Ctom3

I think that they will get there with LED's in common household applications, but it may be a few more years. However, some really great things have happened with their with output and power handling capacity. I attached a couple of photos of a job that I helped start up that has 54 LED floods in an RGB configuration capable of producing several million colors. The output of each is individually controlled so that a variety of wash effects can be achieved. In the photo of them in operation, the multiple colors actually moved across the sloped panels so that it was a moving rainbow effect. It was very dramatic. The installation is on the top of the 30 story Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza in Houston's medical center. The advantages are extremely high efficiency, impervious to any outdoor temperature, very long life (at least 50,000 hours) and of course, color changing without the use of filters. The bad news is that the total cost of the fixtures was a little over $100,000. This is the really good stuff.

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	PC123716sml.jpg (35.2 KB, 69 views)

ArmchairGeneral

Does a jar of lightning bugs count?

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gunnut

I bought one of those battery powered emergency light with LEDs. It's kinda useful, but the light tends to be on the blue side which I hate. I have a small battery powered clip light in the trunk of my car. Hard to believe, but my 2006 car doesn't have a light in the trunk. I also have one of those "shake" flashlights. Don't get one. It sucks. Takes forever to charge and it goes out after less than a min of use. The light is weak.

One thing I noticed about LED lighting is due to their weak nature individually, many of them have to be employed to generate enough light for us to see. When that happens, they cannot be focused like a traditional flashlight to light up things beyond literally arms length.

LED is good if it's not used as a primary light source.

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Gun Grape

I've got a LED headlamp that I use for poking around in attics, panel boxes and other dark places. For close up work, its fine. The blue light does wash the electric wire colors out sometimes. For residential work no biggie. It sucks if you want to see more than 5 feet away.

Speaking of this, Why do electricians never put a light where it will give good lighting in the panel box? I've noticed that they are normally behind you. I just love working around bus bars in the shadows.

If I need to see a large area or doing precision work I carry a small halogen flashlight. Very bright light in a small package but it gets hot real quick. Not something you are going to stick in your pocket after its been on for 10 min.

omon

with all due respect, you guys are using wrong led flashlights.
i,ve been experementing with leds way before led flashlights became common place.
not all leds created equal, let alone led flashlights.
there are regular 3,5,10mm leds, i mostly(and manufacturers too) use 5mm leds, tipickal brightnes of single one (modern) is 18000mcd, first ones were(that were strong enoughfor flashlight) 3400mcd,
there are more and much more powerfull ones on the market today, such as luxeon star, cree. they come in 1,3,5,7.10 watts, 1 watt is as bright as 15-20 5mm 15000-18000mcd leds,(depending on manufacurer),
unlike bulbs that make light by heating filament, leds have flat surfice that creates light, so simple reflector that works great with inc. bulb isn,t efficient, (some new leds have specially designed domes, that relect light from flat surfice to make it something like a filament, to work with reflector), other way is to use collimator, it works as a lens, and project beam farther than led without collimator, they focus light much as reflector in inc. light works.
the best collimator is made by frensel lens principle, they have higher loss, but if used with 5watts and up leds, the loss in neglegable.
leds with no callimator or reflector are floodlight, and with those things, are spotlight.
about 5 years ago i converted 15-20 years old searchlight with old 5600mcd leds, it is very bright,(95 leds) few years later i bought 128 leds model, even brighter, recantly i bought luxeon led light with reflector.
my conversion and 128leds are awesome flood lights, it can fill a large room with even (no dark spots, rememder maglight) and if you look at the leds, even for a sec, you will see leds even if you close your eyes for few min.(burns retna but temp),
the one with reflector shoots nice even beam as far as regular 2d-c maglight, blue thou.
so there are cheap, shitty led flashlights, and there are very good ones, i think in 5 -10 years there wont be inc flashlights, not sure about halogen searchlights(1-15 million cp), the only inc flashlight i have is 3 million cp serach light,(overkill for 9 out of 10 cases) so far leds cant compeate with those lights in terms of brightness, yet.
as for color, it depends on voltage, my yellow light is overdriven at 4,5v, its color the same as inc. but high voltage does kill lifespan(i think normal is 11000hours, even if i kill it by half, it is ok), the rest do have blue tint , some more some less.
pic. the yellow light i converted myself, the rest are bought.

sorry for hijacking the tread, but i don,t think it worth opening a new tread for 1 post.

Attached Images

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gunnut

Well, I haven't seen an LED flashlight with focused beam yet. I see a lot of very bright LED flashlights with their lights fade out within 10 feet. They are great for close in work, but when I need to see what's 50 feet away they are virtually useless.

Foremost

I'm English, & I am in the process of replacing all my filament bulbs with the CRT type, over here they cost from £2 to £6 [$4 to $6] how does that compare??

Foremost

I'm English, & I am in the process of replacing all my filament bulbs with the CRT type, over here they cost from £2 to £6 [$4 to $6] how does that compare??

furkensturker

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunnut I hate the greenie socialists who like to pass laws to tell us how to live and how to "save" the planet. They believe the environment comes before people. They also believe animal welfare is more important than people's welfare.

When it comes to Greenies, solidarity brother. We have a saying here, "the only true wilderness is between a greenies ears". But, I must take you to task on one issue. I believe you are wrong in saying that people come before thw planet. The planet surely should be a priority. If our grand kids are to have the same standard if life as we do, we need to do the hard things like; clearing the Amazon, creating cleaner electricity, reduce the pollution of ground water, have cleaner exhaust emitions, and the list goes on.

There has to be a bit of common ground here, we need to get rid of the "idiot fringe" element of the green movement, you know, the ferals who live on welfare in the bush without housing, creating a mini environmental disaster where they live by not having correct sanitation and running water and are at the forefront, chaining themselves to dozer's to stop legitimate logging operations.

The environment is a very fragile thing that needs to be controlled properly. Locking up large tracks of land that can't be used is not the way to protect it. When it is managed properly, it can be used responsibly as a renewable resource.

Green groups and users of the resources need to be able to meet and sort this out with no hidden agendas from oil companies and logging and mining companies. You will find that the view of the greens and the loggers and miners are very similar.

Get rid of the crap and hidden agendas.

Freddie

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Foremost

Oops sorry, for some reason it was sent twice

LetsTalk

I have found that my local Ikea offers the best price, they average between 2-4$, I have been using them for about 6 years now with great results, very reasonable electric bills.