LED home light conversion

Although I have my doubts about the tube LEDs, I have been mostly pleased with the ones that work like a standard bulb light. We have 3 in a fixture in one bedroom and one in a reflector in the basement. They light faster and better than the CFLs and have been much more reliable, although the LEDs were much much more expensive.

Why do you have doubts about the tubes. My friends have tube LED ones in many of their vending machines now and not one has been a problem.
And they keep getting the machines with LEDs in them and the way SOME people treat a vending machine those LED's have taken some abuse.

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Are they bright enough for growing plants? The cost is a huge drawback. 4 foot tubes cost around $4. Longevity is still a questionable thing too.

There are plenty of special LED bulbs both bulb and tubes from T8, T12 to Grow plants. And dozens of specialized LED Bulbs and fixtures for plant growing.

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Do they make something for my 1968 Avion camper? The lights(inside) seem to be like a car light bulb, but man those things are smoken hot.

And we still have to factor the price. Home Depot has the t-8 bulbs I currently use for less than $3 each. And the ones I've been using are still working just fine. The fixture is already set up and working well. When it needs to be replaced I'll check led availability and pricing.

I like the blue and red led grow system lights. Just don't have the $$$$ for that!

LED grow lights are still pretty expensive, but if you use enough lighting the electricity cost starts to balance it out...and the light quality is better.

For sure. Just get out your checkbook.

https://www.google.com/#q=led+clear+...erior&tbm=shop

https://www.google.com/#q=led+clear+...bulbs&tbm=shop

Maybe I should get some red and blue Christmas lights after Christmas to enhance the fluorescent lights I have now. I can spend a few $ on clearance lights. (did the research, the string lights are not enough to provide adequate light for plant growth. I was thinking of additional to what I currently have.) Or maybe the purple lights that are currently out for Halloween.

I've been doing some trials with various LED bulbs in several applications in our home and shop. I am a fan of LED's and believe they have great potential but in the grand scheme of things they are still 'new technology', at least as far as home lighting goes. As such I've resisted the temptation to run around and replace every bulb in the house with an LED just to realize some possible energy savings. While energy savings is important, so is the quality/color of the light, longevity, fit in the fixture(s), and the directionality of the light beam.

That said, I've had it with the screw-in CFL's after yet another one blew out several nights ago well before it's rated lifespan. I've given them a fair shot and I've heard all the excuses - 'use a different manufacturer', 'your circuits are bad', 'use a different wattage', 'it's too cold for them to work correctly', 'don't handle them with your bare fingers', etc.

Some recent experience this week:

- Purchased one screw base Cree 9W/60W daylight bulb and one Cree 9.5W/60W warm white bulb and installed them in a 3 bulb ceiling fixture along with a standard 60w incandescent. This fixture has a semi-clear glass cover. The Cree warm white is very close to the incandescent in color although it has just a bit less light out the top of the bulb. The Cree seems to emit more of the light from just the center of the globe whereas the incandescent looks to have light evenly distributed throughout the globe. As such when looking at the two it gives the impression that the incandescent is putting out a bit more light but this of course is subjective.

Also noted that the shape and size of the Cree is much closer to the shape and size of the incandescent which means it should fit in more various fixtures. In addition, the Crees seems to distribute the light more evenly than some of the other screw-in LED's I've tried. Specifically, the Cree does a much better job of distributing at least some of the light out the sides and out the bottom of the globe. Other LED's I've tried have a much more directional beam that mostly goes out the top of the bulb.

I will be purchasing two more of the Cree warm white bulbs to put in this three bulb fixture and we will see how it goes over time. Total wattage for three incandescents is 180 and for three Crees is 28.5 so it should be good in the energy category anyway.

The Cree 9W/60W daylight is simply too stark and harsh, at least with this clear covered fixture. I'm going to put that daylight bulb in the white frosted ceiling fixture in the hall and see how it looks.

Also going to try one of the daylight bulbs in my old trouble-lights. I used to use the old style trouble-lights with a 60W rough service incandescent but the drawback is they got really hot, which was not pleasant when I brushed up against it when working in tight quarters. Or when I laid it down while working in the crawlspace and it melted the plastic vapor barrier. I then moved to using a tube fluorescent trouble-light which took care of the heat issue but the fluorescent trouble-light is physically larger than the screw-in bulb trouble-light and the fluorescent sometimes has trouble starting in cold weather. The Cree bulbs have some sort of rubber covering on the globe which helps with gripping the bulb. It will be interesting to see how the Cree Led holds up when the trouble-light gets dropped on the concrete floor.

My local HD has some pretty good pricing on the two Cree bulbs at the moment.
$6.97 for the daylight and $5.97 for the warm white. I think the sign said regular pricing was $13.

http://www.amazon.com/Cree-9-5-Watt-...=cree+led+bulb

http://www.amazon.com/Cree-9-Watt-Da...=cree+led+bulb

- Purchased two of these Feit Par38 20W-90W dimmable weatherproof indoor/outdoor bulbs from Costco. Costco has a coupon sale price through the end of this month for $12.39 regularly $19.99. Replaced two burnt out 90W halogen bulbs in a motion sensing fixture in our immediate backyard. There are some internet reports that the bulb will take on water if oriented in a certain way and exposed directly to rain. In this case the fixture is under the eaves so I'm not overly concerned with that.

These bulbs are performing better than I expected so far. The beam is a bit narrower than the halogens and the light color is definitely harsher than the halogens but not as bad as I had feared it would be. These lights are mostly for security and convenience. Given that I don't spend a great deal of time out in that part of the backyard after dark, the light color quality is not so much of a concern.

Some things to consider with this bulb is that the weight of the bulb is quite a bit more than a standard bulb and it may put a strain on the typical cheap flood light fixture over time. And as in my case with it being used on a motion sensing fixture the payback time in energy savings will take longer than it will with a bulb that is on all night.

http://www.amazon.com/Feit-Electric-...rds=feit+par38

We replaced all the bulbs in our camper since we dry camp, but our camper is newer so our bulbs except for the few BA15 bulbs were fairly cheap (purchased as a lot of about 20 on e-bay) since they fit a lot of cars. I also like the fact that they don't heat up.
Pull a couple of your bulbs out and check what number they are then google the number and check on e-bay.
Dawn

Great post, Wayne. Thanks for your observations.

I'm in western Canada - no Home Depot here, and I wish we had prices like those. Someday. Before too long, I suppose.

http://www.fasttech.com/category/220...t-bulbs/-/p/1/ Son builds his own grow lights. Look for discount code.

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Anybody encountered any snags returning a bulb (under warranty) to the retailer, for replacement?

I have a 9 watt daylight cree bulb in my barn I'm trying and it throws out a huge amount of light. I'll get back to you on durability.

Bulb needs to be in the 2700k range for 'warm' light. Most of them aren't.


PLUS CFL's take a bit to come up to bright.....LED, you get it instantly....and you can dim an LED but not a CFL.

We did the Cree LR6 recessed lights in our kitchen remodel. One of them was bad from the get-go, and the retailer I bought it from ( 1000bulbs.com ) replaced it no question asked.....didn't even want the old one back.

We use the same brand. 8 of them in our kitchen ( 12.5w ea, 100w total ) replaced 12 40w 4' Florescent tubes ( 480w total ) with FAR better light !

Between the power savings and life ( assuming it does last 50,000hrs ), it would be the cheapest bulb on the market.

If a bulb gives out at the three or four year mark, I guess you'd better have saved the receipt.

The switch-over to LEDs can only make economic sense if you can get a free replacement within the warranty period, if needed. Of course, you buy one model of bulb now and in two years it could be superceded by a new model from the same manufacturer. As long as the new one is as good or better than the one that burned out, that'd be okay.

Or at least this is my reasoning about the subject.