![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The main light in the kitchen is in the center of the ceiling and if you are at the sink and there is no light from the window, such as at night, you cast a shadow right on the area you are using. Thus there is a light over the sink. This was a fluorescent tube, which was nice as it was lower power and lower maintenance than the incandescent that was originally the central light source. That central incandescent bulb was replaced some time ago, first by CFL, then by LED.
The light over the sink would sometimes start almost as soon as the switch for it was flipped. More often there was a noticeable lag. And increasingly it was enough to make me wonder "Did I flip that switch or not? If I did, shouldn't the light be on by now?" A while ago I had finally had enough and ordered a replacement tube. This tube was LED and not of the new 'direct replacement' variety, so I had to redo the fixture wiring to eliminate the ballast and starter. A simple matter of wiring...
Except whoever committed the installation was, how shall we say... oh yes, an imbecile. There were already several junctions and patches, it seemed. The mounting to the ceiling was (and alas, remains rather) dubious. And to add the cherry to dubious cake, he put the switch on the neutral wire. For those unfamiliar with US household wiring: That's bad. It means even when 'off' the light was 'live'. This might not seem important for a light up in or near the ceiling, but it's bad practice and shoddy workmanship. It also has me wondering what else is screwed up in this place.
It took longer than I cared for, but the fixture has been rewired, with the 'live' or 'hot' line switched (so when the lamp is off, it should all be effectively at ground level voltage: 0). and the LED 'tube' installed. I like that it seems to be easier to specify color temperature for fluorescent tubes and their replacements. I didn't have to hunt through seemingly endless 2700K (yellow) and 5000K (blue) and 6500K (very blue) options to find the 4000K (white) option I actually wanted. There is still a slight delay between flipping the switch and getting light, but it's reliably under a second.
It's been a couple weeks of life with a mix of CFL and LED in the office, and battery-powered motion-sensing LED in a stairway. I no longer foresee replacing the remaining CFLs in the office with LED. The LEDs are okkay for filling in the gaps, but they just aren't that that bright, even allowing for the lower equivalent wattage. And they are bit color-skewed.
In the office I was for a time considering going back to a "soft white" for at least one of the CFLs. The somewhat bluish LEDs and the white CFLs result in a cold feeling light. I'd say clinical, but every clinic I've been in was careful not to give this impression. It's sort of like the descriptions in some UFO stories: cold, slightly bluish, almost eerie light. If it was the same white or blue-white throughout the house I probably wouldn't notice so much. But every other room has CFL (or halogen for the living room[1]) that is more of a so-called soft white. The difference can be stark. I am curious enough that I might try switching to all LED in the office, but only as a very short test. I expect the office to remain a mix of CFL and LED unless or until LED gets significantly better: brighter and more of natural white. A more diffuse light would also be a Good Thing. Right now, for general use, CFL wins over LED everywhere except apparent power consumption. I say apparent as I suspect that with current LED technology to get full illumination would require so many more LED lamps that they would use as much power as the few CFLs they would replace.
I can see using LED in places where color and great brightness aren't that critical. A porch light that is only needed to reveal a step and the keyhole seems about an ideal application. Maybe LED lighting in a storage, but not clothing, closet would make some sense as well. If there was a light over a stairway, that's another place that only needs enough light to let you see where the top and bottom steps are.
I bought a couple "locker lights" which are a combination motion sensor and LED lamp. I put one in the main stairwell near the bottom so that it trips before I get there when descending. That lets me see the bottom step without my needing to switch on an upstairs light or carry a flashlight around. Another will go on the porch so that I can easily find the keyhole at night.
The LED lamp still isn't ready for general purpose lighting. It's fine for specialized applications and can fill in some gaps, but CFL wins big on brightness and color.
As I see it:
LED - For applications where efficiency matters more than color or brightness.
Fluorescent - General purpose lighting. (Some can be dimmed and some are outdoor rated, but you have to look for these.)
Incandescent - Specialty applications (appliance lighting, e.g. oven and refrigerator lights). Easily dimmable. Runs cooler than halogen.
Halogen - Slightly more efficient than incandescent and can easily be dimmed.
[1] Which is a dimmable torcherie that would not be a trivial swap conversion to CFL. If/when the halogen fails, I would certainly consider swapping out the socket arrangement to go to a dimmable CFL.
I went looking for a small 40W incandescent appliance bulb for the fridge this morning and while the local hardware store did not have such a thing (the dollar store did, though) I saw something else of interest: A supposedly 40W equivalent LED "bulb" that uses only 1.5 Watts. And while the price was not as low as incandescent, or even CFL, it was about what CFLs were not all that long ago. I splurged and bought one.
Why buy a $10 bulb? Lifespan, heat, efficiency, and just plain curiosity. I'm expecting another CFL to fail in the office light fixture (four bulbs and a fan) and it's tiresome. Mainly because I have to store the defunct CFLs until sometime in October when the folks that deal with fluorescents are in town again. So now it's three CFLs and one LED bulb which has pre-emptively replaced a CFL, which is now a spare.
Here are my initial impressions:
The good: It works. If you like full instant-on, this does it. The light is diffuse enough that in a typical non-horizontal reflector fixture it doesn't seem like a spotlight. It runs relatively cool. The current limiter gets warm, but one can grasp the envelope and unscrew it even after it's been on for some time. I haven't noticed any flicker, something one might expect with AC-powered LEDs. No mercury. And hopefully a really long service life.
The bad: The price is a bit high. This isn't something I'd re-lamp the whole house with, at least not yet, but the next CFL that goes out in the office* will get replaced with LED. It looks like this would not be a good replacement for a horizontally mounted bulb. Also, 40 Watt is the highest wattage equivalency I've seen for sale in person yet. If there were a 100 Watt equivalent at about the same price, the kitchen light would likely be up for replacement. Also, there's no Energy Star logo on the packaging that the local electric service requires for a rebate of some of the cost, but then the rebate is (so far) only for CFL.
The... not ugly: The LED looks bluish when you look at it, even compared to the "natural white" CFLs which are certainly whiter or bluer than the "soft white" yellowish CFLs. The LED bulb doesn't seem as bright or perhaps just not as dazzling, but working under it doesn't seem dim or lacking at all. Checking back, it should seem dimmer as the CFLs are 60 Watt equivalent, not 40 Watt equivalent.
The bulb is a clear plastic globe envelope with 20 individual LEDs near the base. They appear to be indium phosphide with fluorescent powder. When switched off, the internal surface of the diodes glow for a while. The glow is enough to be seen, but not enough to really see by. In a desk lamp fixture, the bulb does not protrude from the reflector at all and even it did, the LEDs would not. Between that and the narrower beam width of LEDs the result is that the light doesn't flood as much of a room as the equivalent incandescent - I checked. The beam width isn't overly narrow, however. It's just more like what you might expect or hope for from a shield or reflector.
Before we converted away from incandescent, the office light fixture had four of them, at 40 Watts. That was 160 Watts total. The CFLs (60 W equivalent) use 13 Watts each, for a total of 52 Watts. The LED uses a mere 1.5, so if when we convert the office fully to LED, the lighting will use all of 6 Watts - one Watt less than an incandescent nightlight.
* Or one like the ones in the office, then one in the office gets moved and replaced by LED.
One of the selling points pushed for CFL lighting is the environmental aspect of them. So it seems a bit odd that the plastic shell that held the light I put into service today does not have a recycling number on it anywhere. Since it doesn't have a number, it's trash rather than something for the recycle barrel.
Over a year ago, in late February or early March, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jmaynard and I switched almost all the lights in the house to compact fluorescent. Now that it's been over a year with them, I've realized that the reliability claims seem to be true.
In the past year we've replaced two CFLs. One was a case of "infant mortality" where the circuitry failed immediately when first switched on. This was covered under warranty, almost. A replacement bulb was sent, but not in the same style. When we informed the company of that issue they sent another bulb, but it was the same style as they had sent and not the one we wanted. So that was the one bulb we bought a replacement for.
Another bulb failed a month or two later, and was replaced with one of the bulbs that had been sent. Since then we've had no problems.
Had we still been using incandescents I expect I would have replaced two or three bulbs in the office light fixture in the last year.
I don't expect incandescent lights to ever completely disappear as there are places that I really wouldn't want a fluorescent light, such as in an oven. But the idea of using incandescents for general lighting seems a rather quaint notion to me now.
Fluorescent dawn
11 March 2007 22:00This weekend there was small expo at the local mall and one of the area power companies had a booth promoting compact fluorescent lights (CFL) and LED lighting. There was demonstration to show the difference in power between fluorescent and incandescent lighting using a very large "compact" (if it could still be called such) fluorescent light with an equivalent output of 500W. It took about 90 Watts to run, but that was still less that the regular 100 W bulb used in the comparison.
While the different lamp styles were interesting, what I noticed was a confirmation of what I've suspected since we switched to CFLs at home. Some lights are on as soon as the switch is flipped. Some lights have a short delay before they turn on. Some lights seem to be at full or near full brightness immediately. Some lights start out noticeably dim and slowly come up to full brightness. At first this was a bit puzzling. It wasn't a matter of age, as a couple of the older CFLs in house were the ones switching on instantly to full (or near full, it's hard to tell) brightness.
The answer is wattage. I'll use the equivalent, rather than actual, power here. The big 500W light at the demo was cold before I switched it on. It switched on instantly and was as far as I could tell at full brightness right away. The 100 W CFL was about the same. The 75 W CFLs at home seem to be fairly quick. The 60 W CFLs start out noticeably dim and take time to brighten. The 40 W equivalent globes around the bathroom mirror start out instantly, but take a minute or two to come up to full brightness.
I suspect that besides the power used, some lights might be of better quality and come on instantly. The dim start seems to be related only to power. I am curious about a 25 W or 15 W equivalent would behave, but I have no reason to get such a thing.
I've already gotten used to the slight delay in starting. The slow brightening, like an accelerated a miniature sunrise, I find I rather like, at least at times. I'm really glad I don't get hit with the full brightness of the bathroom mirror lights right away, for example.
There have been more than a few articles about compact fluorescent lights recently. Today jmaynard and I went over the lights in the house and we wound up replacing a good many of the incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights.
The first place to get the treatment was the office as those lights get the most use. Other rooms, such the kitchen, the machine room, and with some effort the bathrooms got changed next. Later, after another trip to the store (we cleaned Hy-Vee out of their inexpensive 60 Watt compact fluorescent lights) the various closets, part of the basement, and a hallway light fixture were converted. That last one could use another CF light, but one will do for now.
There are a few incandescent lights left in the house. The attic lights which don't see much use are unchanged, as are the lights in the track lighting of part of the basement. There are a few lamps that don't see too much use so changing them over can wait indefinitely. The spiral design (and the now hard to find design with the multiple U shaped tubes) don't look right in the exposed setup the dining room fixture uses. While there are compact fluorescent lights that look more like regular bulbs, those are still rather pricey and the fixture needs four of them. A fixture at the top of the stairs probably can't be changed without changing the fixture itself. It's quite certainly original with the house, built in 1949.
Things are generally much brighter now, even as each fixture with swapped lights consumes less energy. The office had four 40 Watt incandescent bulbs, for a total of 160 Watts. Now it has four 60 Watt equivalent bulbs, so we get the light of 240 Watts incandescent - but each light only uses 13 Watts, so we're only using 52 Watts total for office light now.
The downstairs bathroom is much brighter though that is mainly because the tubular bulbs (not 1949 -- made in Taiwan) had such huge dark deposits on the inside of the envelope that they reminded me of a vacuum tube "getter." The lights still burned, but were so dim we figured they were 15 Watt bulbs.
We now have a drawer full of incandescent bulbs. One did get put to use, replacing a bad bulb in the garage door opener. We've got spares to last a while.
