EnLux 22W LED Floodlight

[Free]

Has anyone tried the Enlux 22W Led Floodlight ?

I am wondering what Luxeons it is using and how many. They don't say even in the specifications.

 

[ubermensch]

Sounds like it uses warm white luxeons, but at 20 lumens a piece that would be 25 emitters crammed in there--tight squeeze.

 

[DBrier]

Did you see the cooling fins on that thing? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

 

[Free]

An article in theNY Times
mentions that it is a combination of colored LEDs used to achieve the 3000K color temperature of the bulb. Also that the wholesale price is around $60.

It could be using 7 3w Luxeons?

 

[jtr1962]

While it's nice to see an LED application to general lighting, about the only advantage I see here is long life, making it useful in hard to change applications. Efficiency works out to about 23 lm/W, which is less than half that of CFLs. Also, as an aside, I'm tired of fluorescents and now LEDs trying to imitate incandescents with their "warm white" varieties. First of all, it is less efficient. Due to the pupil's response to light of different color temperatures, you actually require about 40% more lumens of 3000K light as opposed to 5000K light to light a given area to the same apparent brightness. Second, incandescent type lighting just makes everything look dirty and yellow. A room lit this way looks different under sunlight and nighttime lighting, making picking color schemes a nightmare. Ideally, a room should look exactly the same whether under artificial or natural lighting. While we haven't yet reached this ideal, I think we will be able to approach it very closely with LEDs within a few years, and I think the general public will greatly prefer this type of lighting over "warm white".

Anyway, I see this product as a mixed bag. LEDs aren't quite there yet for general lighting, although they are getting closer every day. I just wish LED manufacturers would forget this silly obsession of trying to imitate incandescent lighting when research has shown nearly everyone prefers sunlight. I've also heard that using 5000K (or thereabouts) lighting reduces the onset of many age related vision problems, provided you don't also have the 60 Hz flicker associated with magnetic fluorescent ballasts (which can cause health problems of their own).

 

[Free]

Good points. What is the Color Temperature of Halogen Flood lights? Personally my favorite lighting source.

 

[jtr1962]

[ QUOTE ]
Free said:
Good points. What is the Color Temperature of Halogen Flood lights? Personally my favorite lighting source.

[/ QUOTE ]

~2900K to 3100K, depending upon the lifetime. There is no doubt that this LED floodlight is meant to imitate a halogen flood, but my question is why? For reference, the sun is about 5500K at high noon at the equator, and is 4500K or above during most of the day. The only time sunlight approximates incandescent lighting in color temperature is during the first/last fifteen minutes when the sun is rising/setting, a period during which our eyes are not particularly suited to seeing well. This is why it makes no sense to me to imitate a light source (incandescent) which is not only unnatural in appearance but also poorly suited for our visual response. I remember going into great detail about this in another thread. I also have noticed that my eyes feel better since I no longer use either incandescents, fluorescents with magnetic ballasts, or low-CRI fluorescents. These are all poor light sources which should be avoided. Indeed, if full-spectrum fluorescents were produced in large quantity, their main drawback (higher price) wouldn't even exist. I hope LED doesn't follow the same route where you have low-cost mass-produced "warm-white" varieties with relatively poor CRI, and much higher cost 5000K "full-spectrum" types. While the better CRI phosphors do cost more, the amount of phosphor used on an LED as compared to a fluorescent tube is so small that any cost difference is almost negligible.

BTW, have you ever tried 5000K fluorescents with good color rendering (CRI > 90), and running on a flicker-free electronic ballast? This is about as close to natural sunlight as we can get today, and perhaps LEDs will do even better, or at least I can hope. Many people who say they prefer halogens over everything else haven't even tried any of the better alternatives. Even under halogens dark greens, for example, look like navy blue, and purples look almost black. The CRI of incandescents may be 100, but this only means you can distinguish two very close colors more easily than under a light source with a CRI of, say, 90. It says nothing about whether colors appear natural or not.

I might also add that I find it rather amusing that some of the same people who have complained (and rightly so) about pea-green tinted "white" Luxeons, or even blue-tinted ones, actually say they like "white" light with a yellow tint (which is really what "warm white" is). And even more interestingly, some of the same people who admire the pure white light of LED flashlights would rather have "yellow-white" lighting in their living spaces. I personally find it difficult to understand these apparent contradictions, especially in light of (no pun intended) surveys showing that if no drawbacks exist (i.e. poor color rendering, flicker) a majority of people prefer higher color temperature artificial lighting closer to sunlight, and nearly everybody (except vampires /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif) prefers sunlight over every other type of light.

 

[Free]

Honestly, the only time I use lighting in my house is at night, because I have so many Skylights and Huge windows, it is always bright and sunny inside.

So..perhaps my preference for Halogen lights has to do with the fact that I use them at the time of the day that bright sunlight would be uncomfortable.

 

[Free]

BTW, is there a good 5000K Flourescent with a flicker free ballast, and instant on, that will fit into recessed cans and project a nice flood below. I also absolutely hate hanging or surface mount light fixtures, and my house is entirely recessed cans.

 

[jtr1962]

Here are some nice full-spectrum CFLs suitable for recessed can lighting. They have a CCT of 5500K and a CRI of 91, plus a higher than usual (for CFLs) efficiency of 70 lm/W. I haven't tried this company's CFLs yet, but I use their 4-foot T-8 tubes in my kitchen, bedroom, and work area with good results. To me the light is very close to sunlight, and efficiency is great at 92 lm/W. I think you'll be pleased with their CFLs, and will save on your electric bills as well. You don't necessarily have to light a room brightly with fluorescents. I sometimes use one 28W CFL in my bedroom when I want dimmer lighting levels than my 4x32W ceiling fixture provides. I'm currently using Panasonic light capsules which I purchased from eBay for that purpose (28W, 1680 lm, 5000K CCT, 88 CRI).

BTW, I hate hanging and surface mount fixtures as well. Recessed cans or flush-mounted four-foot tube fluorescent fixtures look much nicer.

 

[Free]

Thanks for the link, I will have to try one of those out.

One biggie for me, that I forgot to mention, is that unfortunately, I really like to have a dimmer on my lights so that I can vary the output.

I wonder if the EnLux can be used with a dimmer?

 

[Hemingray]

If it uses a capacitor as the reactive device to drop the voltage, then it can't be used on most light dimmers, the high frequency "spikes" would not get the same voltage drop as 60 Hz AC, and this would burn something out pretty quick (I know from experience).

I was wondering if it uses some of the Lamina LEDs? THose are relatively high power and small size. It looks like the light emitting portion of this "bulb" is only about an inch in doameter, iif the total size is teh same as a BR-30 bulb (3 inch dia).

/ed B in NH