What's new and relevant changes. The day will come when cree emitters are obsolete, and what replaces those will become obsolete.Don't despair in what has become a thing of the past. Grab on to the future of what some nice emitters are becoming.
ICs might have been rare, and regulated expensive, but PCBs aren't uncommon, and you can get LED torches w/o them. Also, under and over driving have been common to do for a very, very, long time.I mourn for the simplicity of incandescents - batteries and bulbs. No drivers, ICs, PCBs, regulators, over/underdrives.
Just some fancy ones. It's equally easy to get them with proper off modes.One thing I really like about incandescents: When they are off, they are OFF. It seems like many LED flashlights have a little bit of circuitry ON when they are OFF.
For replacement bulbs for COTS flashlights? Absolutely. Beyond that, I doubt much will change. Much of the modding going on here won't be affected, the hosts will still be plentiful, and certain bulb form factors are going to be around for a very long time, even if the box won't say Streamlight, Surefire, or Mag Instrument. Given how the internet allows niche markets to not need to be too time-consuming and expensive for the consumer, it won't be nearly that bad.Will it be like the tube amplifiers? After a while the only tubes are available from a few Russian and Chinese specialty factories?
Also, don't get rid of what works, even if it may be old, just because there's newer. The makers follow what they think the market wants, which also means a slim minority of users with good reasons for not wanting the new thing may be left in the cold.What's new and relevant changes. The day will come when cree emitters are obsolete, and what replaces those will become obsolete.Don't despair in what has become a thing of the past. Grab on to the future of what some nice emitters are becoming.
I can't find whale oil for my old lamps anymore either.
I'm pretty sure you're not looking hard enough because they still make whales.
OMG
I shot soda out my nose
Thanks you guys I needed a laugh:laughing:
Also, don't get rid of what works, even if it may be old, just because there's newer. The makers follow what they think the market wants, which also means a slim minority of users with good reasons for not wanting the new thing may be left in the cold.
We all justify/rationalize our preferences various ways. LED and floro fans do tend to focus on efficiency, but that's hardly the only thing. I'm a fan of LED's and personally find the overall color temperature for ~4000K LED more pleasing than that of incan / floro in addition to the longer rated life and efficiency. I'll agree that the efficiency argument is overblown for most people where lighting is such a small percentage of the residence's overall energy / electricity consumption, and thus should not receive so much attention as major appliances and climate control.However, most people who are hyper-fixated on LED's or buy lighting based upon lumens per watt efficiency as the most important factor--decided long ago that all incands are a sickly, anemic orange, whose bulb life is as pathetic as an ice cube on a July afternoon in El Paso Texas. That is their misguided misunderstanding often brought up to justify their technology to appear as "superior."
Operating costs dwarf purchase price for both technologies anyway, so focusing on purchase price misses the bigger picture when discussing cost.Never mind that I have had a 20,000 hr 60W incan bulb giving a nice bright white color running in a room 24/7 since I installed it October 26, 2010 (28 months) which works out to 19,488 hours--not including the Hurricane Sandy power outage. The 10 times as expensive CFL in a matching lamp failed after 10 months.
It's important to remember this your set of views and preferences here. Obviously there are certain scenarios where one of the options you mention might be markedly superior, or perhaps even the only possibility. For example, nobody is using LEDs in an oven, and nothing but a laser is suitable for reading an optical disk. That said, when choosing between options which can all do the job, one will tend to focus on what's most important to them. They may even use different criteria in different situations. The end result could be one person uses 95% LEDs and another person uses 95% incandescents.There are many scenarios where the various features of incand lighting is superior. Same goes for LED, HID, Fluorscents, LASERS, Lens/Mirrors, and even oil lamps, candles, matches, or burning torches on a stick. It is just ignorant for LED Jockeys to say any one technology is best, or other technologies are dead. During an intimate dinner, I'm lighting candles, with dimmed background incands to set the mood.
I'll offer you an alternate view here. I think most of the people posting on CPF lived the majority of their lives during a time when incandescent was just about the only viable option for most portable lighting (those fluorescent campling lanterns notwithstanding). Many even have lived much of their lives during the time when there really weren't many residential lighting options besides incandescent except maybe T12 fluorescents. We had plenty of time to become thoroughly familiar with this technology. Perhaps some are embracing newer technology with what you might see as a fanaticism (i.e. "LED jockeys") because the characteristics of incandescent made us loathe it. Once something even slightly better came along, that's it, we were done with it. For some the reason was indeed the color of the light. For others it was the relatively short lifetime. For still others it may have been the lack of efficiency. For most it was a combination of all three. And yet you see this as misguided misunderstanding. Maybe we do understand things, and we understand that for close to 100% of our uses there's nothing superior about incandescents compared to the alternatives. Right now I don't anticipate more than three incandescents remaining in service in my place by year's end. One is in a seldom used hallway light which happens to have a dimmer. I'm not buying an expensive dimmable LED or CFL bulb for something which is seldom used. The other is in the attic where I go maybe once a year. The last one is in the oven. Outside of those three, we have two chandeliers which I'll be converting to LED by year's end. Emitter cost and efficiency finally reached the point where it made sense to do this. Truthfully, we didn't have all that many more incandescents than this even 20 years ago. Some table lamps were incandescent before CFLs came out, but most everything was linear fluorescent except the aforementioned chandeliers.There is nothing that leaves a person who has a balanced appreciation of many technologies "out in the cold." We can, and do purchase quality LED and other lights as we see fit. However, most people who are hyper-fixated on LED's or buy lighting based upon lumens per watt efficiency as the most important factor--decided long ago that all incands are a sickly, anemic orange, whose bulb life is as pathetic as an ice cube on a July afternoon in El Paso Texas. That is their misguided misunderstanding often brought up to justify their technology to appear as "superior."
I hear the incan fans raving about spectrum all the time and claim that none of the CFL/warm LED options are sufficient - and if that floats their boat, cool. But just like audiophiles and blind A/B tests between CD/vinyl or solid/state tube amps, a significant majority of them population can't consistently tell the difference with warm LED. I'm sure there are niche cases - such as some color-matching situations - where the comparison would clearly favor one or the other, but for most of the market it doesn't seem to matter.
Operating costs dwarf purchase price for both technologies anyway, so focusing on purchase price misses the bigger picture when discussing cost.
Curious how you managed to spend ten times as much on a CFL as an incandescent - special-application bulb or something?
Hate to quote my own post. But I was no way implying that incans are dead. Just two weeks ago I bought replacement bulbs from LF for my E1e and E2e surefires so that I can run them on rcr 123 batteries. I already have plenty of spare bulbs for my C2 Centurian. I really enjoy using my incans. But I also enjoy LED's for what they do. But there is always that, IMO, one missing ingredient to bring high cri led's up to the incan tint.What's new and relevant changes. The day will come when cree emitters are obsolete, and what replaces those will become obsolete.Don't despair in what has become a thing of the past. Grab on to the future of what some nice emitters are becoming.
I recall that discussion. This recent development is a further evolution on that. Remember at the time IRC was maybe doubling efficiency which isn't bad, but still well short of other technologies. It seems if I read that article correctly we'll be able to at least exceed CFL efficiency, perhaps even get close to 100 lm/W, all while retaining the characteristics of incandescent light which those like yourself admire. Moreover, apparently we'll also be able to have incandescents which are higher CCT without blue filters which waste light. Again, this is a very significant development because it means both low and high CCT light, plus everything in between, all with close to 100 CRI, and all with excellent efficiency.JTR, IRC incan bulbs have been around for quite a number of years, and you will see a number of them having been evaluated in my incand destructive bulb tests in the pinned topics. I could have sworn that you and I discussed them in similar LED vs. Incan debates years ago. They are wonderful technology developments in this area. My earlier comment about misguided misunderstanding relates specifically to those who apparently have always hated everything about incandescent bulbs, and describe them as some shade of sickly orange, and having ridiculously short life spans to exaggerate making your point. I have never used sickly orange unless I am intentionally putting an incand on a dimmer. I am sure that there are variations in retinal color perceptions and spectral preferences, but that is not a common feature used to describe modern incandescents.
If you know of radically better improvements, let me know and I'll try them as well.
I'm not going to argue subjective impressions, being that they're personal and it wastes time all around. If something does or doesn't do it for you, vote with your wallet.Well, I have always said that I am interested and supportive of new technologies, including LED's. People have told me about the various Nichia warm emitters, and I have tried a High CRI model from HDS, and several Nailbender D26 dropins for these FM lights, and several from Saabluster. None of them are remotely close to performing like a quality incand--especially for rendering true-to-life colors, and multi-spectral contrast outside. They just have a warmer peak Kelvin temp due to things like LED coating. If you know of radically better improvements, let me know and I'll try them as well.
The costs of operating it dwarfs its purchase price.I disagree with your characterization of the savings as "dwarfing" the purchase price. For the average homeowner who doesn't leave lights on when they leave rooms, the share of an electric bill due to lighting is a very small percentage. Buying high CRI quality CFL & LED's that would work (as opposed to the CFL that failed much sooner than advertised and had no dimming) are still not at the cheap price that quality incands were.
I can buy name brand A19 incans for $0.50 - $1 each; halogens are around the $2 mark. The overwhelming bulk of name-brand A19 CFL's go for $2 each with some specialty models reaching $4; last time I saw them costing around $10 was about 10 years ago when they were relatively new to the mass market (and far better quality). I can find some niche special-application bulbs for $10 each, but those are non-A19. So the spread is 8 at most, typically 4, 2 at least; half those numbers for halogens.Assuming this is a serious query, it is a simple 3rd grade economics division problem where the numerator is $10-15 CFL's (when I bought them at Home Despot), and the demoninator is a range of 50 cents to $1.10 for various quality brands of incands. I won't get into the prices of the light bulb socket LED replacements.
But there is always that, IMO, one missing ingredient to bring high cri led's up to the incan tint.
I tried looking up the difference between the two terms but came up with negative results. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but could you explain the difference between tint and CRI? I always enjoy learning something new.:thanks:Tint and CRI are two separate things.
I tried looking up the difference between the two terms but came up with negative results. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but could you explain the difference between tint and CRI? I always enjoy learning something new.:thanks:
jtr1962;4147012[COLOR=#333333 said:(LED bulbs are projected to drop below $5 by 2020).
Go to the third from the last pageCan you post a link to the source of this information? LED Add1cts want to know...
I'm glad somebody is reading...Whenever I see Lux, jtr, and idle all together in the same thread I know I am always in for a spirited discussion! I absolutely love reading your (plural) posts (have for years now, before and after becoming a board member) and appreciate how people can have such radically varying opinions.