Good CFL, bad CFL...user recommendations

I bought the same LED's at Sam's Club. They are a dim 40w equivalent so I put them in several small accent lamps that are on a lot. I do have three candelabra shaped in a fixture in the foyer that has several hundred beaded crystal prisms.

 

I'm curious to hear about what sort of failure rate you experience with them. They seem a bit hit or miss. The hits are great lights. The misses are shite. Still, they're so cheap a lot of the time that it doesn't really matter. I got a 6 pack of them for $3.99 about 4 years ago at home depot and I just installed the last two (I think) the other night when I lost two bulbs at the same time (a rather odd coincidence it would seem). At those prices I can't be arsed about occasional dud.

 

While it's not about CFLs, I spent part of last night playing with
a 3 watt LED. Got it from Mouser; it comes pre-mounted on one of
those six-sided little "star boards" whose back side is aluminum
to be mounted on a heat sink. The thing could easily handle a
watt without heatsinking, and then when I started to push up to
an amp through it a minimal chunk of aluminum clamped to the
backside was more than enough to keep it cool. Now, think what
shoving an amp through a typical old-school LED would have done...
.
The really amazing part is the "lip test" ... since skin near
the mouth is quite sensitive to heat and cold, placing one's
lip in the path of a strong light [e.g. a laser] can yield a
convenient ballpark indication of how much radiant power is there.
I could feel more heat coming at me in the *output* from the
device than the device itself was producing otherwise, i.e. it
was pretty clear that was turning a high proportion of the power
input into light and when I actually touched my lip to the
surface of the device, it felt *colder*. Try that with a
light bulb.
.
Hopefully LEDs will soon reach the lm/W efficiency of short-arc
discharge lamps or maybe even sodium vapor. That will be so
cool on a whole bunch of levels.
.
_H*

 

interesting, 'obbit. It would be great to go through another lighting efficiency jump in the next decade or so. I wonder how much money a typical medium sized city would save by having ALL traffic lights be provided by LED. Throw in street lamps and it's a pretty substantial amount of power that doesn't have to be generated. Negawatts indeed!

 

All the traffic lights in my neck of the woods went to LED a few years ago. Much brighter and no doubt very cost effective.

 

Here in Denver it's a mix. I still see quite a few old style bulbs, but quite a few new ones too. Sadly, I see old styles in some pretty new intersections. Why didn't they installed LEDs in these from the get go. Perhaps they're hard to comeby. Don't know why the city would elect to waste money like that.

 

Taking a cue from the fine folks here and a need to kill some
time before dinner, I stopped in the Orange Box to look around
and found that yes, they *do* have a 68 watt [real] unit:
.

.
This thing is a *monster*. It is the hulking Escalade of compact
fluorescents, claiming to produce the equivalent of 300W and
4200 lumens. The box it came in, easily 11 inches long, is also
printed "2700K" but that seems awfully low for a color temperature.
From tcpi.com, a domestic company, but of course actually manufactured
in the usual place. When I got it back to the car I tried it in the
inverter, and it was very dim due to being cold but then the brightness
gradually crept inward from the ends. The tubing is about twice as
thick as any of the others I've got, even the 42-watt jobs.
.
I found it in with the sodium lamps and metal-halide capsules,
in the outdoor security-lights section. They're apparently aimed
at the "flood the parking lot" market. Sets of these, mounted in
the clip-sockets with the *big* bowls attached, might actually
do the trick for various outdoor events.
.
_H*

 

All, or almost all Adelaide traffic lights are LED and most have been long enough that most have been renewed at least once. I think there were reliability issues with the early ones. I have noticed the lights have been set up that a minimal number come on at once, for example where the round straight ahead and right turn arrows once came on together now the green turn arrows come on a second before the round straight ahead greens. I'm not sure if that's a control thing or done to make the LEDs live longer?

 

Sounds like how they are controlled. Unsure how that could be a MTBF advantage

 

As far as CFL's to avoid: anything from Canadian Tire that is marked "Globe." They have a habit of going POP and exploding when you flick them on.

 

We have CFLs throughout the house for the last 10 years, including rear and front porch lights. Great light and reliability.

We are looking forward to making the move to "white" LEDs. Lower power consumption, better light. CFLs have run their course. Time to move on.

 

It doesn't sound like LEDs are there yet. They're expensive and the Lumen/Watt is still not quite up to CFLs. Light quality sounds like it's still an issue as well. When they're ready though, it will be another great leap forward (no homage to mao there, it just sorta came out that way) in efficiency.

 

I know they are controlled, what I mean is it may be that the computer program used to control the lights can't do two things at once so it is programed to turn the green right arrow on a second before the round light. I could drop by the traffic signal section at work and ask them why it is done this way. I might if I remember.

 

Shawn,

I bought a couple of these bulbs yesterday, and my initial impression of them is excellent.

Instant on, 23w, 1640 lumens, 12,000 hours, and they're tiny -- around 30% smaller than the next smallest equivalent CFL. And I think they've gotten smaller recently. The box they came in proclaims that they're "Now smaller than ever". And according to my measurements, they are -- 4.375" length and 2.0" width! They easily fit in my two lamps that needed CFLs about the size of incandescents.

They were not easy to find. Lowe's didn't have the 23w micro-mini in stock. The two Ace hardware stores I went to didn't have any of the Sylvania micro-minis. I ended up finding them at Kmart where they cost $16.49 for a two-pack , as opposed to the $10.99 charged by Lowe's stores and Ace Online.

 

Unless the traffic hardware dates from the early 1970's I very much doubt that is the case

Might be that way on purpose. Like how in some EU countries I've noticed on a red light, the yellow light will turn on, then the green light as the yellow and red go out. I should warn you I noticed this effect from a cafe or a bar, so perhaps my visual record isn't terribly reliable

 

Yeah, right now the current LED technology for general lighting is in the Model T era. This blurb from about a year ago promises a lot of breakthroughs

GE demonstrates first roll-to-roll OLEDs - R & D

For general large area task and industrial lighting, induction lamps are now very hard to beat. Their instant on, instant restrike, and very long life all combine to make them very attractive