Ban on manufacturing of 40w and 60w incandescents starts January 1st

PhotonWrangler · Dec 14, 2013

CNN story here. They stated that some high efficiency incandescents will remain, and these bulbs have a filament that's "wrapped in gas." That's an odd way to describe a halogen.

idleprocess · Dec 15, 2013

Local Home Despot has them on endcap display right at the entrance to the store.

amd20x6 · Dec 16, 2013

I'm glad to see this in some ways, and not so glad in others. I still have incandescents in one of my bathrooms since the rapid on-off is bad for CFLs and I'm not willing to spend the $$$ on 4x LED bulbs for it.

I want the following in an LED bulb:

$5 price point. These 830lm Philips LED bulbs already hit that ($4.97 to be exact) but they're much too yellow for my taste. Much warmer than my "2700k" CFLs. The 3 I bought will never leave my bedroom.
As above, good color temperature- for me, I seem to prefer about 3000k. LEDBenchmarks measures the Philips bulb at about 2660k.
No/little flicker- I'm sensitive to it and it gives me headaches. That's why I bought the Philips over the Cree bulbs.
Brightness! I expect at least 800lm out of a bulb.
Reliable design. I don't want a crap filter capacitor, for example. I don't know if I could bring myself to buy an LED bulb without seeing a teardown first.

Hopefully 2014 will bring the above by means of increased consumer purchases of LED bulbs bringing the production costs down.

Hooked on Fenix · Dec 16, 2013

I'm glad to see the pricepoint of l.e.d. bulbs dropping while efficiency is rising. I have seen some 40 watt equivilant bulbs at Costco for under $5 each (in a 3 pack). However, these prices always seem to be subsidized by the power company. What I am worried about is that after the low cost alternatives are outlawed and we no longer have freedom of chosing the cheaper incandescent, the subsidies will go away and we'll be stuck with only expensive options and there is no going back. First they banned the incandescent, so I bought florescents. Then, they banned the T12 linear bulbs and ballasts. Next, comes all florescents because of the mercury. What we will be left with is l.e.d.s.. If they are good bulbs and last, the companies will get to market saturation quickly and start to decline because no one needs their products for another couple decades. If the bulbs burn out quickly, no one will buy them and I could see the technology going away from too many people being turned off. What I think might happen in the future is that the l.e.d. bulb companies will put out small incremental improvements in efficiency to bring in more customers while the government will keep pushing them to make more efficient products quicker by banning the less efficient products. If the government goes too fast with it's mandates, the companies won't cover the costs of R & D by selling the older product and it will bankrupt them. If the companies have absolutely no efficiency mandates forced on them, they will naturally improve the efficiencies at a sustainable rate to keep up with the competition. What we'll have to worry about is that if the pressures of competition and government regulation bankrupt many of the companies, we could potentially end up with a monopoly on lighting devices stiffling efficiency improvements and increasing costs. Hopefully this all turns out o.k. for us and we get decent bulbs at a decent price. This would be a great time for Philips to start selling that 200 lumen/watt bulb they've been bragging about.

BillSWPA · Dec 16, 2013

I would happily switch to LED on its own merits as long as 1) the LED bulb lasts at least as long as the number of incandescent bulbs I could purchase for the same $, and 2) the quality of light is at least about equal to incandescent. While I have limited experience with fixed LED lighting at this point, it seems we are likely there.

Trying to do more than a government should through legislation is a good way to invite unintended consequences. In my case, I stockpiled a bunch of 100w, 75w, 60w, and 40w incandescent bulbs a couple of years ago - something I would not have done but for the ban on new manufacture. So, my transition to LED's will now be slowed as I use up my supply of incandescents. I would actually be transitioning to LED's faster, and thereby reducing my energy consumption faster, had the idiots who passed the incandescent bulb ban simply refrained from acting.

jtr1962 · Dec 16, 2013

BillSWPA said:
I would actually be transitioning to LED's faster, and thereby reducing my energy consumption faster, had the idiots who passed the incandescent bulb ban simply refrained from acting.

It's technically not an incandescent bulb ban because halogens will be available for a while. The real incandescent ban doesn't start until 2020 when the minimum efficiency mandate for all general lighting of 45 lm/W kicks in. And that's assuming the so-called 2X/3X/4X bulbs can't meet that guideline. I have a gut feeling we'll be able to pass 45 lm/W and then some with IRC. What's disappearing are cheap incandescents but frankly those are penny-wise and dollar foolish. You pay less upfront only to pay a lot more down the road in terms of energy costs.

jtr1962 · Dec 16, 2013

Hooked on Fenix said:
First they banned the incandescent, so I bought florescents. Then, they banned the T12 linear bulbs and ballasts. Next, comes all florescents because of the mercury. What we will be left with is l.e.d.s.. If they are good bulbs and last, the companies will get to market saturation quickly and start to decline because no one needs their products for another couple decades. If the bulbs burn out quickly, no one will buy them and I could see the technology going away from too many people being turned off. What I think might happen in the future is that the l.e.d. bulb companies will put out small incremental improvements in efficiency to bring in more customers while the government will keep pushing them to make more efficient products quicker by banning the less efficient products. If the government goes too fast with it's mandates, the companies won't cover the costs of R & D by selling the older product and it will bankrupt them. If the companies have absolutely no efficiency mandates forced on them, they will naturally improve the efficiencies at a sustainable rate to keep up with the competition. What we'll have to worry about is that if the pressures of competition and government regulation bankrupt many of the companies, we could potentially end up with a monopoly on lighting devices stiffling efficiency improvements and increasing costs. Hopefully this all turns out o.k. for us and we get decent bulbs at a decent price. This would be a great time for Philips to start selling that 200 lumen/watt bulb they've been bragging about.

Fluorescent and other discharge lighting already has lifetimes within the same order of magnitude as LEDs and this hasn't seemed to hurt companies. It's all about margin. A company may make once cent profit on a 25 cent incandescent which lasts for 750 hours. To make a similar margin per unit of time on an LED bulb which lasts 75,000 hours they need to make $1 per bulb. They can certainly do that and still keep the price of LED bulbs within reason. Competition will keep costs down also. I highly doubt we'll see an LED monopoly given that every major country has poured heavy R&D into LED development. You may be left with a handful of manufacturers who make bare LEDs, but there will be a lot more competition putting them into finished products.

Incidentally, companies already know the LED bulb replacement business will reach saturation soon, and then actually start to die as people get wise to replacing their A19 fixtures with purpose-built LED fixtures. Such fixtures will probably eventually be mandated in new construction. We'll end up with much the same situation as we have with linear fluorescents. Most of the money is made on the fixture, not the replacement lamps. In the case of LED fixtures, there won't be much need for replacement lamps as they could potentially last as long as the structure they're in. That being the case, the business model will change to ensure a company remains viable just on the profits from selling fixtures. New features such as variable CCT and remote control are what will probably get people to buy into LED fixtures. Off-topic but a similar business model will exist for electric cars. Manufacturers can no longer heavily depend upon the income stream from repair parts, so they'll aim to make more upfront on the initial sale. They could do this by either charging a higher price, or charging the same price as ICE vehicles, but manufacturing the EVs for less. Because EVs are inherently much simpler than ICE vehicles, I suspect the latter approach will dominate. We may see something in between for LED fixtures. They'll certainly cost more than incandescent fixtures, and perhaps a bit more than fluorescent fixtures. The extra features and virtually unlimited lifespan will justify the extra price.

Lun@ticFringe · Dec 16, 2013

I've been stocking up on 40W bulbs for a little over a year now. Not for use as lighting but to keep my well tank from freezing in the winter. A 40W bulb and a six foot heat tape on the exposed pipes and I'm good to -10F. Not sure what I'm going to do once my supply of bulbs run out...but that will be many many winters from now.

PhotonWrangler · Dec 16, 2013

You could stock up on incandescent aquarium heat bulbs or halogen lamps. Either one gets much hotter, although at the expense of lamp life.

Hooked on Fenix · Dec 20, 2013

jtr1962 said:
Fluorescent and other discharge lighting already has lifetimes within the same order of magnitude as LEDs and this hasn't seemed to hurt companies. It's all about margin. A company may make once cent profit on a 25 cent incandescent which lasts for 750 hours. To make a similar margin per unit of time on an LED bulb which lasts 75,000 hours they need to make $1 per bulb. They can certainly do that and still keep the price of LED bulbs within reason. Competition will keep costs down also. I highly doubt we'll see an LED monopoly given that every major country has poured heavy R&D into LED development. You may be left with a handful of manufacturers who make bare LEDs, but there will be a lot more competition putting them into finished products.

Incidentally, companies already know the LED bulb replacement business will reach saturation soon, and then actually start to die as people get wise to replacing their A19 fixtures with purpose-built LED fixtures. Such fixtures will probably eventually be mandated in new construction. We'll end up with much the same situation as we have with linear fluorescents. Most of the money is made on the fixture, not the replacement lamps. In the case of LED fixtures, there won't be much need for replacement lamps as they could potentially last as long as the structure they're in. That being the case, the business model will change to ensure a company remains viable just on the profits from selling fixtures. New features such as variable CCT and remote control are what will probably get people to buy into LED fixtures. Off-topic but a similar business model will exist for electric cars. Manufacturers can no longer heavily depend upon the income stream from repair parts, so they'll aim to make more upfront on the initial sale. They could do this by either charging a higher price, or charging the same price as ICE vehicles, but manufacturing the EVs for less. Because EVs are inherently much simpler than ICE vehicles, I suspect the latter approach will dominate. We may see something in between for LED fixtures. They'll certainly cost more than incandescent fixtures, and perhaps a bit more than fluorescent fixtures. The extra features and virtually unlimited lifespan will justify the extra price.

In California, the change from screw in to plug in fixtures has already been mandated in new construction. In fact, to comply with laws for new construction, l.e.d. bulbs that are screw in have to be hardwired/soldered into the fixture to prevent the owner from using incandescent bulbs (voiding the warranty and making replacement difficult). Most of the good new l.e.d. bulbs are screw in. The plug-in bulbs are mostly florescent and much more expensive compared to screw in florescents that you can get for about a buck. I don't mind inefficient lighting being banned if there is a cheap better alternative. However, I do have a problem with having to change out the entire fixture and bulb if I ever have to replace a hardwired l.e.d. because some bureaucrat won't let me screw in my own lightbulbs.

Aaron1100us · Dec 20, 2013

The hospital that I work at is slowly going to all led's. All the parking lot/ramp lights and all other outdoor lights are led. They are starting to put in led fixtures in the ceilings. Otherwise we have cfl, no incadescents anywhere. At home, I only have two led's over the kitchen sink The rest are cfl. Going to slowly replace wih led's.

Sent from my SCH-R760 using Tapatalk 2

LEDninja · Dec 20, 2013

Hooked on Fenix said:
What we'll have to worry about is that if the pressures of competition and government regulation bankrupt many of the companies, we could potentially end up with a monopoly on lighting devices stiffling efficiency improvements and increasing costs.

We are close to that now. The companies that make their own high efficiency LEDs have an advantage - no middleman when sourcing LEDs. Philips and soon Cree will dominate the market.
One extra regulation that bulbs without UL listing can not be imported into the US will kill off a lot of the smaller offshore companies. As long as US customs enforce that rule. (All bulbs from DX, ebay, some Amazon 3rd party sellers and auto parts stores automatically gets impounded and destroyed.)

Hooked on Fenix said:
This would be a great time for Philips to start selling that 200 lumen/watt bulb they've been bragging about.

We are only getting 200 lumens per watt LEDs in the lab, not production. Add in driver and optical losses and my guess is 140 lumens per watt at the bulb level. I would not take over-enthusiastic marketing speak at face value. They may be another '$60 bulb'. (An AP article with the title 'Would you buy a $60 light bulb' was reprinted by newspapers worldwide during the launch of the L-Prize bulb. Notice the L-Prize bulb, still the best at ?96 lumens is no longer in production. Too expensive without subsidies.)
If you are willing to pay $60 for a 200 lumens per watt bulb let Philips know. Otherwise they will concentrate their efforts at getting the price point below $10.

jtr1962 · Dec 20, 2013

Hooked on Fenix said:
In California, the change from screw in to plug in fixtures has already been mandated in new construction. In fact, to comply with laws for new construction, l.e.d. bulbs that are screw in have to be hardwired/soldered into the fixture to prevent the owner from using incandescent bulbs (voiding the warranty and making replacement difficult). Most of the good new l.e.d. bulbs are screw in. The plug-in bulbs are mostly florescent and much more expensive compared to screw in florescents that you can get for about a buck. I don't mind inefficient lighting being banned if there is a cheap better alternative. However, I do have a problem with having to change out the entire fixture and bulb if I ever have to replace a hardwired l.e.d. because some bureaucrat won't let me screw in my own lightbulbs.

Soldering LED bulbs into screw-base fixtures is just silly. To comply with this mandate it makes more sense to install purpose-built LED fixtures instead of either plug-in or screw-base fixtures. Yes, in the case of LED fixtures the LEDs will most like be permanently soldering in place. However, that shouldn't matter because a properly designed fixture will last the life of the structure it's in without needing to replace the LEDs. The driver should be removable in case it needs replacing, but in general the LEDs themselves are the most robust part of any LED lighting system.

The only downside I personally see if hard-wired LED fixtures become the norm in new construction is the choice of color temperature. That's why I feel any mandated LED fixtures should be required to have CCT adjustable from 2700K up to 6500K to suit the user's preferences.

By the way, not all fluorescent fixtures are bad. The ones using linear tubes offer the greatest choices in terms of CCT and CRI. That said, LED is obsoleting both incandescent and fluorescent. I think it's well past time that we started the ball rolling mandating that decent LED fixtures be installed in new construction, not screw-base LED bulbs (which have lots of issues) soldered into fixtures designed for incandescent.

jtr1962 · Dec 20, 2013

LEDninja said:
We are only getting 200 lumens per watt LEDs in the lab, not production. Add in driver and optical losses and my guess is 140 lumens per watt at the bulb level. I would not take over-enthusiastic marketing speak at face value. They may be another '$60 bulb'. (An AP article with the title 'Would you buy a $60 light bulb' was reprinted by newspapers worldwide during the launch of the L-Prize bulb. Notice the L-Prize bulb, still the best at ?96 lumens is no longer in production. Too expensive without subsidies.)
If you are willing to pay $60 for a 200 lumens per watt bulb let Philips know. Otherwise they will concentrate their efforts at getting the price point below $10.

Higher efficiency and lower price aren't mutually exclusive goals. As you increase efficiency, you radically reduce the need for expensive heatsinking or other measures to keep LED temperatures within limits. To give you some idea of the rough numbers involved, if you have a 100 watt replacement lamp (1600 lumens), then the approximate numbers for waste heat at various efficiency levels are as follows (all cases assume the efficacy of the emitted light is 300 lm/W):

60 lm/W-26.67 watts input, 21.33 watts waste heat
80 lm/W-20 watts input, 14.67 watts waste heat
100 lm/W-16 watts input, 10.67 watts waste heat
120 lm/W-13.33 watts input, 8 watts waste heat
140 lm/W-11.43 watts input, 6.1 watts waste heat
160 lm/W-10 watts input, 4.67 watts waste heat
180 lm/W-8.89 watts input, 3.56 watts waste heat
200 lm/W-8 watts input, 2.67 watts waste heat

Note how waste heat decreases dramatically even going from 80 lm/W up to 120 lm/W. Note that 120 lm/W is quite feasible with today's emitters. You just need to underdrive them. You'll use more emitters, but might save more than the emitters cost by reducing your heatsinking requirements. Also note that once we get much past 160 lm/W we pretty much don't need heatsinking of any type. This is for 100 watt replacements. For 40 or 60 watt replacements we can probably dispense with special heatsinking once we get efficiency past 100 to 120 lm/W. Like I said, higher efficiency and lower cost aren't mutually exclusive. I also feel 200 lm/W at the fixture level is only a few years away.

N8N · Dec 20, 2013

Hooked on Fenix said:
I don't mind inefficient lighting being banned if there is a cheap better alternative.

Heck, even "better" alternative would be nice.

It seems that there are very few available light sources that approach the color rendering of an incandescent; choices narrow even more if you don't want to use can lights.

There are inexpensive LED "bulbs" on the market, but high CRI versions seem to either pop up and disappear (e.g. L-prize) or be available only in limited markets (Cree True White, unless you mail order) or else be expensive and hard to find. The mass market stuff (e.g. regular Cree) is "OK" but still a little disappointing to those of us who grew up surrounded by only incandescents.

I'm disregarding CFLs as they never were really that nice to begin with; I just don't like them, although I have grudgingly used them. Which is odd as I have been able to buy linear fluorescent tubes that are rather good.

wws944 · Dec 20, 2013

Californias Title 24 doesn't require 'soldering in' LED bulbs. What it says in a nutshell, is that high efficiency lighting must be used for primary lighting in places like kitchens, baths, and laundry rooms. For example, there is a calculation for kitchens that so-many percent (based on wattage) must be high efficiency vs low. You can not just screw a CFL or LED bulb into an Edison socket and claim the fixture is high efficiency. Title 24 mandates that a different, non-Edison, socket be used. Hence the introduction of the GU24 socket.

Edison sockets can still be used in other locations. But Title 24 mandates that they be on a dimmer (95% max) or a vacancy sensor. For outdoor lights, they must be on a motion sensor.

It is ironic that GU24-based CFL and LED bulbs are so much more expensive than their Edison counterparts. It is quite possible to pay more for the bulbs than you save in electricity. And the same goes for dimmers. As we all know, few CFLs enjoy being in a dimmer circuit. Dimmable LED bulbs do a lot better, but also have their compatibility issues.

idleprocess · Dec 20, 2013

wws944 said:
Edison sockets can still be used in other locations. But Title 24 mandates that they be on a dimmer (95% max) or a vacancy sensor. For outdoor lights, they must be on a motion sensor.

Trying to wrap my head around this and failing. Dimmers make incandescents markedly less efficient and dim - dim to the point that the typical installation with dimmed incans has quite a few more sockets than otherwise needed to account for this reduction in output. The vast majority of residential occupancy sensors and motion sensors seem to depend on trickle currents through the bulb itself, thus are incompatible with anything other than incandescents.

amd20x6 · Dec 20, 2013

N8N said:
Heck, even "better" alternative would be nice.

It seems that there are very few available light sources that approach the color rendering of an incandescent; choices narrow even more if you don't want to use can lights.

There are inexpensive LED "bulbs" on the market, but high CRI versions seem to either pop up and disappear (e.g. L-prize) or be available only in limited markets (Cree True White, unless you mail order) or else be expensive and hard to find. The mass market stuff (e.g. regular Cree) is "OK" but still a little disappointing to those of us who grew up surrounded by only incandescents.

I'm disregarding CFLs as they never were really that nice to begin with; I just don't like them, although I have grudgingly used them. Which is odd as I have been able to buy linear fluorescent tubes that are rather good.

After spending the past few days doing more research, I've personally decided that all LED bulb purchases will be on hold until I can buy something meeting California's standard (90+ CRI, 50+ R9). I'd be willing to pay more for such a bulb- say, $15. The Cree TW series almost meets the price goal but the old-fashioned neodymium trick (that they somehow patented?!) seems like a stopgap measure. Not to mention that Cree bulbs are measured to have relatively significant 120Hz flicker.

I'm in an apartment so I can only buy A19 bulbs.

Thankfully, pg. 5, bullet 3 of this report dated Oct. 1 makes me hopeful that this will happen within the next year or so.

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/snapshot2013_a-lamp.pdf

SemiMan · Dec 20, 2013

idleprocess said:
Trying to wrap my head around this and failing. Dimmers make incandescents markedly less efficient and dim - dim to the point that the typical installation with dimmed incans has quite a few more sockets than otherwise needed to account for this reduction in output. The vast majority of residential occupancy sensors and motion sensors seem to depend on trickle currents through the bulb itself, thus are incompatible with anything other than incandescents.

That is not always true. It depends on the design of the power circuit in the bulb and the leakage of the dimmer.

Semiman

wws944 · Dec 20, 2013

idleprocess said:
Trying to wrap my head around this and failing. Dimmers make incandescents markedly less efficient and dim - dim to the point that the typical installation with dimmed incans has quite a few more sockets than otherwise needed to account for this reduction in output. The vast majority of residential occupancy sensors and motion sensors seem to depend on trickle currents through the bulb itself, thus are incompatible with anything other than incandescents.

We reconstructed/expanded our house a few years ago, and had to make everything Title 24 compliant. Yes, some of the requirements definitely seem silly and counterproductive. Worse yet, according to my contractor, different municipalities building inspectors want different things as they understand the requirements in different ways. So what may be fine in one town may get rejected in another. Drives the contractors nuts.

I have not had problems with trickle current from the vacancy sensors and LED bulbs. In fact in two of my bathrooms, the LEDs are so efficient that they still emit a small amount of light due to the trickle. This actually makes for a nice night light.

I had the electricians wire motion sensors for our outdoor lights. But then my wife picked out GU24 CFL fixtures with day/night sensors. None of it played well together and generated an immense amount of RFI to boot. So I bypassed it all. Eventually these lights will have LED bulbs in them - using GU24->Edison adapters that are easily availble from various on-line sources.

Ban on manufacturing of 40w and 60w incandescents starts January 1st

Flashaholic

Flashaholic

Newly Enlightened

Flashlight Enthusiast

Enlightened

Flashaholic

Flashaholic

Newly Enlightened

Flashaholic

Flashlight Enthusiast

Enlightened

Flashlight Enthusiast

Flashaholic

Flashaholic

Flashlight Enthusiast

Enlightened

Flashaholic

Newly Enlightened

Banned

Enlightened

Similar threads