Indoor Outdoor light images ?!! (,")

liteglow · #1 10-30-2004, 12:28 PM

Hi

All u guys must live some place, and i wonder what outdoor light u guys have?
And maybe some indoor (led) lights that are pretty to look at [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Pleas post some pictures of some nice garden lights if u got any...
I`m working one some outdoor flower lights with Luxeon [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

what i miss is more 3000kelvin lights.. as the 5500+K is WAY to white to make a "romantic" light !
Anybody tryed to have mixed whith some colors to get a sweet light color to use inside\outside ? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

jtr1962 · #2 10-31-2004, 05:33 PM

We have solar garden lights. They add quite a bit to the garden without the hassles of wiring.

Yes, you can mix amber and white LEDs to get a warmer color. Most cheap 5mm LEDs come in at around 8000K to 12000K which is why you might find them objectionable. I actually think light which is pure white or a little blue (5000K to 6500K) looks more enchanting in a garden than yellowish halogens. The overall appearance is more ethereal, sort of similar to moonlight. If candlelight is what you're after try using amber LEDs. They should come fairly close. I personally find yellowish light yucky, not romantic, so I wouldn't want to duplicate it with LEDs.

brickbat · #3 10-31-2004, 08:11 PM

Obvious question, liteglow, but why are you hung up on LEDs? If you like 3000K, (and assumingly could tolerate 2700K or so) plain old incandescent is a pretty practical choice. As for energy usage, do the math. A 4W incandescent bulb (as is super common and inexpensive in malibu and other garden lights) isn't going to break the bank. At 8 hours/day, it'll consume about $1 worth of electricity annually.

If you need more light, take a look at the little 3W CFLs. They're common at 3000K (though at 82CRI, they don't look as rich as an incandescent), last a long time, and are fairly inexpensive - and cheaper than luxeons, typically.

FWIW, I happen to agree with you in your preference for low color temp outdoor lighting. High color temp lamps are great for supplementing natural light in the day, but at night, especially at low light levels, I find them, um, well, ...yucky?

Mixing LEDs could work as well, but will be a bit of a constraint in that you need to evenly diffuse the separate colors to prevent weird shadows.

jtr1962 · #4 10-31-2004, 09:07 PM

brickbat, there's an obvious reason to use LEDs over plain old incandescent in garden lights-lifetime. Sure, CFLs are a good choice as well, but even the smallest won't fit in many smaller garden lights, and won't last anywhere as long as the 100,000 hours a Luxeon driven within spec will. If the bulb is a PITA to replace, or if you want to design in a light into something without being bothered to have access so it can be replaced, LED is the way to go. At 12 hours average per night even a 3000 hour incandescent will need replacing every eight months. An LED will be good for 23 years. The more typical cheap low wattage bulbs will need replacing every two months or so. Putting aside color temp for a moment, I've always hated incandescents due to their need for frequent replacing. Also, if you're using low voltage garden lighting CFLs are out. Those running on 12V are rare to begin with. I've yet to see any really small ones which run on low voltage. And LEDs will save on heat generation. Power usage probably isn't a concern but even a small wattage bulb in an enclosed space can get things very hot. Compared to low-wattage incandescent bulbs, a Luxeon will be three to four times as efficient which obviously means less heat for a given amount of light.

As for color temp it looks like it's 2 to 1 against me so far. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I can tolerate something like 3600K (this is where the "coolest" warm white Luxeon bins fall), but anything less, and there's no "white point". This gives me terrible, terrible headaches. I don't get it-those yucky yellow sodium vapor streetlights are almost universally despised yet the nearly equally yucky yellow incandescent is considered "romantic". I was looking at some paint color samples today. Amazing how faded the greens and blues get under incandescent versus 5000K fluorescent. High color temps make outdoor foliage look much richer. Maybe you can mix in some red leds to supplement the usual red deficiency present in most white LEDs, but other than that I have no complaints about outdoor LED lighting. I do think the cheap white LEDs that came with my garden lights are a little too blue, but I may change them the next time the batteries need servicing.

liteglow · #5 11-01-2004, 08:58 AM

There are many reason to use LED [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
First off all the low-power usage
there is NO reasen for replace it for 20 years [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Small size (EXTREMLY small size)
NO heat produced
And u can find ALL color that are [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

But the reason wy i want to use led outside, is first off all that i got so many and want to use them somewhere !

And i like 12v outside becouse of water and that stuff..
Halogen got ALOT hotter and u need wires that is bigger (more cost?) ..

Anyway, i dont like the "blue\white" light for DOWNLIGHT spots that I use in front of the garage\doors and many other place..
And i`m not sure if the white\blue one is nice when the night is 100% black ??

What i want to se is "ideas" of outdoor light...

Thanx [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

jtr1962 · #6 11-01-2004, 01:42 PM

Most of those outdoor garden lights have pretty nice prismatic diffusers so you should be able to mix different colored LEDs without getting strange artifacts. For the effect you're after you could try warm white Luxeons, or mix white and amber 5 mm. Naturally, you'll have to experiment a bit to get the exact ratio needed. Once you find it, intersperse the amber and white evenly to aid mixing. This should give you something close to incandescent in appearance but without the negatives (short life, heat). Naturally, deep reds won't appear the same, but with garden lights you're using the light mainly as an accent rather than to light anything so it shouldn't matter.

[ QUOTE ]

And i`m not sure if the white\blue one is nice when the night is 100% black ??

[/ QUOTE ]
It's better for seeing since the scotopic sensitivity curve shifts towards shorter wavelengths as compared to the photopic curve. Whether or not the appearance is "pleasing" is an entirely subjective thing. I don't care for anything much different than pure white either way. If it's too blue or too yellow it annoys me.

EricB · #7 11-02-2004, 01:21 PM

There are LED's being made to emulate warm white. LedTronics has a bunch of them, in different configurations. I don't know if they have something you could use as a garden light.
I always thought the old mercury street lights looked better in the green leaves than the peach colored sodiums. All my childhood, I looked for the "white lights" as I called them, compared with the "brown" or "tan incandescents. I knew there were some that were standard base and not too bright for the house, but didn't know that they, like the flourescents, needed ballasts. All of this was before the advent of compact flourescents. So the LED once again is great, in that it makes more available that once elusive high temp. white color. I cant wait until these bulbs (See http://www.ledtronics.com/datasheets...med_index.htm) become more reasonable in price.

jtr1962 · #8 11-02-2004, 09:12 PM

I liked the old mercury vapor streetlights much better myself. And I also always preferred white lights over sodium vapor or incandescent. I even remember searching in vain for a "white" miniature fluorescent which could be used in HO trains (cold-cathode fluorescents didn't exist at the time). I absolutely despised the yellow incandescent bulbs used to light model passenger cars. White LEDs are perfect for mimicking fluorescent or HID lighting in models. Thanks to LEDs, that elusive high color temp white color you mentioned is available to all very cheaply, in very small sizes, and without complex ballast requirements.

I can't wait until LED lighting for the home becomes mainstream. The last vestige for incandescents is in fixtures where dimming or frequent starting is required. I'll be all too happy to eventually replace these incandescents with LEDs which will finally allow true white lighting without the limitations of fluorescents.

BTW, that link isn't working.

liteglow · #9 11-03-2004, 07:35 AM

try this link then [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
http://www.ledtronics.com/datasheets..._med_index.htm

liteglow · #10 11-03-2004, 07:45 AM

on ebay there are alot of LED spot`s and bulbs..

i got this 42 led spot

and the light is white\a glare of blue .
But when i did mount 4 of them outside as downlight on the front of my garage, the light was NOT pretty [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
it was more like a short line with a extremly white light...
(a normal halogen spot lihgt up aLOT more area) and the halogen spot has that color temp that make "more" vissible light.....i guess...

thats wy i want to try mixing some white\other color leds to make that soft white color [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] (i do not want yellow light) [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I did recive my 300 led`s from HK today, and they was perfect.. will post some images when i got something togheter [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

EricB · #11 11-03-2004, 08:01 AM

Another holdout of incandescents is pinball machines. For two decades, the marquees really began looking nicer, with flourescent, neon, CRT screen sometimes, and later orange plasma (another flourescent technology), and even some LED's; but the playing fields continue to look so archaic with these dull brown lights. I had planned to suggest to manufacturers the small flourescent tubes that began to be used as backlights on pocket LCD TV's. Now, with the advent of the white LED, I figured they would on their own see to make the switch, but so far, I have seen nothing yet. Imagine how a pinball board would look with higher temp. white! Truly spacy and futuristic!