LED lights at home

Stewartb said:
Beware of the assumption that LEDs don't get hot. Some do. I found that out the hard way. Trial by fire, so to speak.
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Low power draw should equal low heat produced. All of my 25-30 normal household led lights (mostly 40-60 w equivs) are barely lukewarm, maybe even cool, to the touch.

I will say that my specialty high-power flashlights get very hot. It's a toss-up whether the light or the battery will start the fire first.
 
Can you recommend any 100w equivalent LED normal bulb shape for damp locations? Also, 100w equivalent PAR-30 bulbs (damp location specs not required)?
 
rbridges said:
oh wow. hope it didn't burn anything important. My comment was based on touching the bulbs with my hand. An incandescent will scald you whereas an LED may only feel warm. My wife and I recently went to a hotel in Destin that still had the old style light bulbs. I forgot how much heat they gave off until I was standing at the bathroom sink.
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No fire. Just scars from the heat dissipator scorching my flesh when I grabbed a bulb that had been on. I was caught offguard at how hot it got. I have three different styles/manufacturers of floods. All get warm but the ones with the aluminum heat dissipators get hot. My favs are from Lowes and the overall bulb shape is identical to an incandescent. The benefit of that is they fit into the extended pole with the bulb grabber so changing them was easy. The flat element/heat radiator kind won't work with the extended pole thingy. Not an important factor until it is. Bust out the tall ladder. Cheers.
 
Interesting side note. Since this thread started in 2012, I've replaced two incandescent bulbs. Maybe three.

I've actually got more of them set aside than I had when the thread started. I replaced the outdoor coach lights that were 15W appliance bulbs (and expected to die) with 15W appliance bulb LED equivalents. (We don't use even 40W bulbs out here. No point. It's dark. A 15W bulb is light pollution in and of itself but we want a light to see the front door keyhole and two to keep the flag lit at night.)

So there's still a couple of cases of 60W 130V (note the 130V... They last forever and are slightly more yellow and run a little cooler) bulbs and they're doing just fine, and a couple of the 15W that hadn't failed when I pulled them.

The new 15W LED bulbs were $4.95 each for 6 of them.

Oh I also did experiment with a cheapie 60W equivalent in the fixture that's above the mud room/staircase that's really hard to get to safely. The color is super blue and awful but it'll probably stay up there for a long time because a) it's hard to get up there and b) I wouldn't want to use that crappy thing anywhere else where I'd have to see it.

Looks like the incandescents on hand should last about ten more years at current failure rates.

Total investment: $22 for the incandescents and $29.7 for the 15w appliance bulbs. I forget what the crappy one cost.

In our climate, I don't mind the bulbs throwing heat other than about two months a year.
 
Oh and in the RV trailer I did replace all the incandescents for LEDs after figuring out which models to order cheap on eBay direct from China. In that application it saves the coach batteries.
 
Don't have any in the house but all the car interior lights and the reverse lights are LED, amazing the different from the stock lighting.

Reverse lights were the best money I ever spent.
 
Not having much luck with LED. Bought 3 60W equivalent at HD and all three have now failed within 2 months. Maybe a bad batch?
 
Perezhr said:
Not having much luck with LED. Bought 3 60W equivalent at HD and all three have now failed within 2 months. Maybe a bad batch?
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The LEDs themselves are often fine. It's the components used in the power circuits that usually are toast from poor heat management via undersized heat sinks, or sub-quality components.

They're also slapped together so fast that there's often manufacturing defects like bad solder joints of the surface mount stuff. A little heat and they detach and open the circuit.

It's pretty easy to make an unreliable LED light bulb.

I suspect, like a lot of things, the proof in the pudding will be the manufacturer's warranty and people holding them to them.
 
We are replacing all the "can" lights in our house in Destin during our remodeling. These are basically the entire can fixture, about $22 each. The old ones were 20 years old, the ones in the bathrooms were gold colored and the rest would have needed sanding and painting. I figured it would be better to just start over with new! :yes: Especially since this remodeling was just supposed to be one bathroom and now its most of the dang house! :mad2:
 
Perezhr said:
Not having much luck with LED. Bought 3 60W equivalent at HD and all three have now failed within 2 months. Maybe a bad batch?
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I bought a bunch of Crees at Costco. 2 failed, hey took them right back. One is strobing when first turned on, if I cycle the switch a couple times, it generally coes on steady.

Have noticed Costco isn't selling them any longer...
 
Chip Sylverne said:
I bought a bunch of Crees at Costco. 2 failed, hey took them right back. One is strobing when first turned on, if I cycle the switch a couple times, it generally coes on steady.

Have noticed Costco isn't selling them any longer...
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I've only bought feit at costco, other than the hum I've been pleased.
 
cowman said:
Just to be devil's advocate doesn't that also mean less supplemental heat from the lights in the winter? I mean it's still worth it for the lower cost of lighting and longevity.... I just wonder if that will alter some peoples heating bills.
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Most of us have much more efficient heating systems than the lightbulbs provide.
 
flyingron said:
Most of us have much more efficient heating systems than the lightbulbs provide.
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If you draw the blinds, light bulbs are nearly 100% efficient as sources of heat, because even the relatively low percentage of the power that comes out as light gets converted to heat if it's not allowed to escape through a window.
 
CT4ME said:
Low power draw should equal low heat produced. All of my 25-30 normal household led lights (mostly 40-60 w equivs) are barely lukewarm, maybe even cool, to the touch.



I will say that my specialty high-power flashlights get very hot. It's a toss-up whether the light or the battery will start the fire first.
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Many draw much more power than they should for the "equivalent wattage" light source they're replacing.

Many cheap manufacturers don't spec or hide the actual power draw including waste heat produced in the power supply design and only publish an equivalent light bulb wattage light replacement rating.

You do have to read the fine print.
 
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