Nichia Develops 60 Lumen Per Watt White LED

[ddrueding]

Low energy efficiency vs. Mercury....where are my cost equivalent LED fixtures? If energy efficiency is better than incandescent, that is enough for me to switch.

 

[Bozo]

:joker:

Low energy efficiency vs. Mercury....where are my cost equivalent LED fixtures? If energy efficiency is better than incandescent, that is enough for me to switch.

I switched too. But there is always a trade off. The mercury in one CFL can contaminate 1000 gallons of water? Can the mercury be removed from the water, and at what cost? Does the mercury get into the fish?
Sometimes we have to look past our noses at the big picture.

Bozo

 

[Fushigi]

Picked up one of these LED strips a couple of weeks ago. Pretty bright for what they are & the energy consumed, but not near bright enough for general purpose/reading or to replace CFL/incandescents. Planned use is either backlighting behind my monitor or TV, bookshelf lighting, or above my keyboard drawer (instead of buying the illuminated keyboard).

Too expensive at the moment for widespread use.

 

[ddrueding]

If I were to wire a house with the intent of lighting with LED, what would be the best option? 12V DC? 120V AC? IIRC, LEDs need very stable and precise voltage and are dimmed via amperage changes? Is converting from AC to DC better done in bulk or per fixture?

 

[ddrueding]

CFLs, not all they are cracked up to be????

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/

Bozo :joker:

Good comment from slashdot:

To put the whole problem with the CFB mercury in relation, 100 Million light bulbs at 5 mg each contain a total of 500 kg of mercury.

The EPA estimate for mercury emissions from coal fired power plants is 50,000 kg a year.

 

[Bozo]

What the Slashdot article failed to mention is that the EPA is making the power plants clean the mercury out. And new legislation will reduce it even further.
But, the number of CFLs ending up in landfils will slowly raise over the next few years.
It is a no win situation. We will be breathing in less mecury, but drinking more mercury in our water.
Something else interesting. (where I work) Regular used flouresent tubes must be packaged up and sent to a company to be disposed of properly. CFLs don't. They go into the regular trash.

Bozo :joker:

 

[ddrueding]

At a place where I used to work CFLs were thrown away, and regular fluorescents were intentionally broken so they would fit in the trash. I remember watching the maintenance guy breaking more than a dozen and sweeping all the fragments into the trash.

 

[Stereodude]

What the Slashdot article failed to mention is that the EPA is making the power plants clean the mercury out. And new legislation will reduce it even further.
But, the number of CFLs ending up in landfils will slowly raise over the next few years.
It is a no win situation. We will be breathing in less mecury, but drinking more mercury in our water.
Something else interesting. (where I work) Regular used flouresent tubes must be packaged up and sent to a company to be disposed of properly. CFLs don't. They go into the regular trash.

The pushers of CFL bulbs somehow assume that all electricity comes from the dirtiest of coal powered plants when that is not even close to being correct.

 

[udaman]

At a place where I used to work CFLs were thrown away, and regular fluorescents were intentionally broken so they would fit in the trash. I remember watching the maintenance guy breaking more than a dozen and sweeping all the fragments into the trash.

It's been state law in Calif for several years now, that both fluro bulbs and HID's, which contain mercury in small amounts, are now classified as hazardous waste no matter who the user is, and must be removed from standard trash to be handled by a approved hazardous waste facility. Residential users in the state are supposed to comply , but I'll bet many, if not the majority, of the people don't even know about the new law.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm thinking of replacing the bulbs in my track lighting with these LED bulbs.

The thought is that instead of running 12 50W halogen (600W max on the track and dimmer), I can run many more of these (up to a theoretical 200!) and still save power.

The downside is that even if I only get 12 of them, it is still $200 in bulbs.

Are these dimmable? Are they decently efficient? How many will I need to provide the same light as 600W of halogen?

 

[time]

At 70 lumens, they're ridiculously dim (a cluster wouldn't be all that much more efficient than the halogen you already have).

In short, a scam.

 

[ddrueding]

Ugh, thanks time. I missed that in the spec.

 

[jtr1962]

I have seen LED bulbs using Crees which give in excess of 60 lm/W. However, all of these are 12VDC based MR16 lamps, not 120VAC GU10s. Dimmability has to be built in to the bulb. I suspect most bulbs these days aren't dimmable. Like I've said many times, LED isn't quite there yet for home lighting but we're very, very close. I think within a year we'll have lots of exciting LED-based lighting choices. Within five, they'll probably completely replace incandescents and CFLs. They've already practically done so for small lighting needs. Nowadays you see more LED flashlights and lanterns than incandescents.

 

[ddrueding]

Yup. I've been scanning CPF and came to a similar conclusion (close, but not yet). I like a LOT of light when I work, cook, clean, and read. It seems that the best bets are still fluorescent tubes; but those aren't dimmable either.

 

[timwhit]

Yup. I've been scanning CPF and came to a similar conclusion (close, but not yet). I like a LOT of light when I work, cook, clean, and read. It seems that the best bets are still fluorescent tubes; but those aren't dimmable either.

I think you can find dimmable ballasts. Is this not what you are looking for?

 

[LunarMist]

Dimmable fluorescent lighting has been around at least since the 1960s IIRC. I don't know how efficient they are however. One can design areas with mixed types and brightnesses and efficieny of lighting for different purposes. Do you have an experienced designer starting from scratch or is this a DIY project in existing area?

 

[sechs]

I'm ready for LEDs now. Do I really have to wait another year to replace my CFLs?

 

[timwhit]

I'm ready for LEDs now. Do I really have to wait another year to replace my CFLs?

I guess that depends on what you want to spend.

 

[sechs]

All I'm looking for is a similar lifecycle cost.

I did a little looking around, and still looks like no one has really solved the directionality issue. Isn't this just a geometry problem? Arranging the LEDs in such a way as to seem like like is given off in all directions.

 

[ddrueding]

...or use indirect lighting (my favorite). Of course, this requires even more lumens to be generated to compensate for the loss against the ceiling/wall.

 

[sechs]

Unfortunately, I don't have a bunch of indirect fixtures installed in my house. And, even so, I couldn't fit lights with enough lumens inside the fixtures.

I was thinking that maybe I could replace the CFLs in the hanging fixture over my dining room table, as it doesn't call for a lot of light in the first place. However, because the sockets are angled at about thirty degrees relative the floor, not enough light is going to hit the table with the designs I've seen.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm still working on my "gutter light" design.

Start with a piece of aluminum gutter and appropriate ends. Line the inside with reflective, heat-resistant materiel (aluminum foil?). Install lighting solution of your choice. Mount ~2 feet from the ceiling.

Lots of indirect lighting. I'm thinking of including 2 banks of fluorescent tubes and one of LED (dimable, changeable color temp).

I bet it could put out a ton of light efficiently and be quite cheap.

 

[sechs]

I'm not sure that I'm ready to work with gutter designs for my lighting....

 

[udaman]

Something Random: LA metro more advanced than NYC?

Video to watch at this link, wondering how good the sync is on these when the subs are traveling at speed? Now all they have to do is add Universal Studios "surround sound" to these ads

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local&id=6140107

(think these links disappear shortly after so I'm going to copy the text):

Local subway riders are seeing new high-tech advertising as they travel through dark tunnels.

Up until now, Metro's advertising revenue was coming from ads placed on the sides of the buses or inside the train stations, bringing in about $20 million a year.

Click in the Eyewitness News Story Window above to watch Melissa MacBride's report from the scene.

The newest moneymaker has been installed north from Hollywood. The live action advertising shows on the way to Universal City.

Story continues below
Advertisement

"It threw me back a little bit, but once I saw the whole thing, I was like, 'that's a neat idea,'" said Metro rider Darryl Sheard.

The pilot project is two years in the making, and it's making its U.S. debut in Los Angeles. The LED system composed of 360 digital strips along 450 yards of the subway tunnel. The panels light up as the train goes by, showing a 15 second ad viewed at 70 miles per hour.

"It's operated and controlled from a remote location, so that ads can change at any time. You could be seeing one ad in the morning, a different ad in the evening," said Metro spokesman Warren Morse.

The new high-tech display will fetch $240,000 a year for Metro, and it doesn't cost the transit agency a dime.

The money goes back into Metro's electricity and staffing costs and other transit services.

An ad for Target will start airing Tuesday afternoon.

The southbound side from Universal to Hollywood and Highland will be eventually getting these screens as well, and if the demand grows, Metro could be adding more of these advertising displays on its other lines.

...more SR LED stuff later

 

[ddrueding]

Why not just mount projectors on the trains that light up the wall? I would think that would be cheaper.

 

[jtr1962]

Why not just mount projectors on the trains that light up the wall? I would think that would be cheaper.

Not really. You have to put them on every train for starters. That makes it way more expensive. Electronic equipement and trains don't mix due to the huge amount of RFI generated by the motors. And many tunnels might not make decent projection screens. This is especially true in NYC where you have dozens of different types of tunnels.

This idea has been done before basically by using a series of posters, each one frame in a video. However, this depends upon the train passing at a certain speed to get the motion at the proper speed. The idea might work in LA's subway if the trains usually pass the section with the ad at about the same speed. It probably wouldn't work great in NYC. Trains run at various speeds depending upon the driver, the equipment, and congestion. Also, I can only wish our trains ran at 70 mph. Tops on most lines is mid-40s. The N hits 60+ mph in the 60th Street tunnel with a little help from gravity but that's an exception. Trains were faster before they took out field shunting following the Williamsburg Bridge accident in 1996. Many express runs got into the low 50s. Nowadays it's leisurely transit, not rapid transit. There's talk about running trains faster once CBTC is installed, but that'll take decades.

 

[udaman]

LED & reg. Billboards

All of these have changed since I took them during the last mini-heatwave weekend, 3-4wks ago. Was in the mid 60F's @8-9PM, I was walking around with the lightweight tripod, knowing I'd never get these shots without it...long exsposures, no way to handhold.

Amtrak, guess to make summer train travel look sexy? This one near corner of Pico & Sepulveda, 1blk away from the 405fwy.

Others are also within a block of the 405fwy, just different spots a few blocks away from the 1st shot...my dated Oly 5MP PnS is really getting on my nerves , such poor IQ for even PnS standards.

 

[udaman]

Damn, LA is starting to turn into Seoul (behind looking like Mexico city in many parts , tagging is up 50% from just a few years ago, notorious tagger with BA degree from local art school was just busted by his PO for violating probation and tagging again, video posted on Youtube...dumbarse, hope he gets lots of prison time).

LED billboards, high-tech LED ads in the subs, LED Ferris wheels...and I was in Trader Joe's tonight, two skinny, young Korean thangs (no, didn't look any better than the Samsung female for the 256GB SSD, actually worse, but both were skinny, one wearing 3in stilletto heels was almost as tall as me) talking in Korean, I might have just as well been watching a Korean language drama program on the local Asian TV station at home, come to life, lol. Now all we need to do, is get Lee Hiyori & Jeon Ji-Hyun to move to LA and the world balance will be all correct .


http://www.pacpark.com/pacificwheel.php?location=pacificwheel

The reveal, scheduled to kick-off the Memorial Day weekend, will dazzle onlookers with an all-new lighting package illuminating the Southern California coastline with 160,000 energy-efficient LED lights replacing the 5,392 red, white and blue traditional light bulbs that now flicker on the wheel's spokes and hub. The enhanced LED lighting will provide higher energy savings while complementing the solar-power application. Featuerd as a backdrop in countless feature films, nightly newscasts and more, the new illumination package will also display dynamic, eye-popping computer-generated lighting entertainment in the evenings.

http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/?p=1905

The 90-foot-tall, solar-power-assisted Pacific Wheel will be revealed starting at 8:30 p.m. Wed., May 28, 2008, with a fireworks show followed by free rides for the public from 9 p.m. to midnight.
Depending on the season, the 160,000 LED lights might illuminate a Valentine’s heart, Fourth of July American flag or a Christmas wreath.
The old wheel sold on eBay for $132,400.
UPDATE: The original post had the opening of the Pacific Wheel taking place Thu., May 22. However, due to construction delays, Pacific Park has postponed the unveiling until Wed., May 28.

 

[udaman]

Osram reports 155 lm and 136 lm/W from R&D LED
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/5/7/22

As shown in the graph, the LEDs can be driven at 1.4 A, and produce up to 500 lm.

Hmm, wonder when these might become an actual product...1 year, 2years?

Would be a nice upgrade to that single LSD AA flashlight jtr did for my mom .


GE expands into outdoor LED lighting with two new fixtures
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/5/7/2

 

[ddrueding]

Those do look interesting...

 

[jtr1962]

Osram reports 155 lm and 136 lm/W from R&D LED
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/5/7/22



Hmm, wonder when these might become an actual product...1 year, 2years?

Don't know about Osram but there are generally about six months to 1 year in between a lab announcement and actual product with Cree.

The GE outdoor lighting sounds exciting:

"The GE outdoor LED area light improves visibility and quality of light versus standard HID systems by providing a comparatively higher color temperature (5500K), a 70+ color-rendering index and a low-glare optical design."

Excellent! That means finally getting rid of those disgusting sodium vapor lights which kill peripheral vision plus create a depressing atmosphere.

 

[Will Rickards]

DealExtreme

Please note that it's too narrow to accept 18650 protected cells - you'd have to settle for 17670 or rechargeable CR123A if you don't want to use primary cells.

So I bought one of these. It worked great on the first set of batteries. But now it doesn't work anymore. I bought some TrustFire 16340 880mAh 3.6V Li-ion batteries to use with it. But they didn't work. So I bought some regular CR123A's at the store ($14). They don't work either.

So now I want to get a light that works with these rechargables I've got and is good. Any suggestions? Or should I buy the Romisen RC-R4 again?

 

[time]

That's bad luck, Will. So far, I haven't had any real trouble with the nine Romisen flashlights I bought (7 different models in three orders). Your faillure be the regulator - although it's rated at 8W - or possibly the switch. Both can be replaced, but I don't know exactly how ...

Eastward looked like a higher performing brand for not very much more money, but turned out to be unreliable. People have also had mixed experience with Ultrafire (me inlcuded).

The big names (eg Fenix) should be somewhat more reliable, but it's not guaranteed.

 

[udaman]

coming to a NYC street near you in 2009, but only 6 of them . But from the pix included, it would seem the drawing expects all new street lights to be installed? This would not be feasible worldwide, with current budget constraints.

Any LED street lighting project, necessarily must utlize a retrofit module that will fit atop/inside current street light fixtures.

Under a $1.175M contract, OVI and LSG will produce and test 6 LED prototype streetlights for New York City.
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/5/8/23

 

[udaman]

LED Billboard urban blight?

http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/politics/silver-lake-residents-protest/

Dozens of Silver Lake residents gathered yesterday at City Hall to protest against a pulsating digital billboard that recently popped up along Silver Lake Boulevard throwing lights into neighborhood homes.
“Silver Lake is one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Los Angeles,” said Suzanne Feller-Otto to the City’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee. “In one step you have taken it down to the bottom.”

Music publisher Robert Balter, who lives just a half-block away from the electronic sign, which is located at 1701 N. Silver Lake Blvd. in front of Spaceland and a few eclectic shops, told the committee, which meets on the third floor of City Hall in the John Ferraro Council Chamber, that the only entity benefiting from the billboard was its owner, Clear Channel Outdoor. “The city gets absolutely nothing but a hundred dollar fee – if that,” he argued. “The city doesn’t get anything and the neighborhood gets an accelerated deterioration of their quality of life.”

 

[LunarMist]

So what is up lately in the LED flashlights? I have been using the Fenix TK-11 for awhile. Is there anything better of the type?

 

[Stereodude]

So what is up lately in the LED flashlights? I have been using the Fenix TK-11 for awhile. Is there anything better of the type?

That depends on what you mean by "better". Brighter, longer throw, or what?

 

[adriel]

The situation is quite different today.

I replaced all bulbs with LED bulbs. Unfortunately, the LED bulbs with 60 or 120 LEDs inside are powered by internal circuitry, and if an IC in there fails, it takes out a whole row of LED lights inside. Replacing a $30 or $60 bulb here and there is not cost effective, when these things are supposed to last.

I don't mind the low light output, since it doesn't blind me as much when walking around at night. That's why I have some green ones, red ones, blue ones as well.

The positives are:

1. The cool white LED bulbs are ideal for reading lamps.

2. Low heat output.

3. Not affected by frequent on/off duty cycle.


Breaking news though, the hottest LED bulb to come around is the Geobulb which promises increased reliability.

http://www.ccrane.com/geobulb/index.aspx

But I just hate to spend $600 to replace a 5-bank over the bathroom mirror. They're just freaking bulbs after all.

 

[mubs]

I read yesterday that when diaper rash cream is heated, it gives off pure white light. Something to do with the chemicals in it. Now they're going to try to dope LEDs with the same chemicals to get white light straight out of the LED.

 

[Gilbo]

jtr,

Do you have comments on this article? Is it possible that we're on verge of a massive cost reduction in LED production costs?

Also, I had no idea LEDs needed to be produced on sapphire wafers. I always assumed they were built using standard semiconductor processes (which shows how little I know!).


It would be very nice if LED lighting became cost effective for general use (i.e. cheaper than all the alternatives).