LED replacements hit stores empty of 100W bulbs
NEW YORK (AP) - Sorry to see 100-watt bulbs disappear from stores because they were energy hogs? You can now get LED bulbs that roughly match the 100-watters for size and brightness, but use far less energy.
Until recently, your only alternative was a compact fluorescent bulb, which has several drawbacks compared with light-emitting diodes. Most people see the light quality as less pleasing, and the bulbs contain a small amount of mercury that's released if the glass breaks. LEDs, by contrast, don't contain any volatile, hazardous substances and are durable. They also last longer.
Osram Sylvania, a division of Germany's Siemens AG, said Monday that it's shipping the first batches of its Ultra LED bulb to some Lowe's stores. The bulb uses 20 watts of electricity and costs $50. It's slightly larger than a regular 100-watt bulb, so it may not fit in all fixtures. Osram claims 25,000 hours of use, or more than 20 times the lifespan of a standard, incandescent bulb.
Competitors aren't far behind. Royal Philips Electronics NV plans to start selling its own, slightly brighter 100-watt-equivalent LED bulb at Home Depot's website starting in a few weeks for about $55. Startup Switch Lighting Bulb Co., with its unusual liquid-filled bulbs, plans to start selling 100-watt equivalents late this year or in January.
The federal government banned the manufacture of regular 100-watt bulbs on Jan. 1 as a consequence of new energy-efficiency standards. Much the way it forces car manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency, the government is forcing the lighting industry to move away from incandescent bulbs because they convert relatively little of the electrical input into light. Most of the energy is dissipated as heat. In the next step, 75-watt bulbs will be banned at the start of next year, and 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs at the start of 2014.
Compact fluorescent bulbs that produce light equivalent to 100-watt bulbs have been available for a few years and cost as little as $4 each.
LEDs are small chips that produce light when current passes through them. In their red and green incarnations, they've been around for decades. Technical breakthroughs in the 90s allowed the manufacture of chips that produce white light.
LED bulbs equivalent to 60-watt bulbs have been available for a few years and now cost around $25 each. The problem with making brighter models is that while LEDs produce less heat than regular bulbs, the heat they do create shortens the lifespan and reduces the efficiency of the chips. Cramming a dozen chips together in a tight bulb-shaped package that fits in today's lamps and sockets makes the heat problem worse, and the brighter the bulb, the more heat is produced. LED bulbs have large, finned metal collars to radiate the heat.
Until recently, your only alternative was a compact fluorescent bulb, which has several drawbacks compared with light-emitting diodes. Most people see the light quality as less pleasing, and the bulbs contain a small amount of mercury that's released if the glass breaks. LEDs, by contrast, don't contain any volatile, hazardous substances and are durable. They also last longer.
Osram Sylvania, a division of Germany's Siemens AG, said Monday that it's shipping the first batches of its Ultra LED bulb to some Lowe's stores. The bulb uses 20 watts of electricity and costs $50. It's slightly larger than a regular 100-watt bulb, so it may not fit in all fixtures. Osram claims 25,000 hours of use, or more than 20 times the lifespan of a standard, incandescent bulb.
Competitors aren't far behind. Royal Philips Electronics NV plans to start selling its own, slightly brighter 100-watt-equivalent LED bulb at Home Depot's website starting in a few weeks for about $55. Startup Switch Lighting Bulb Co., with its unusual liquid-filled bulbs, plans to start selling 100-watt equivalents late this year or in January.
The federal government banned the manufacture of regular 100-watt bulbs on Jan. 1 as a consequence of new energy-efficiency standards. Much the way it forces car manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency, the government is forcing the lighting industry to move away from incandescent bulbs because they convert relatively little of the electrical input into light. Most of the energy is dissipated as heat. In the next step, 75-watt bulbs will be banned at the start of next year, and 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs at the start of 2014.
Compact fluorescent bulbs that produce light equivalent to 100-watt bulbs have been available for a few years and cost as little as $4 each.
LEDs are small chips that produce light when current passes through them. In their red and green incarnations, they've been around for decades. Technical breakthroughs in the 90s allowed the manufacture of chips that produce white light.
LED bulbs equivalent to 60-watt bulbs have been available for a few years and now cost around $25 each. The problem with making brighter models is that while LEDs produce less heat than regular bulbs, the heat they do create shortens the lifespan and reduces the efficiency of the chips. Cramming a dozen chips together in a tight bulb-shaped package that fits in today's lamps and sockets makes the heat problem worse, and the brighter the bulb, the more heat is produced. LED bulbs have large, finned metal collars to radiate the heat.
Way too much for those! I'll be passing on them!
50.00 per light is way to much, how many years is it going to take for the consumer to realise a savings. I looked at lights and found 49.98 for a light equal to 100 watts with 50k hrs. of life...yeah right! Have lights changed in the last few years, just look at the bases some small, some very big, some with pins....
FIFTY BUCKS a light? No thank you very much. I sure hope competition drives the price down, because I sure as heck won't be buying one of these anytime soon, let alone a 4-pack or something.
I have plenty of incandescent bulbs to last the rest of my life. All my circuits have dimming capabilities and neither CF or LED's will work in them. They are controlled by computer and are about $50 each. I am not going to convert when it will cost me a ton of money to do so.
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Plus incandescents through off a lot f heat. I use then more in the winter and they help heat my house so I don't have to run my furnace as much.
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My lifetime supply of incandescents cost the same as the price of one LED light.
 @RalphCramdenÂ
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I have found that many LED lights will work with dimmers.
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Although I loath to spend $50 for a bulb.
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 @RepomanÂ
The dimmer has to be rated for the low voltage of the bulb. Most dimmers are rated only for incandescents.
OH THIS IS WAY cool, for those of us with a 75 watt inverter we can hook like 20 up and not go over the 75 watt. Not that I would want to use all 20 (exaggerating a little ) but still this is good news for those using emergence lighting systems.
 @lee986321 Not sure where you got your numbers, but the article above said that the 100W-equivalent LED lamps use 20W each. Your 75W inverter would be able to power three of them. I don't know what kind of voltage waveform your inverter produces - it may not be fully compatible with the CFL or LED lamps. YMMV.
PS I thought they were measured in Lumens,
I hope LED lights aren't the scam the CFL's turned out to be. With the CFL's the rated time is continious use...... and the more you turn them on and off the the more it shortens their life......sounds like the perfect solution for a home [rolleyes]
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the few LED lights I have I am very happy with.
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Costco has a very limited selection of LED lights that are much cheaper. IIRC, 75w equiv. flood lights are $17 and some smaller clear 25w equiv. 3pac under $20.
 @kramr thy must have just hit shelves good, now when I purchase LEDS I an rest assure there won't be any Mercury . Eh LEDS are Solid, unlike glass that surrounds a fulfillment, LED units are pretty well encased and would take a lot of abuse to kill them.
 @lee986321  @kramr It's more likely that part of the power conversion or driving circuitry would fail, instead of the LED device itself. Still, the end result of any component failure is a dead LED lamp.
It is ABOUT DAMN TIME , I have 2 Solar lamps and they shine 30 feet.
I also stored up on regular bulbs. Â Bi-Mart even had a couple of sales on them. Â Theenergy hogs extra use of energy won't cost as much as the overpriced LED lights. Â I figure I've got at least enough for about ten years. Â There comes a point where it just isn't worth the extra cost. Â This is especially true when it comes to retired people who can't afford much anyway let alone some feel good idiot's idea of saving energy. Â Besides, with obama spending billions of our tax dollars on green energy, there shouldn't be any shortage of energy. Â HA HA HA Â
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Sorry to see 100-watt bulbs disappear from stores because they were energy hogs?
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No I wasnât'.
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That is why I went to every store in the area and bought hundreds of them.
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Cheap, reasonably reliable and bright.
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I have years worth of them to spare. Indeed they might just rust before I get to use them I have so many.
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LED lights suck. After a while they'll give me headaches.
Time for some numbers. The 100W-equivalent LED lamp would use 500kWh of energy over its 25k hour lifetime. At $0.10 per kWh, this energy costs $50. Assuming a stable energy cost, the total cost for LED lamp over its lifetime is $100.
An incandescent 100W lamp uses 2500kWh of energy over 25k hours (of course, you would need to replace the lamp 20 times because their lifetime is only about 1250 hours. The energy cost would be $250 over 25k hours. Clearly, you can save money by using a lower-energy lighting solution, but it should also be cost-effective. The cost-equivalency point for the incandescent occurs at about 10k hours (this is also the point beyond which the LED lamp has paid for itself, and is saving you money). Thus, the LED lamp should be warranted for 10k hours. The trick now is how those actual usage hours translate into years of warranty.
 @AltaziÂ
There is a calculation that no one ever factors in.
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Lighting is used more in the winter due to the shorter daylight. In the winter it is also cold and when it's cold we turn on the heat.
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Now incandescents also produce a lot of heat. This heat goes to heat the house so the energy is not wasted in the winter. If one calculates that in to the mix then incandescents aren't so bad.
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Using CF's or LED's just means that  the furnace has to say on longer to heat up the living space. So what they are dong is just trading one energy source for another. And at $50 a pop for an LED,  incandescents look like a pretty good deal to me.
 @RalphCramden LOL! Being an engineer, I often consider the fact that over 90% of the energy used by an incandescent lamp is "wasted" as heat. That is one reason I don't anally run around turning off lights in the winter. However, including this factor in my calculations above would be beyond the scope of the simple comparison. I did this for free, after all.
 @AltaziÂ
It would be hard to calculate the heating effect on a home for sure.
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I know that at my vacation home the can lights in the ceiling on the first floor warm up the floor on the second floor. It makes is nice on bare feet. I can get to -20ºF in the winter and the floor heat is nice.
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Since electric resistive heating is 100% efficient nothing is wasted. Getting a little light from my "floor" heaters is a bonus...8-}
Even if the LED lifetime claims are correct, over that lifespan they will still cost twice what incandescents would cost for an equivalent lifespan. The consumer gets it stuck to him again.
 @Nobody Got some math on that?
 @darren vandervort  @NobodyÂ
I ran a test on CF's.
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I had 10 CF's with 2 that were left on all the time, 4 that were turned on and turned off every 5 minutes and 4 that were turned on and off every 15 minutes.
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It was all controlled by and X10 module and timer.
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The CF's that were turned on and off every 5 minutes had a very high fail rate. They lasted less than an incandescent. The manufacturer recommends they are turned on at least 15 minutes at a time. If I go into a closet and turn on the light for 2 minutes and turn it off I will fill the landfills with lots of mercury and will cost me a lot of money.
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If I leave on a 15 watt CF for 15 minutes I am using 225 watt minutes. A 60 watt bulb turned on for 2 minutes will use 120 watt minutes. A savings of 105 watts in favor of the incandescent.
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Plus in the winter time that 60 watts went to help heat my house to that my furnace will run less. Furnaces are not as efficient as resistance heat that is 100% efficient.
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The CF's that were on for at least 15 minutes always lasted longer than those that were on and off in 5 minutes. But none of them lasted as long as the expected life. So they went to a landfill with all that mercury.
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The CF's that were on all the time lasted much longer than the others and came within about 70% of the expected life. None in my experiment lasted the expected life.
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One of the bonuses of incandescent is that they can be used in a dimmer circuit whereas CF's and LED's are not recommended for dimming circuits. There are CF's and LED's that can be used in dimming circuits but they are expensive and don't dim. They can just be used in dimming circuits.
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Incandescents work just fine in a dimming circuit and dimmed to 50% means they will use 50% of the maximum output. So a 60 watt bulb will use 30 watts.
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CF's and LED's are not recommended to be used base up or enclosed globes due to overheating. The precludes them from being used in overhead can lights and most ceiling lights. If they are used in those situations the life span will be significantly shortened and they will end up in a landfill and cost the owner a lot of money to replace them.
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In the winter time I use all forms of energy to heat my house. Incandescents is just one form that I use and will continue to use it for decades since I went out and bought several hundred bulbs for the price of one LED (at the time). SInce incandescents are 100% efficient at lighting and heating using them to heat in the winter is not a bad thing. If one were to convert to LED's or CF's they would just have to run the furnace longer to heat the living space. Trading one form heating for another is not factored into incandescents.
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In the summer we have lots of windows and skylights and rarely use any lights at all so it isn't a factor.
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 @Altazi  @darren vandervort  @NobodyÂ
I never use CFL's outside. Most are very inefficient and only produce 25% of rated output. Plus they have a high failure rate in cold weather.
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CFL's are also considered hazardous material when they break. The EPA recommends that all the windows and doors in the area are opened for at least 15 minutes. If that happens in the winter then it will take more energy to reheat that area that 10 CF's will save in their lifetime.
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All CF's that die it is recommended that they be taken to a facility that can handle them. This uses more energy to transport them to the hazardous facility. The hazardous facility will have to spend energy to dismantle the bulb to make it safe for disposal. That process takes heat and light and a vacuum system to keep workers safe. Just more energy to deal with a bulb that is supposed to safe energy.
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Incandescents can be made with out risking workers lives, broken and cleaned up and tossed into the trash and tossed into a landfill. No hazardous handling necessary as there isn't any toxic substances.
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Overall it takes a lot of energy to make, handle, and dispose of a CFL. There is no savings in energy.
 @RalphCramden  @darren vandervort  @Nobody The CFLs I have used perform poorly in cold locations. When the lamps are turned on, they glow dimly - too dimly to be useful as garage lights, etc. It takes tens of seconds for the lamps to warm up to the point they produce usable levels of light.This "slow start" is much better in warm locations, e.g., inside the home. It takes a few seconds for the lamp to light fully. This is actually a feature for me, as the lights don't instantly blind me when they are first turned on.
I would only buy an LED lamp if it had an ironclad warranty. They might have an expected life of 25k hours, but I'll be damned if I will shell out $50 for something that doesn't have a solid 5-10 year warranty.