150 LED bulb uses 9W, costs $65
By Ryan Block 
posted February 8th 2007 10:17PM
posted February 8th 2007 10:17PM
posted February 8th 2007 10:17PM
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Can these be used inside domed fixtures??
Are LEDs dimmable? I use quite a bit of CFLs around the house and I'd love to replace all my incandescent at some point but have quite a few dimmable recessed fixtures. And halogen fan lights and bathroom fixtures.
If you are interested in using LED to replace spot lamps. Check out these guys:
http://www.enluxled.com/
Pop your computer on a Kill-A-Watt some time and you'll see that light bulbs are the least of your worries. All the little gadgets and addons pretty much nullify whatever power savings you get from going with the latest new chip with green features. Especially when you leave it on all day.
Is this another one of those bulbs that can only be disposed of by taking it to the junk yard due to mercury or lead, but which people will dispose of in their regular trash any way? So much for saving the planet guys.
OK, here's my take -- the ROI on these bulbs is 3 years, if you are OK with the quality of light it gives off.
Compact Fluorescent is fine, but it either has a slow start up time (not instant-on), or the color it gives off is harsh blue-ish/white-ish rather than warm (red-orange-yellow) like incandescent (but instant-on).
LED is fine if they get the lumens up and the light to feel more like incandescent. Not sure this bulb does, but I might buy one to see. Sure, the bulb costs $65, but instead of paying $24/year @ 2000 hours use per year and $0.20/kWh, you pay $3.60/year. $20 savings per year, and you've paid for the bulb in the first 3 years of use. The 47 years it will last after that is simply money saved. I don't think the LED bulbs are there yet in lumens.
Incandescent has a low cost per unit (like $0.50 at Target for a 60W frosted), but at 2000 hours use per year, you spend $24 on electricity at $0.20 kWh.
What I want are LED equivalents of 60w Narrow Flood Halogen lights, same lumen rating and same color warmth. Get creative with lenses like the LED flashlight manufacturers have done (see inova x5), and this should be doable. Get me those and I'll buy a bunch.
Additionally CF have mercury, and even at 8000 hours, you are throwing these out every 4 years into a landfill. At least with LED, it's a circuit board and you should be able to dispose with a computer disposal company to recover some of the valuable metals.
I recently came upon this ones:
http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/cc-vivid-plus-led-light-bulb.aspx
The 12V version gives out 60lumens and consumes only 0.6W. That's 100 lumen/watt!!! (according to manufacturer).
And yes, LEDs work with dimmer switches.
The LED systems available on bicycles, street lights, flashlights and automobiles from companies such as Cateye are outstanding and produce far more light than this, using a fraction of the number LEDs and have a life span that than this several magnitudes beyond current lighting for the home. It is unfortunate that incandescent or neon lights are even being used LED technology has advanced so much farther than what is available for home use. A good reflector and AC to DC conversion is all that is needed. I have seen applications in Asia that even use fiberoptics for distribution, but nothing in the States.
308 lumens from 9.2 watts .... about 33 lumens per watt?
www.nichia.com is working on LEDs that do 150 lumens per watt.
RESULTS
I've tried a considerable number of energy-saving fluorescent, multiple- and single-LED lamps over the years. Some of them flickered at mains frequency more than compact fluorescent. Most have had one or more of the LEDs fail. This is still very early technology. The best ones have been 4W (consumption) single-LED lamps (around £10). These are not bright enough to light a room, but make low-heat spot lamps.
MANUFACTURING COSTS
The cost of these lamps is due to packing all the control circuitry into a small space and arranging LEDs. It requires a rather different manufacturing process than a flat circuit board. Compact fluorescents have a less complicated design, incandescent are economically cheap to manufacture.
ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS
As far as ecology goes, there must be a lot more power required to construct compact fluorenscent and some chemicals in there. The LED lamps are probably a lot worse in terms of the ecological hit that manufacturing each one makes. Compared to the manufacturing costs of a dozen incandescent lamps? Who knows?!
RUNNING COSTS
Clearly, though the majority of the impact on the planet is in the running of these lights. It takes ages for one of these lights to pay for itself, but if you're prepared to pay a lot extra, this is the cutting edge.
maybe you guys are forgetting that they can also produce them in almost any format, and fit them into any place.
Although the price is high now (let it have scale economy and you'll see prices dropping), in the near future you'll pick them at almost the same price as fluorescent ones.
LED's have enormous advantages against anything else made up till now (that can be used commercially), so, it won't be long until we all start changing our fluorescent, incandescent and halogen lights into LED ones.
If you are off grid solar powered like we are, a watt is a watt. The fewer watts you use the less likely you are to need to fire up the generetor. So what cost value you place on going out into the snow to start the generator weighs into the cost/value of these LED bulbs.