Nichia Develops 60 Lumen Per Watt White LED

jtr1962 said:
This new Cree bulb uses 20 LEDs and is retailing for $13.97.
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I'd buy the Philips L-prize LED bulbs from Home Depot for $15 over those. More efficient and a better CRI for basically the same price.

As for the MK-R, given the prices distributors like Mouser are charging for it in large quantities, it probably costs not much over a dollar for Cree to make. If Cree designed their own bulb with the MK-R, they could use two to four units per bulb and still keep the sales price under $20. Efficiency would be great, probably north of 125 lm/W even for warm white, higher for cool white.
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FWIW, my experience is that buying something direct from the manufacturer in very high quantities (>100k a year) is about 1/2 the price per piece of what the distributors charge per piece at the 1k quantity.
 
Stereodude said:
I'd buy the Philips L-prize LED bulbs from Home Depot for $15 over those. More efficient and a better CRI for basically the same price.
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You're right if 2700K is what you're looking for. In 5000K the only thing Philips offers is a 40W equivalent at $21.97.

FWIW, my experience is that buying something direct from the manufacturer in very high quantities (>100k a year) is about 1/2 the price per piece of what the distributors charge per piece at the 1k quantity.
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Mouser is charging $5.87 to $8.00 each in 1000s for the MK-R. That gives about $3 to $4 each in 100Ks direct from Cree. It might be feasible them to use two or three of these in an LED bulb which sells for $20 or $25.
 
I'm not a fan of only 2700K and 5000K options. For living areas I'd like something in between 3000-3500K. There are CFLs at 3000 and 4100K.
5000K is fine for working areas, but 1000 lumens is not much. For example a 4 x F32T8 ceiling fixture puts out 10,000-12,000 lumens. I could live with 1700 lumens/lamp (100W equivalent) if the price is more reasonable.
 
LunarMist said:
I'm not a fan of only 2700K and 5000K options. For living areas I'd like something in between 3000-3500K. There are CFLs at 3000 and 4100K.
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Hopefully we'll see more CCT options as LEDs catch on. For a while it was difficult to find anything except 2700K or 3000K CFLs, and now we have 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, 4100K, 5000K, and 6500K.

5000K is fine for working areas, but 1000 lumens is not much. For example a 4 x F32T8 ceiling fixture puts out 10,000-12,000 lumens. I could live with 1700 lumens/lamp (100W equivalent) if the price is more reasonable.
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I think purpose-built LED fixtures make more sense when you want a large output. An A19 light bulb is a bad form factor for getting the most from LED technology. On the other hand, a large ceiling-mounted fixture can offer adequate area for heat-sinking 50 or 100 watts worth of LEDs, easily matching 2 or 4 tube T8 fixtures in output.
 
Finally, I'm starting to see 4000K LED lights here. Just bought some GU10:

Brand: Osram
Socket: GU10
Power: 9W
Output: 470 lumens
Beam angle: 35°
Intensity: 1040 candela
CRI: 80
Life: 30000 hrs
Cost: AU$12

At a distance of 1.5m (8ft ceiling over 3ft bench), I measure over 400 lux directly underneath a recessed downlight fitted with one of these bulbs. That's pretty good, easily beating a 50W halogen. Although there's better beam angle than cheaper LED lamps, most of the light is still pretty concentrated within an angle of maybe 20°.

By way of comparison, I measure over 500 lux from a 4x 600mm 18W fluorescent tube recessed fixture at similar distance. Wider dispersion obviously, but at 8 times the power, you sure would hope so.

Subjectively, the results are fantastic and I'd highly recommend them.
 
Firstly, Ra 80 means a CRI of 80 or better, not exactly 80.

Secondly, every CFL I've seen has been labeled Ra 80, yet there are serious color rendition differences. It's an unreliable metric.

Thirdly, I can tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD track, but that doesn't mean the MP3 isn't good enough for 90% of applications.

Subjectively checking assorted colors, the Osrams are pretty good - certainly better than most CFLs because they don't have any green tint.
 
I haven't come across a CFL I'm happy with either, I'm speaking of the 4' tubes. For in the house (where the tubes are impractical) I'm still running thousands of watts of halogen cans.
 
I picked up a single Cree 800 lumens 9-watt (60W equiv) bulb from Home Depot last night to try it out. This is their 5000K temperature dimmable bulb. I don't know what to think of it so far. It's not as bright as I was expecting but I also didn't know what to expect. It could be because it is more directional than omni-directional compared to the CFL it replaced. The color feels very blue compared with the CFL that it replaced which was more orange/warm. I am also perceiving what appears to be a pulsed flickering of the bulb which is distracting in a 50-60 second pattern. Is that normal for LED bulbs? I was not being dimmed when this pulse-like flicker occurs. It's very subtle but I know something is happening. I'm sure there are better LED bulbs out there but I wanted to see what this one offered. Is there one others might recommend for basic lamp lighting?
 
Handruin said:
I picked up a single Cree 800 lumens 9-watt (60W equiv) bulb from Home Depot last night to try it out. This is their 5000K temperature dimmable bulb.
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I picked up one of these "daylight" 60W bulbs yesterday to replace a 75W ~2700k CFL intentionally for the 5000k color, which I'm not sure I like. I put it in a lamp that's on a timer (turns on at sunset and turns off at 2am). I decided to check on the bulb before I went to bed last night and made the mistake of touching the small metal heatsink that's above the base. I nearly burned myself on it. I went and got my IR thermometer and came back to measure it and got a reading as high as 188F. The lamp is totally open and the house was ~72F at the time. It seems hard to believe they're going to get 25k hours out of something that's running that hot. My only other LED bulb, one of the Philips L-prize bulbs, is much cooler after hours of use. It's warm to the touch, but not anywhere near burn you hot. I'll have to measure it after several house of use and see exactly how much cooler it is.
 
I'll have to check mine out tonight after it has been on for a while. I remember touching the bulb part of it and it wasn't that hot but I didn't think to check the heat sink. I'm guessing my results would be the same as yours unless yours is defective some how (doubt it). I'll check out the Philips L-prize bulbs but the price seems significantly higher that the HD Cree bulb I got.
 
Handruin said:
I'll check out the Philips L-prize bulbs but the price seems significantly higher that the HD Cree bulb I got.
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I don't think they're available any more. If I'm remembering correctly HD closed them out for $15 each last year which was only a few dollars more than the Cree bulbs pricing (at the time). IMHO they're a better bulb than the Cree bulbs. The 60W Cree "daylight" bulb are now $7.97 at HD after the subsidy from our local power company. The 2700k 60W warm white Cree bulbs are $6.97. There are big price jumps on the 75W and 100W Cree bulbs. If I'm remembering correctly they are $16.97 and $20.97 respectively for the "daylight" versions after subsidy.
 
When I did a quick lookup on Amazon for the Philips it was $70 for one bulb. Maybe lack of availability drove up the price on AZ.
 
As I recall when they were first introduced they were in the $60 range, but they're certainly not worth $70 given the other options in the marketplace today.
 
Stereodude said:
As I recall when they were first introduced they were in the $60 range, but they're certainly not worth $70 given the other options in the marketplace today.
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I haven't followed the consumer LED bulb market very well so I had no expectation of what great LED lights cost. I checked my Cree bulb and the metal heat sink is pretty warm like you had mentioned. I don't have any way to actually measure it like you did. I only have the one Cree bulb so if it turns out to not be good it wasn't a huge investment.
 
Stereodude said:
Their 60W Slimstyle LED bulbs are priced right there with the 60W Cree bulbs (or cheaper).
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Those slim lights are not the same at all. They have a series of small LEDS around a perimeter with a dark center. I have one and am not sure what to do with it now.
The Cree lamps look like and produce the light pattern of a traditional bulb. I just wish there were something in between the 5000K and 2700K models.
 
LunarMist said:
Those slim lights are not the same at all. They have a series of small LEDS around a perimeter with a dark center. I have one and am not sure what to do with it now.
The Cree lamps look like and produce the light pattern of a traditional bulb. I just wish there were something in between the 5000K and 2700K models.
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I thought the light spread from those Philips bulb is better than the Cree bulb. The Cree bulbs don't really push any light out the top of the bulb.
 
Well, it does not look so good to me in an open space. 60W is too dim for my lampshades, but maybe I need new table lamps.
The 100W equivalent Crees are nice because they illuminate immediately, unlike the stupid CFL lamps. I'd prefer even brighter, say a 50-100-200 three way, if that is even humanly possible.
 
Cree makes a 3 way LED bulb, but it's 30W, 60W, 100W.

FWIW, I measured the temperature of my Philips L-prize bulb after an extended period of being turned on and it was ~120F.
 
The Cree has a very poor light distribution if the top of the bulb is visible. I have some in a bathroom vanity light (bulbs completely exposed, pointed straight out of the wall) and it doesn't look great.
 
For what it's worth, I've been 100 percent LED here at the house for a few years now.

I've only had one failure so far.
 
I saw Costco selling 100W 1600lm equivalent bulbs that use 15.5W over the weekend. They were $17 or $18 dollars without any utility rebates (don't remember which). They were 2700K made by Feit Electric. No mention of the CRI on the package.
 
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