Low wattage (LED and CFL) bulbs performance

[ericmark]

I have fitted new light fittings so I can use multi low wattage lamps rather than one large one but I am having large differences in the performance of these lamps.

On buying some three years ago I fitted all Philips 8W globe SES bulbs they started as a dull red and slowly over about 1/2 an hour warmed up. Both advantage in that switching on when my wife was sleeping sitting on couch it did not wake her and disadvantage at other times but all in all I was satisfied.

However the bulb life was short and 1 by 1 they have failed so first was my wife bought some really cheap CFL also 8W and all 6 Philips in one room replaced as the colour temperature was higher on the new bulbs we kept the Philips as replacements for the other room. Non of these cheap bulbs have failed been in 2 years.

As the Philips continued to fail all the spares were used up and I fitted 2 LED candle lamps I had bought for elsewhere only 1.6W and was rather surprised to find they were as bright as the 8W Philips however Lidi has not done them since so can't get more.

Again as a stop gap while looking for cheap replacements I bought 2 coiled CFL from Lidi at 5W each these are brighter than the Philips 8W but not quite as bright as the cheap 8W globes.

To measure brightness I have used my camera light meter so not just the colour temperature making one seem brighter than the other.

Also since some of the Philips were taken out of service for a time they are not all old 3 year use lamps.

I had expected a HF CFL to be brighter than a induction start unit and a LED to be brighter than a CFL however if Lidi still had a stock of the coiled 5W CFL I would change them all to this type.

But the problem is clearly that selecting an 8W lamp is a lottery with some being a lot better than others both in time they last and light output and also clearly buy expensive does not mean they are better the cheap lamps seem to have out performed the expensive in all aspects.

So I now in living room have 2 x 5 lamp units each with 3 Philips 8W, 1 candle 1.6W and 1 coiled 5W and I would like to change them so all bulbs are the same. If Lidi had more bulbs in stock this would cost £20 but in local light shop it would cost £80 and they could all be poor like the original Philips lamps.

So what experience have others had and where do they buy the bulbs from?

 

[ricicle]

In all honesty it depends on switching cycles, lamp operating position, how the lamps were handled during transit/selling, contact resistance etc etc

 

[big-all]

i always say allow a ratio of 9-1 so a 1.6w would= 14.4w some may be brighter but at 9-1 you wont be far out
3w candle
http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/SID-F...our-offers-2491.htm?action=showDetail&id=5986

 

[pjcomp]

Oh for those happy far off days when all you had to do was buy a light bulb. Now we have so many shapes, size, colours, technologies, fittings ....

Time was I could keep a box of lamps on the van and provide them gratis to customers when needed. Now there are just too many different sorts, and at the price they are who can keep a stock?

pj

 

[ericmark]

Well thanks to "big-all" got 8 of them all they had left so living room now all LED 2 x 1.4W and 8 x 3W like day light on summers day brighter than that room has ever been even with the original 6 x 60W tungsten lamps total 26.6W.

However I can see why so many complain about CFL as the output is so varied for the same wattage.

 

[dulciebb]

I'm writing a lot about LED lighiting at the moment so this article may help http://www.articlesbase.com/diy-articles/diy-lighting-6769029.html

 

[big-all]

Well thanks to "big-all" got 8 of them all they had left so living room now all LED 2 x 1.4W and 8 x 3W like day light on summers day brighter than that room has ever been even with the original 6 x 60W tungsten lamps total 26.6W.

However I can see why so many complain about CFL as the output is so varied for the same wattage.

pleased to help
glad you got them

£36 is a big bill at lidls

 

[ban-all-sheds]

http://franklludwig.com/lidl.html

 

[big-all]

http://franklludwig.com/lidl.html

to be honest i always have a laugh and a joke with the people in the shop and they never seem bothered or stressed

now i could pretend they are so happy to get my moment off light relief
but i suspect they are fairly content
i read several comments but most companies will have areas where the job satisfaction is minimal due to incompetent or vindictive inefficient management

 

[ericmark]

http://franklludwig.com/lidl.html

I think every company will have some one who does not like the company and we have a series of options one of course is leave. But as the consumer to select shops by where they get their products or how they treat their workers is not really a valid way to shop.

We have local Aldi and Lidi and the Aldi shop sent me a £40 parking bill because I had returned to their car park within 4 hours. I am led to believe Aldi them selves are not too keen with what is going on and are trying to alter the situation but as a shopper I am far more likely to avoid a shop likely to give me a £40 bill for parking than one with a disgruntled worker.

I'm writing a lot about LED lighting at the moment so this article may help.

Yes good but looks as if your using same software as me to write page with no spell check. Also there are other errors for example I have not seen any high voltage lighting in any home. Sure some one will have neon lights some where but I have never seen any. In fact it is extra low voltage lighting which causes the problems in a modern home when converting as often the switch mode power supplies used for existing extra low voltage lighting have a minimum output which is higher than the LED requires.

they are more than 1000% energy efficient than traditional light bulbs

There are very few times where we can get more than 100%. Octane rating I know can exceed 100% but my room used 200W and now used 28W so uses 14% of original power requirement so saves 86% of the original power required.

OK I am not that good at maths I once imagined i was a number! But 1000% come on get real!

Although to buy 8 lamps was expensive if one fails it costs less than a £5er but buy lamps with a 15W output looking at over £30 a bulb and I for one would not take a chance at it lasting long enough to repay the outlay.

To my mind to move to separate light and heat (Only save energy if heat is not required) means some change in the way we light out homes. With me a changed from single bulb to five bulb light fitting but I know to have spread out the bulbs more would have been better.

It also means using a thermostat able to increase the heat in the evening to compensate for the loss of heat from the bulbs. I am lucky my ground floor is controlled by a single electric unit which I was able to change to one with 4 temperatures set per day. However my mothers house with TRV in every room is a problem to change them for WiFi controlled valves to compensate for lack of heat from the tungsten bulbs would be a major undertaking.

I strongly believe it's time to stop looking at energy saving methods in isolation we really need to look at how they affect each other. Use a gas cooker for example and one also needs to use a cooker hood to remove moisture and gases and then heat more air to replace that blown outside. Where with an induction hob there are no combustion gases including combustion moisture so only cooking smells need removing. So the hoods should come as suitable for gas or suitable for electric but instead they just come as suitable for building regulations.

Because government have become involved and made rules now only the government can sort it out but the mass of misguided information pumped out has resulted an a general disbelief in all the reports about the global pocket lining under the banner of reducing global warming.

 

[JohnW2]

I'm writing a lot about LED lighting at the moment so this article may help.

Yes good but looks as if your using same software as me to write page with no spell check. Also there are other errors for example ....

Indeed.

they are more than 1000% energy efficient than traditional light bulbs

There are very few times where we can get more than 100%. Octane rating I know can exceed 100% but my room used 200W and now used 28W so uses 14% of original power requirement so saves 86% of the original power required. OK I am not that good at maths I once imagined i was a number! But 1000% come on get real!

I think it's another case of poor wording, rather than bad maths. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with percentages greater than 100% when one is talking about comparisons. I presume that he was trying to talk about a comparison of 'energy efficiencies' ('light per watt'). If we assume that your old 200W and new 28W produced exactly the same amount of light, then your LEDs would have an 'energy efficiency' of about 714% (200/28 ) of that of your previous incandescents - or, if you prefer to put it this way "614% more" than the previous incandescents. Not quite 1000%, but not too far off. However, I agree that the wording in question is not clear enough.

The confusion resulting from the 'feeling' that one "cannot have percentages more than 100%" can usually be alleviated by converting to a proportion or ratio. Whilst "1000% more energy efficient" may sound wrong to you, "10 times more energy efficient" perhaps doesn't?

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

I did try to put in a little humour but forgot your engineers so should have written.

OK I am not that good at maths I once imagined "J" was a number! But 1000% come on get real!

Is that any better?

 

[JohnW2]

I did try to put in a little humour but forgot your engineers so should have written.

I'm no engineer

OK I am not that good at maths I once imagined "J" was a number! But 1000% come on get real! Is that any better?

Well, it does make the humour a little more obvious! (and,of course, you're right to 'imagine' that j/i is a number ). However, I have to say that I thought your comment was semi-serious, particularly since you mention octane ratings above 100%, so I'm sorry if I misunderstood your intent!

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

Out of interest I looked up info on old 8W Philips bulbs and they were rated at 310 lm with 10 years life to 50% failure.

New bulbs 2 x 1.4W at 100 lm each and 8 x 3W at 250 lm each so lumen output dropped from 3100 to 2100 yet the room is very much brighter.

I did consider that the Philips bulbs may have go dimmer in time however since I removed bulbs when the dinning room was all changed to larger physical bulbs still 8W and the old bulbs were used as replacements for living room had they become lower in output when the bulbs were replaced one would have noticed the difference between bulbs.

So if neither the watts used or lumen given out will show how large or how many bulbs are required to light a room how should we select replacement bulbs?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

But as the consumer to select shops by where they get their products or how they treat their workers is not really a valid way to shop.

Seems perfectly valid to me.

If I want to boycott certain producers, I shall, and if that means that Shop A doesn't have enough things I'm prepared to buy then I'll not be keen on going to Shop A.