LED floodlights. - Any good??

coolhands

coolhands

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They're meant to be much cheaper to run of course, which is the main advantage in my book. But, I've never seen one in working conditions (ie actually fitted to a property and used in real life). So, are they any good does anyone know?

It's meant to only draw 3 watts according to the ad (ebay - haven't looked around anywhere yet - just using as example). £27

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http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/45-LED-Light-...deo_TelevisionSetTopBoxes&hash=item3358d00b00
 
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They will draw about 3 watts, as stated.

It's about as bright as a 500W halogen floodlight.










A 500W halogen floodlight which is switched off of course. :mad:
 
I beleive there are some half decent LED floods coming on to the market, but certainly not looking like that, or as cheap as that either.
 
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They use these on my local shell garage forecourt. They're actually pretty bright and light the area well enough about 5m up.
 
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Coolhands: ask yourself what you're using it for and how much light you really need.

If you just want it to light up when a burglar is hiding in your bushes, 3W of LED might be plenty. One of the many problems with uber-bright 500W floodlights in a domestic setting is that anything and everything casts a very dark shadow where it is easy to hide.

I wish my neighbours would replace their 500W lights with 3W ones!

I bought a 150W Steinel with tungsten tubes the other day for £45+VAT - the equivalent Steinel with LEDs was £190+VAT (25W = 140W equivalent in their literature): that might give you an idea of the expense of "brand name" LED lamps at this point in time.
 
There are some decent-ish LED floodlights out there, which have a lot more LEDs in them than the one shown.
I have fitted some in our swimming pool and they are 12W each and are about the equivalent of a 300W TH.
They are around £100 each.
 
The original 3W LEDs claim to be equivalent to a 100W Halogen. That's impossible.

100W halogen gives ~1670L
To get that from 3W would require a luminous efficacy of over 550 L/W.
The maximum theoretical efficiency for a white light source is 251 L/W.
In reality we can manage about 130L/W.

It's a shame that there are so many bad LED lights on the market, with misleading descriptions. It makes finding the good ones so difficult.
 
There was ( is ) one "manufacturer" of lighting units using LEDs whose very small print includes for reliable service in warm weather fanned air cooling is advised. Fan not included.

Several were installed in a un-heated building ( not by me ) In cold weather they were OK but with warm ambient they started to fail. There was a non resettable thermal protection device mounted out of sight on the heat sink. With a reasonable fan fitted they did work after a fashion in a warm room. They were cheap at the time but an expensive lesson now as they are being replaced.

To save your eyes the small print was "for reliable service in warm weather fanned air cooling is advised. Fan not included"
 
D

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