Has anyone on this forum used LED desk lamp?

picard

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Has anyone on this forum used LED desk lamp?

Is it durable? Is it bright enough to illuminate the keyboard & desk?

will it last 5yrs?
 

picard

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I am refering to any type of LED white desk lamp. I am contemplating buying one because my incandescent lamp is a power hog.
 

PhotonWrangler

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I purchased a Tensor-brand lamp with two 3-watt LEDs. It's bright enough for a supplemental light source for reading, but I'm finding that it's waaaay too blue! It's got a higher color temp than the daylight coming through the window at high noon. This makes it pretty annoying for use as a reading light.

I'm toying with the idea of replacing the emitters with warmer-white ones. :shrug:
 

Led_Blind

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I was using one of the china quality multiled lights as a reading light and found the same issue, to blue. So i wired up 8 warm 5mm leds as a reading lamp, much easier on the eyes.

I guess a hundredthousand years of firelight has our eyes finding it easier to read by it.
 

Sigman

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I use one of these nightly while surfing to light up my keyboard/desk immeditate area with the room light off. I like it, but I suppose it depends on how much area you wish to light up.

Craig reviewed it at the Led Museum.
 

jtr1962

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It's easy enough to replace too blue commodity LEDs with the BestHongKong UWLC series ones. They'll probably be brighter, and at ~5000K their color temp is a close match to sunlight. Probably one of the warmer tint cool white Luxeons would be a close match to sunlight also. I've seen both the LCK and BestHongKong warm whites. I wouldn't want either in a reading lamp. The LCK are kind of greenish and the BHK are similar to a sodium vapor lamp but a little whiter. Neither give that great color rendering even compared to very bluish commodity LEDs. Incandescent in a reading lamp stinks also since it hurts the contrast plus throws the colors way off.

I guess a hundredthousand years of firelight has our eyes finding it easier to read by it.
100K years isn't enough time for our eyes to significantly change and early man spent way more time under sunlight. From an evolutionary perspective adapting to firelight really wouldn't make much sense. Lots of luck reading anything by firelight. Heck, my eyes hurt and I fall asleep after about 10 minutes under incandescent. I have close to zero color recognition under candlelight since the spectrum is basically empty of anything beyond yellow.
 

Melchior

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Shurely...

Why not a mixture of a few different 5mm LED's?
Some high output Nichia, then a bunch of cheaper lower output HK types around that and some 'Warm White' LEDs mixed in throught to 'soften' the colour.

6/5000K + 3500K = ?

Also, PhotonWrangler: Tell me more about the Tensor desk light!

Some retail stores ACTUALLY SELL LED desk lamps now (?!?).
 

TooManyGizmos

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:ohgeez:I just received that $33 AmondoTech LUX-1 light today at 3pm.

I carefully removed it from the package ............

As I sat it up on the table to plug the power cord into it ........

The adjustable(?) gooseneck broke just 1 inch above the base . .:rant:!!!

I was not even adjusting it at the time - and did not lift it by the head .

What more can I say ????? :mad:

BTW : it's also poorly designed , as the power cord plugs into the front where the switch is ?? (why ?)

....................... TMG/:huh:

Sigman said:
I use one of these nightly while surfing to light up my keyboard/desk immeditate area with the room light off. I like it, but I suppose it depends on how much area you wish to light up.

Craig reviewed it at the Led Museum.
 
Last edited:

Melchior

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No.

A Halogen 30/50W is typically a wedge type bulb, a real pain to replace with LEDs.
(a drop is is probably crazy $$$ )

a single 5mm won't cut it for general illumination purposes (unless you have like 50 of 'em).

It is possible to convert these transformer based lamps into LED ones, but its only for the adventuerous tinkerers.

It would be better to just get a 'normal' E26/27 base table/desk light and put a LED bulb in there.
 

hotbeam

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I'm about to get a bunch of these table lamps produced.

Specs (to be finalised) will be:

Light output: 350 Lumens
Light colour: ~3300k warm white
Size: 370mm tall (right angle) x 400mm deep
Switching power supply
Dimmable for lighting output (0~100% lighting output)
ON/OFF switch with touch button
Built-in the high temperature protection function

HB_LEDTableLamp350-1.jpg
HB_LEDTableLamp350-2.jpg


```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Light output: 650 Lumens
Light colour: ~3300k warm white
Size: 470mm tall (right angle) x 490mm deep
Switching power supply
Dimmable for lighting output (0~100% lighting output)
ON/OFF switch with touch button
Built-in the high temperature protection function


HB_LEDTableLamp650-1.jpg
HB_LEDTableLamp650-2.jpg


What do you think? :)
 

jtr1962

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hotbeam said:
I'm about to get a bunch of these table lamps produced.
...
What do you think?
Very nice except for the warm white part. :thumbsdow

I tend to think a lot of the people who would be interested in buying an LED desklamp are buying it at least partially for the fact that LEDs can give a true white light as opposed to yucky yellow incandescent. Also, warm white LEDs aren't terribly efficient compared to cool white ones.
 

hotbeam

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jtr1962 said:
Very nice except for the warm white part. :thumbsdow

I tend to think a lot of the people who would be interested in buying an LED desklamp are buying it at least partially for the fact that LEDs can give a true white light as opposed to yucky yellow incandescent. Also, warm white LEDs aren't terribly efficient compared to cool white ones.

Actually to the contrary, people hate cool white lights. It creates more eye strain when viewing on hours at a time in an office environment. As far as 'yellow incandescent', maybe you've been hanging around CPF too long talking about flashlights :p :D Incandescent is in the mid/late 2000ks and it is indeed 'yukky'. You will find mid 3000ks much better. Efficiency is not an issue when the unit is being powered from the mains. FYI, the lamp with use Nichia's NS6L083T-E. If people really want a cool white version, it is a matter of switching to NS6W083T.
 

jtr1962

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hotbeam said:
Actually to the contrary, people hate cool white lights. It creates more eye strain when viewing on hours at a time in an office environment.
I think that's more a factor of the crappy low-CRI old halophosphor cool whites and flickering magnetic ballasts still used in a lot of workplaces rather than the light being cool. Even I hate those old school fluorescent lights (although I still prefer them to incandescent). Find a light which perfectly duplicates sunlight in terms of color temperature and spectrum. My guess is 99.9% will prefer it over any other light source.

I guess there's no equivalent to full-spectrum fluorescent in LEDs yet. Those would probably be the best in terms of increased color rendering/reduced eyestrain for a desk lamp. Yes, regular cool white LEDs of 6500 to 7000K are probably a bit too cool. If I were making a desk lamp I might use a small percentage of deep reds mixed with the cool whites to increase the color rendering at the red end of the spectrum and warm it up a bit.

I've seen ~3500K fluorescents. They're used in a lot of stores these days. Yes, much more pleasant that incandescent. They're basically a compromise-not so cool that those used to incandescent will complain but not so warm that some people will say they make things look too yellow. At least if someone wants something cooler on your desklamps the option is there.

Ever consider a 50-50 mix of warm and cool whites? That would give a color temp in the 5000K area along with somewhat better color rendering than either type of LED can produce by itself.
 

Lucien

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hotbeam said:
Actually to the contrary, people hate cool white lights. It creates more eye strain when viewing on hours at a time in an office environment. As far as 'yellow incandescent', maybe you've been hanging around CPF too long talking about flashlights :p :D Incandescent is in the mid/late 2000ks and it is indeed 'yukky'. You will find mid 3000ks much better. Efficiency is not an issue when the unit is being powered from the mains. FYI, the lamp with use Nichia's NS6L083T-E. If people really want a cool white version, it is a matter of switching to NS6W083T.

That depends who you ask. Over in Asia many people seem to prefer "Daylight" fluorescent tubes to "Warm white" tubes for indoor/home lighting. In recent years, there have been some tubes on the market that claim better colour rendering. I got hold of some (IIRC) NEC ones for where I lived. Admiittedly most of the info on the packaging was in Japanese which I couldn't read. But they did seem improved as compared to older tubes. (And yes, I was comparing new unused tubes of each type).

That said, for LEDs it's a different matter. I've tried putting together a simple reading light with a LuxIII, and the light seems somewhat too harsh for the job. I'd guess it's due to the deficiencies in the spectrum along the longer wavelenghts. Another LuxIII flashlight I tried in a forest at night is ok at close range, but at longer ranges my eyes seem to have to strain to focus right.

I'd second the idea to go with a mix of cool and warm white LEDs too, or would try mixing in either red, amber or both to balance things out. The extreme case could be to use a range of coloured LEDs with a diffusion filter to mix them together.
 

PhotonWrangler

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I like it.

After a disappointing experience with a cool white Lux-III desk lamp, I'm looking for something that's easier on my eyes as a decent reading lamp. To my eyes a warm white Luxeon will probably be closer to a higher color temperature CFL because of the blue-slanted spectral content of the Luxeons.
 

hotbeam

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jtr... you are correct. 3400-3500k is great. It is not too warm and not too cool. I use it everyday over my desk and it is excellent. I do like your mixing idea. I'll take a look at it.

Lucien... I noticed that on my last trip to HK. Not many WW lights in use in residential settings. In commercial, restaurants, etc... WW reigns. As I said, a 3400-500 temperature is excellent and 5500k or WW/CW mix can also be done should the need arises.

Photon... :)
 
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