CFL and Fluorescent to LED

[AzDragonLord]

Don't be in too big of a rush to change out to LEDs folks.. They continue to suffer from high failure rates as some on here have observed.

If you use major brand lamps (Philips, Cree, etc) then failure rates are a lot less.

[Chris]

Don't be in too big of a rush to change out to LEDs folks.. They continue to suffer from high failure rates as some on here have observed.

I have 2 years on the set in my livingroom. A year on my bathroom, and a year on my entryway

[albertpetersson6]

Before converting the whole house into LED's, you must understand that there is a lot of difference in the lumens of fluorescent tubes and the LED bulbs. Forget the price difference, the most important thing is that there is a lot of difference in the output of the two. You will not get the desired brightness and sufficient light from LED bulbs as compared to fluorescent tubes. Also the light of LED bulb is very sharp as compared to fluorescent tube. One may find it difficult reading a newspaper under the light of LED bulb as compared to that of fluorescent tube. In my opinion, you must think twice before you change all the tubes to bulbs.

[Chris]

Before converting the whole house into LED's, you must understand that there is a lot of difference in the lumens of fluorescent tubes and the LED bulbs. Forget the price difference, the most important thing is that there is a lot of difference in the output of the two. You will not get the desired brightness and sufficient light from LED bulbs as compared to fluorescent tubes. Also the light of LED bulb is very sharp as compared to fluorescent tube. One may find it difficult reading a newspaper under the light of LED bulb as compared to that of fluorescent tube. In my opinion, you must think twice before you change all the tubes to bulbs.

The LED tubes i got are brighter than the T8's i pulled out

[nht mike]

Have you checked with your power company? In Washington state at least, there huge rebates, discounts and programs from the companys. They may even come to your house and do an energy audit and either just give advice or help with the cost.

 

Mike

[Chris]

Power is still under my grandmothers name. I havent done all the medical paperwork for my low rate power

[darkfox1]

I use an "always on" model in my house and have been using CFLs for the last 7-8 years. When I move I take them out and take them to my next house. (by "always on" I mean I have lamps in the house and never turn them off. I never use any attached house lighting unless I am in a room that doesn't have a lamp and/or I need a ridiculous amount of light.)

 

In 7-8 years I've had to replace 3 bulbs. Can't complain! My entire power consumption from lights is probably 150w at any given time.

 

My shop has flourescent tubes. Dontk now if they're T8 or T12, they're LOUD now that its cold though, they don't stop humming for a good 20 minutes. I'm not in there lately though. (Broke) so it doesn't matter to me

 

I've considered switching everything over to LED cos I love the tech and the power consumption is almost 0, but.. the cost keeps me from it. My power usage comes primarily from my 3 computers, not from my light bulbs. It'd be more cost effective for me to shut down my server than to buy LED bulbs and swap out my CFLs.

 

Maybe in 20 years when my CFLs start going out and my spares run out I'll start swapping to LED. By then if electricity is still legal for peasents like myself, the price will probably be lower.

[Colossus]

 

My shop has flourescent tubes. Dontk now if they're T8 or T12, they're LOUD now that its cold though, they don't stop humming for a good 20 minutes. I'm not in there lately though. (Broke) so it doesn't matter to me

 

That would be T12, old style magnetic ballasts. They are humming because the ballasts are worn out. I do like that 60hz hum though but be advised a worn out ballast is going to use a lot more energy and also puts out a lot of heat and eventually may become a fire danger. It's too bad you don't live in Colorado, I have quite a few old T12 ballasts that are still good from church bulidings that I retrofitted to T8 and would love to get them off my hands.

[albertpetersson6]

The LED tubes i got are brighter than the T8's i pulled out

They might be brighter than the T8's but the sharpness of LED tubes is much more as compared to the T8's. I would normally prefer T8's over LED tubes.

[Colossus]

It is all about what you are trying to light up and how long you plan on staying in those areas. Let's take the office building setting as an example. Work stations where you spend most of your time... LED tubes/strip lights vs the traditional fluorescent... you will find that the vast majority will prefer the softer output of the fluorescent tubes vs the sharp output of a LED. LEDs can be quite harsh on the eyes and nerves in the brain. If you are wanting to be in a relaxed environment and trying to keep it stress free, the same applies, as well as good old fashioned incandescent lighting. The warmer color tones such as 3000-3500k (referred to as "Warm White") enhance this. It is what we use in the church buildings I help to maintain (3000k) but the key is having floor/wall colors that work well with that. The common 4100k color, called Cool White for many, is a favorite in stores and shoping centers and out in the garage due to the basic white color output. Then we get up into the "daylight" color spectrum of 5000+k. they sometimes call this "daylight" or "Full spectrum" lighting and say it resembles sunlight the best. I call it hogwash. It looks too blueish-greenish to me. Gives me a headache, but many seem to like it. Most LED Streetlights that are being installed and LEDs in general will be in this spectrum/color range as well but without the blueish/greenish look, just very very crisp and bright and glaring. This does have some bennefits such as if you need a lot of lightoutput to really light up something so hence why many are considering putting these in their garages. Ideally, if you can install a LED circuit as well as a sperate fluorescent or incandescent circuit, I think you'll be glad you did. There are going to be times where you don't want the glaring super bright output from the LEDs (yes you can always dim em down if you do it right, but it's still a crisp white light and they can and do tend to flicker at a certain frequency that will REALLY give you headaches! (make sure you get lamps that clearly state on there "dimmable" and your chances of the flickering happen will be less likely)

 

Over the past year, I've installed quite a few Sylvania, Philips, & Feit LED Dimmable Floodlights in high up areas at several of the church buildings I work on. No failures yet from the Sylvanias, only 2 failures out of 20 or so of the Philips, and 4 out of 10 failed from Feit. The Philips and Feit were purchased from Home Depot and they did exchange them, no questions asked since it was still under a year and I smartly kept the recipts. Sylvania's were purachsed directly from a Sylvania dealer that my church has used for 40+ years. No expereience yet with GE LEDs. Right now we are only replacing the floodlights with LED Floodlights. If the prices come down more, we may consider replacing some of the incandescent standard bulbs or CFLs with LEDs on a trial basis but as it stands, we are getting between 10,000 -14,000 hours on the Sylvania CFLs we use and at about $2.00 a bulb, (when purchased in bulk) that's not too bad. And yes we recycle all fluorescent lamps. Which is rather expensive in and of itself, which sucks but when you think about it, the LEDs are going to have to be recycled as well because they contain content that is not good for the environment as well, and they use more content that is not good for the environment in order to produce them... But... if I can get 20,000 hours out of a LED floodlight.. I'll be quite happy as that will mean not climbing 40ft ladders as often to change a bulb. One last thing about LEDs- If you operate them in areas with high temps, you WILL fry them or shorten the life of them drastically. Heat dissapation is critical to the life of LEDs and CFLs. The circuitry doesn't like hot temps. Standard Fluorescent fixtures, if they have a healthy ballast, will handle higher temps fine.

[Colossus]

Costco is now selling LED shoplights. I picked me up one and am going to give it a shot and see how well she holds up out in the garage. The color is 4100K and the demo they had didn't have the annoying crispiness to it, but rather, is filtered out somewhat giving it a more traditional fluorescent look, which is just fine with me. We'll see how well she does with having multiple power tools starting and stopping, and in various temps. Those things kill traditional fluorescent ballasts and bulbs, and seeing how the LED is electroncially driven, I suspect it will be similar circumstances here.

[99silveradoz71]

I bought some cfl floods for the fixture by the back door a few years ago. They seemed to work alright at first, but lately, without the temp even being too cold, they'd take time to warm up. I found some led floods at Home Depot and now it's like daytime at the flip of a switch.

[Colossus]

I have strong praise for the LED Floods, no doubt about it but they are temp sensitive. You can fry the electronics in em if they get too hot, sames goes for the little internal ballasts on the CFL floods.

[Colossus]

FYI I picked me up one of those LED Shoplights from Costco a few weeks ago to permanently mount above my work bench in the garage. The light output is good and not too crisp, but a good white light but the thing is very fragile so beware with that. No flickering from the cold like fluorescents do, instant on and full brightness. I do like it so far. Again use caution with it when installing. I plan on installing/converting the fluorescent fixture in my elderly mothers walk-in closet over to LED once I can find some LED tubes that give a bit warmer of color. The brightness is good though since her eye sight is dimming as she gets older (she's into her early 70s now) and has asked me to make the lights in the house brighter for her.

[Chris]

FYI I picked me up one of those LED Shoplights from Costco a few weeks ago to permanently mount above my work bench in the garage. The light output is good and not too crisp, but a good white light but the thing is very fragile so beware with that. No flickering from the cold like fluorescents do, instant on and full brightness. I do like it so far. Again use caution with it when installing. I plan on installing/converting the fluorescent fixture in my elderly mothers walk-in closet over to LED once I can find some LED tubes that give a bit warmer of color. The brightness is good though since her eye sight is dimming as she gets older (she's into her early 70s now) and has asked me to make the lights in the house brighter for her.

Look up platt electric. They sell LED tubes in a couple color temps. Thats where i got mine. They have stores everywhere. I ordered online and drove an hour to pick them up. They do ship tough. I was just close enough not to have them ship

https://www.platt.com/platt-electric-supply/LED-Bulbs/LED-Tube-Type/search.aspx?SectionID=10&GroupID=136&CatID=7573