'm sure all of you are familiar with those screen savers that rotate and undulate colors in interesting patterns. Well my idea was to take a abstract geometric sculpture made out of frosted glass. Then inside have rotating lights of different colors causing different patterns of light on the frosted glass. I admit that could come off VERY tacky but I still think it could look interesting if done well. I didn't get the commision because honestly my model did prove the concept well at all. However, I liked the design of geometric shape so much I used it for a stone carving I did later. I got a solid A on that one.

[TnT]

Forgot about this until a second ago. A friend of mine is using the light Doc has pictured, or at least it looks like that, as a porch light. Works great.

[Gurm]

I welcome any alternative to fluorescent lights. I'm one of those people whose eyes get bugged out by the mass-market cheap fluorescents... and nobody wants to spring for the pricey good ones. Cheap LED's? Literally a sight for sore eyes!

[Claymonkey]

now if they could make a WARM white LED light. I'm sorry but i don't like living in the land of blue. Heck finding warm flourescent lights is hard is heck. They often say they are on the box but aren't. I found a couple brands that were but I bought those six years ago and they are finally starting to die on me.

[Dr Mordrid]

Warm LED's shouldn't be too hard to come up with....just intersperce a few red & orange LED's among the white ones to warm the output a bit.

Dr. Mordrid

[az]

I don't quite understand why people are so excited about LED lighting. The only logical reason I can see is what drives all early adopters: Curiosity and excitement about something being "new", "high tech" or whatever, maybe the feeling of exclusivity.

At the moment, fluorescent is a lot better than LED for almost all domestic lighting applications. Its efficiency is much better, it can be had with a CRI of over 95 (which is good enough for serious photography), its life span is long enough (much longer than incandescent), etc. There are a few problems with cheap fluorescent lights, like flickering, poor color rendition, humming, a short wait before the lamp lights up. But all of these issues can be worked around, and there are lights that don't have them. There are even dimmable fluorescent lights. The only problem is that really good fluorescents are hard to find, but a good fluorescent lamp is still lots better for domestic lighting than an LED bulb. Of course, this might change in the future (though I don't know if LED will ever reach the efficiency of Fluorescent), but until then, I really see no reason to choose LED over Fluoro.