[AT] OT LED question

[Stephen Offiler]

Man of few words, Jason!

I run several LED bulbs in my home powered by 120VAC, but as yet I have not
experimented with 12V powered LED's (as in tractor headlights).  These are
two completely different beasts due to the driver circuits.  The LED
emitters run at about 3 volts DC but prefer constant current to constant
voltage, so, there's actually quite a bit of power manipulation going on in
those driver circuits.

Some of my 120V LED's are 40W-equivalent and 60W-equivalent in the shape of
a  standard incandescent lightbulb.  They are name-brand, and I'm about 90%
sure that brand is Osram.  List price was sort of high but I got them
during a promotion where the local electric company subsidizes the
purchase.  I paid $3 each for the 40W and $4 each for the 60W.  I installed
four of the 40W in outdoor sconce-type fixtures on my house and garage,
because my wife likes to leave these lights on 24/7 and the low power
consumption of either CFL or LED can make a noticable difference on the
monthly bill.  I was very impressed with the "color" of the light... these
are rated Warm White and they are absolute dead-ringers for the color of an
incandescent, to my eye.  They've been running 24/7 since December 2014
(~16,000 hours) without a hitch, thru summer heat up to 100F and winter
cold to about -5F.

I am using a couple of the 60W in places like bedside table lamps etc.
They aren't working all that hard but they are perfectly fine, and I'm very
happy with both the quality (color) and quantity of light.

I also have a couple of BR30 LED's (these are 65W-equivalent wide-angle
indoor floods used in some older track lighting) in the kitchen.  The
normal incandescent BR30's seemed to burn out frequently, and it took my
biggest stepladder to get up there and replace them, so our first goal was
increased life.  We tried CFL's back before LED's were even a thing.  Both
quality and quantity of light with CFL suffered to an unacceptable level -
this is in the kitchen where they were so bad they were making the food
look odd in color.  We went back to incandescent.  When LED's in the BR30
form became available, I decided to try them, without telling my wife.
They are so good that to this day she has no idea those are LED up there.

Final comment.  It's pretty much still the Wild West out there in LED
land.  The best ones are still pricey to manufacture, and you probably
won't buy them without some kind of subsidy.  If you choose the cheap ones,
buyer beware.  This general comment will hold true for both 120VAC
residential lighting as well as 12V tractor lighting.

SO





On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Jason <dejoodster at gmail.com> wrote:

> My LEDs work good. No complaints here.
>
> On Wed, Nov 2, 2016, 10:48 PM Greg Hass <ghass at m3isp.com> wrote:
>
> > Three years ago I bought 9 LEDS on sale for $10 each. They were to last
> > 22 and a half years being on 6 hours a day.  I have used four of them so
> > far at about 6 hours daily and none have made it past one and a half
> > years. We wrote the company but as expected, no reply.  A friend at the
> > coffee shop just told me today he tried them on his lawn mower and they
> > couldn't stand the vibration so he had to go back to the old style
> lights.
> >       Greg Hass
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