Enlux LED Flood Light replacement bulb

[Chris M.]

You may have seen these in prior posts, a new product from US based Enlux, finally bringing incandescent-like power levels to a screw-in LED replacement lamp. Mine arrived today, many thanks to Harry N. for helping me get it, since they currently do not ship out of the US. I hope they will make 220 and 240 volt versions for other countries soon as it is a great product.

There are a lot of photos here. Click to enlarge (800x600)...



Here, 21st century technology screwed into a 19th century fixture...


I chose "neutral white" and the colour can best be described as between that of mains halogen incandescent lamps and low-voltage Xenon bulbs such as those seen in SureFire lights. Quite pleasent actually, normal people would probably really like it. None of the usual blues, greens and pinks of many current white LEDs. The light spill is wide and smooth, here illuminating the bench I`m usually sat at (excuse the clutter) and also with a flat sheet of paper next to it. Notice the slight colour irregularities at the edge of that one...


You see, this is not the usual phosphor-based white lamp. It uses a custom array of red, amber, green and blue dies that mix together to produce the even, uniform white. My digicam only goes down to F8.0/1/1000th sec shutter speed and even like that, the poor thing was heavilly overloaded when I tried to take a direct photo. So here is the array projected through a glass lens onto a sheet of paper below it. Also below, a closeup of some of the LEDs in one quarter, notice the unusual spiral shapes on the dies, presumably their method of maximising efficiency/delivering current to the dies most evenly...


The colours are a bit washed out but you should be able to tell the ambers from the reds. It surprised me that there were so many greens and only three blues. I expect the colder colour temperature would have more blue dies and the warmer one would have more red or amber. Still, only three blue and it manages to produce a decent white colour.

Since it uses four colours, I can only imagine the CRI is higher than that of the current two colour (blue & yellow) phosphor-based white LEDs. As a simple comparison, I used the pile of brightly coloured light bulb boxes heaped on the bench in the earlier photo as a test subject and photographed them illuminated by different sources. Namely the Enlux lamp, a Xenon incandescent (SureFire 10X in full-crazy-high-power mode), the 6 foot T12 linear fluorescent light up there on the celing (3500K standard tube for now) and finally a Luxeon-V LED in a SureFire L7, chosen for its whiteness compared to most of my other Luxeon-V lights.






White balance setting for all four shots was the pre-set "incandescent" (Sony F717). Does pretty nicely I think.

All in all I`m very impressed. I do notice a slight irregular flicker during my admittedly brief tests (you may have been able to tell from the bench photo that I tend to keep it dark in here most of the time) but wonder if that`s down to the century-old fixture it`s in, or the fact that it`s running on a 50Hz supply via stepdown transformer, instead of the 60Hz its rated at. It also gets noticeably warm and given its extravagant heatsinking fins, that is to be expected. The colour was warmer than I had imagined too but there is a choice of three so those (like me) who prefer a more natural daylight white can pick the cool-white, apparently 4000K colour temperature. For those wanting a more intimate incandescent glow, the warm white one is supposed to be the same colour as those quaint old tungsten bulbs.

I don`t see much in the way of individual control over the LED dies so wonder if, as it ages, the colour will degrade as some of the dies dim faster than others. Only long term testing will really prove that. The claimed life is 50000 hours and it carries a 2 year guarantee so they must have a lot of confidence in the design. Still, looking forward to seeing these avaliable internationally. Though expensive, it`s a step in the right direction and really a very good idea.

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Chris M.]

Why won`t my images show? Surely the code is right...



[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Chris M.]

So if that one works, what`s wrong with the original post? Code was copy/pasted right from it [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

*Very* looking forward to the software change! Well, you`ll just have to click them. I`m not writing that out again.


[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

[Stainless]

Chris:
Maybe I can help.

There are a lot of photos here.



Here, 21st century technology screwed into a 19th century fixture...


I chose "neutral white" and the colour can best be described as between that of mains halogen incandescent lamps and low-voltage Xenon bulbs such as those seen in SureFire lights. Quite pleasent actually, normal people would probably really like it. None of the usual blues, greens and pinks of many current white LEDs. The light spill is wide and smooth, here illuminating the bench I`m usually sat at (excuse the clutter) and also with a flat sheet of paper next to it. Notice the slight colour irregularities at the edge of that one...


You see, this is not the usual phosphor-based white lamp. It uses a custom array of red, amber, green and blue dies that mix together to produce the even, uniform white. My digicam only goes down to F8.0/1/1000th sec shutter speed and even like that, the poor thing was heavilly overloaded when I tried to take a direct photo. So here is the array projected through a glass lens onto a sheet of paper below it. Also below, a closeup of some of the LEDs in one quarter, notice the unusual spiral shapes on the dies, presumably their method of maximising efficiency/delivering current to the dies most evenly...


The colours are a bit washed out but you should be able to tell the ambers from the reds. It surprised me that there were so many greens and only three blues. I expect the colder colour temperature would have more blue dies and the warmer one would have more red or amber. Still, only three blue and it manages to produce a decent white colour.

Since it uses four colours, I can only imagine the CRI is higher than that of the current two colour (blue & yellow) phosphor-based white LEDs. As a simple comparison, I used the pile of brightly coloured light bulb boxes heaped on the bench in the earlier photo as a test subject and photographed them illuminated by different sources. Namely the Enlux lamp, a Xenon incandescent (SureFire 10X in full-crazy-high-power mode), the 6 foot T12 linear fluorescent light up there on the celing (3500K standard tube for now) and finally a Luxeon-V LED in a SureFire L7, chosen for its whiteness compared to most of my other Luxeon-V lights.






White balance setting for all four shots was the pre-set "incandescent" (Sony F717). Does pretty nicely I think.

All in all I`m very impressed. I do notice a slight irregular flicker during my admittedly brief tests (you may have been able to tell from the bench photo that I tend to keep it dark in here most of the time) but wonder if that`s down to the century-old fixture it`s in, or the fact that it`s running on a 50Hz supply via stepdown transformer, instead of the 60Hz its rated at. It also gets noticeably warm and given its extravagant heatsinking fins, that is to be expected. The colour was warmer than I had imagined too but there is a choice of three so those (like me) who prefer a more natural daylight white can pick the cool-white, apparently 4000K colour temperature. For those wanting a more intimate incandescent glow, the warm white one is supposed to be the same colour as those quaint old tungsten bulbs.

I don`t see much in the way of individual control over the LED dies so wonder if, as it ages, the colour will degrade as some of the dies dim faster than others. Only long term testing will really prove that. The claimed life is 50000 hours and it carries a 2 year guarantee so they must have a lot of confidence in the design. Still, looking forward to seeing these avaliable internationally. Though expensive, it`s a step in the right direction and really a very good idea.

[HarryN]

Hi Chris

Nice review and post. I have done a little testing on mine, and so far, it did not seem to warm up much - at least compared to the incan lights I usually use in that application.

My visual perception is that the output is similar to a 25 watt incan - what is your take ?

BTW - These things have long lead times - I think they start buying parts after they get the customer order. I have one of these as well (purchased on a whim when I purchased the one for Chris) - I am thinking of selling it for personal reasons if anyone is intersted.

[Chris M.]

<font color="purple">My visual perception is that the output is similar to a 25 watt incan - what is your take ?</font>

Unfortunately, and despite the fact that I avidly collect light bulbs of all shapes and sizes, I do not currently have any American/120v reflector-flood bulbs to compare it with. Indeed, I don`t use incandescent lighting in here at all. I find the light sources themselves fascinating but do not care much for the actual light they produce - now there`s irony for you! I`ll have to dig out a few British lamps later on and see if I can make a fair comparison but for now I couldn`t begin to guess.

Have mine on right now and it seems that while it warms up quite quickly, as you noted it does not get too warm overall after that. The heatsink fins must be doing a good job. The vast heat produced by tungsten lighting is one of the reasons I dislike using them, 90% of the energy that goes in comes out as IR radiation not visible light. The nice thing about LEDs is all the heat they produce is (hopefully) carefully extracted and dissipated out of the back, not blasted down on you in the beam of light.

If Enlux made these in true daylight/ 5500-6500K colour temperature I`d buy a few more to use around here. As it is, I`m tempted to try and get a hold of the other two colour-temperatures just out of interest but given the cost I`ll wait a while and see how this one goes first.

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Zelandeth]

Nice little review.

Now I want one! Very interesting LEDs there too. That similar to one of the Lamina arrays?

[Ken_McE]

What is the price? I don't see its light output on the box. Any idea how many lumens?

[HarryN]

Hi Zel - yes - it does look a lot like a Lamina array package in general - that was my first impression. I think the details are different, but it is the flood kind of look.

Ken - as far as price - I think I paid around US $ 80 each for the three of them - plus shipping to me, then to Chris. Lead time was, as stated on their web page - around 5 weeks.

Lumens - They are really vague on this point, but try to compare it to a 60 watt incan bulb - I would say no, more like 25 - 40 watt equivalent.

I have the other two still in the box - one in silver, one in white fins. Still debating on showing them to my wife or selling them. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[IlluminatingBikr]

I like mine. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I have one in a open fixture above the kitchen sink. We leave it on sometimes at night, to light up the kitchen a bit when all the other lights are off in that area of the house.