LED lighting

Jim Baber writes: They are quite expensive, but seem to be base common to regular incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs.

I would wait there are other goodies in the pipeline, One is a new derivation on the LED that uses a LED to excite other diodes on the inner surface of a bulb that reportedly gives the same lumen output as a standard 60 W incandescent does with only 1.0 W of input power at

115VAC. That is much better than CFL or regular LED, but still >LED lighting might be a little off topic for this newsgroup but I'm assuming

Jim Baber Email snipped-for-privacy@NOJUNKbaber.org

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I find that hard to believe. Are you saying that incandescent's are less than 0.016% efficient (assuming that your superduper LED is 100% efficient)?

How much of the power for an incandescent is turned into heat? How much for a bunch of LEDs?

I would guess less than 98%.

More than 0%?

Jim replies: Those are the numbers in the Scientific American article not mine.

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1350 W Mesa Ave. Fresno CA, 93711 (559) 435-9068 (559) 905-2204 (Verizon IN cellphone (to other Verizon IN accounts)) See 10kW grid tied solar system at ""See solar system production data at ""

I think you're a factor of 100 out, and that the figures imply an efficiency of less than 1.6%, not 0.016%. That does seem low, but not ridiculously low, e.g. Wikipedia states 1.9% for a 40W bulb ().

I hate to disappoint you, but LED's are not much more efficient than incandescent lightbulbs. Both get are up to 20Lumens/Watt. Why do you think a 5W Lumiled needs a heatsink ? Most of it is pure marketing hype of vendors selling expensive LED lights.

Efficient lighting today means fluorescents. They are 3-4 times as efficient than incandescent/LED's. The only area where LED's are more efficient is in the very low power area (status indicators, small flashlights, etc.).

See

for an easy to read article about the subject.

Markus

Two recent press releases would appear to contradict your statements on LED efficiency although both refer to research projects rather than commercial products. I have no idea about the credibility of the Japanese scientist at Meijo University but the LRC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has excellent credibility.

your information is a bit stale. LEDs are constantly improving in efficiency (something incandescent bulbs arent really doing now days)

also, incandescents get more like 15 lumens/watt (Halogens are around 20 lumens/w.)

also, at these low numbers, even a couple lumens of difference is a significant *percentage* difference.

an informative article explaining why LEDs just work so much better in practice,

which also explains why LEDs really win with traffic lights and why the batteries seem to last longer.

-k

a side note...

some people may have noticed trucks and cars using LED tail and marker lights.

well, when i got into Snow Removal this year it was explained our snow equipment will NOT be using LED lighting because they do not generate enough heat to melt the snow of the lamp lenses.

more efficient is not always desireable it seems :) :)

-k

I have no doubt that a lot of research with promising results is underway. I am strictly referring to what you can find today for sale in normal shops.

Markus

The article I referred to might be slightly conservative. But unfortunately what you can buy at your normal shop is usually at least a year behind the bleeding edge technology. You can get data sheets and, if you are lucky a sample of your nice LEDs, But you will not find them at your local home depot for years !

Yup, I've got more halogenes than normal incandescents because we prefer spots over standard lights, so for me 20lm/w applies.

Yes, this is true. Unfortunately it is more true for low-power lamps where power savings are less important due to the lower wattage.

Yes, very nicely explained. Interesting site in any case :-).

Markus

I was simply refuting the idea that LEDs are 60 times more efficient.