Newbie Questions

[mooper]

I am new to the LED world, so I apologize for the newbieness as well as if I didn't place this in the ideal forum. Several questions:

1) What is the most reputable LED chip maker open to public investment (publicly traded stock)? CREE, or someone else?

2) In the same vein as #1, who makes the most advanced and efficient chips, publicly traded or not? In other words, who is the king of the hill technology-wise with LED chips?

3) I am not interesting in DIY solutions, as many of you are. I am looking to simply buy LED bulbs to replace my incand/CFL lights in my home that use standard sockets. I do not want to deal with dim or strange-looking lights, nor lights that will have other issues (breaking fans, etc). The most attractive high-intensity replacements I could find were the bulbs made by EarthLED http://www.earthled.com/products.html (I like the CL-5 for some closets and the EvoLux line for some other applications such as overhead lights at my home entrance, etc.) Are there any other 60w-100w (incand-equivalent) replacement LED bulbs that you guys would recommend?

4) On the same note as #2, what is the brightest standard-bulb LED option out there (not necessarily the best value or one you'd recommend... I'm just wondering what the brightest commercial one available is these days).

Thanks so much in advance for your time. The more info you can throw at me, the better.

 

[TigerhawkT3]

:welcome:

1. Reputable to whom? Cree is reputable to us because they make good stuff. I'm not even gonna try giving out stock tips. :shakehead

2. Again, this is open to debate, but in my personal opinion (just me), I'd say Cree has the coolest stuff.

3. You'll probably have to wait at least a few years before LED fixtures make sense on a widespread consumer level.

4. Again, the best and most useful LED fixtures are homemade. Prebuilt LED fixtures are more of a novelty at this point... again, IMHO. You're probably best off sticking with CFLs or getting real linear fixtures.

Sorry I can't help more.

 

[mooper]

1. Reputable to whom? Cree is reputable to us because they make good stuff. I'm not even gonna try giving out stock tips.

2. Again, this is open to debate, but in my personal opinion (just me), I'd say Cree has the coolest stuff.

3. You'll probably have to wait at least a few years before LED fixtures make sense on a widespread consumer level.

4. Again, the best and most useful LED fixtures are homemade. Prebuilt LED fixtures are more of a novelty at this point... again, IMHO. You're probably best off sticking with CFLs or getting real linear fixtures.

Sorry I can't help more.

I appreciate your help immensely, TigerhawkT3.

I'm actually shocked that there haven't been more responders sharing a variety of opinions. I'm looking for all I can get here, even if you disagree with other posters, so I'd really love to see additional people share if you have thoughts or can help at all.

Responding to your points individually:

1) Not looking for a stock tip per se... just wondering what other investment options are out there (other than CREE and NEXS), as I love the technology and its prospects.

2) Thanks for your input.

3) I understand that few people will replace incandescent/CFL bulbs with LED until the price point is much lower, but from a pure cost perspective, it actually makes sense *now* for many situations (not all). For example, if you own a home where you know you will be for years to come and you have a room where the light "quality" isn't that important and changing the bulb is extremely difficult (high ceiling or awkward placement like a stairwell), replacing an incandescent or even a CFL with an LED can actually be he cheapest option (electricity cost savings + labor of bulb change savings + bulb life savings > additional up front bulb expense). Regardless of your stance on this, if you HAD to buy a manufactured LED (not DIY) standard bulb to replace a 75-100w incandescent, I am wondering what you'd go with. Would you consider the bulbs I linked you to as good as any available today, or are there better options you know of?

4) I follow you here too, but again, I'm just wondering what my options are... what is the brightest LED "standard bulb replacement" on the market that you know of?

 

[LukeA]

The only passable LED fixed lighting solution available is the Cree LR6 (and LR4), which is expensive. The rest are crap.

 

[Marduke]

You might want to ask a mod to move your thread to the proper forum, where you will get more relevant results.

 

[mooper]

You might want to ask a mod to move your thread to the proper forum, where you will get more relevant results.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Could a moderator please do this for me? Sorry for being less than ideal with my forum selection (go easy on me - again, I'm new).

 

[carrot]

I won't pretend to know much, but Lumileds, Nichia and Cree are considered some of the industry's best. Cree seems to be leading currently, however.

You may wish to try to contact NewBie, a former CPF user who is much more knowledgeable.

 

[mooper]

The only passable LED fixed lighting solution available is the Cree LR6 (and LR4), which is expensive. The rest are crap.

Thanks for your input. I am curious why you would say that those products are "passable" but the EvoLux and CR5 (linked to in my previous post) are inferior? I'm not saying they aren't - I'm just seeking your reasoning. In my research, it appears that the EvoLux light quality is reasonable for a lot of applications and that it costs about $6/year to run 12 hours per day versus $24/year for an equivalent incandescent. Therefore, at $18/year savings and a $72 cost, it would break even after four years, and this doesn't account for the reduced hassle and savings in terms of not needing to replace it. What am I missing?

 

[jeffosborne]

Howdy Mooper, and welcome to the forum!

I can understand your surprise at the responses here - so many of us are do-it-yourselfers, technicians, engineers, scientists, and not interested so much in following along with commercial solutions as leading the way with personal solutions.

Sure, we are consumers like anyone else, and we let the market bring finished LED products as they are available, but we see the potential beyond what is on the market now. And we tend to know what to do about it

I have 18 LED lights in and around the house - all home-made, using Phillips Rebel LEDs. Bought them mostly at Future Electronics. Some are cool white, many are neutral white. I use 24 gauge telephone type wiring to route power to them all. A small solar panel on my roof keeps a 7Ahr sealed lead acid battery nicely charged, and that battery powers all of my lights if the AC mains fail. A photo cell in the attic provides a dusk-to-dawn function. Here's my controller, it regulates 6 strings of 3 white LEDs:

I think proper placement is 90% of the battle when it comes to efficient lighting. Here's a Luxeon Rebel mounted to the bottom nipple of my stairwell chandelier. It replaces a 40-watt incan lamp that became a 13 watt CFL a few years ago, now using 3/4 watt, as shown:

But to answer your questions specifically:

1. I know nothing about LED investment matters, sorry

2. Phillips Electronics makes the most advanced LEDs, but had a recall last year that soured many folks. Their Luxeon K2 and Rebel LEDs have the best tint and dispersion pattern - especially important for the LED lights I use in my photography. Also, with most Cree-based flashlights you get a nasty yellow "Cree rings". You won't see that with Luxeon-based flashlights.

3. I have not used any pre-fab household LED lamps...

4. brightest LED option? Cree R2-bin, I think, for a single-die part. There are quad-die parts available, too, from Cree and Seoul Semiconductor.

Cheers,
Jeff O.

 

[Ken_McE]

1) What is the most reputable LED chip maker open to public investment

Don't know. I think it changes.

3) I am not interesting in DIY solutions... I am looking to simply buy LED bulbs to replace my incand/CFL lights in my home that use standard sockets.

You are premature. There is a lot of cheap Chinese junk out there that sounds good in the ad and dies after a year in your house. There are also massive amounts of misleading advertising. Take the Evolux listing for example. ~900 lumens is the output of a 60 ~ 65 watt bulb but they write about it like it was a hundred watt comparable bulb. :thumbsdowThe CL-5 has the output of a 35 watt bulb, not a 65. Are we not supposed to notice?? This is common in the industry. Once I find that a company has made obvious errors like this I have to look much more skeptically at all their claims.

Are there any other 60w-100w (incand-equivalent) replacement LED bulbs that you guys would recommend?

I don't personally know of anything that puts out 800 ~ 1700 lumens and is LED and is fully realized and just screws in and available at retail.

4)... what is the brightest standard-bulb LED option out there (not necessarily the best value or one you'd recommend... I'm just wondering what the brightest commercial one available is these days).

Sorry. Don't know of one that I'd buy.

The more info you can throw at me, the better.

LED has not won the coming lighting wars and no one can say that it will do so. OLED, HIR, HID, Fluorescent and Electroluminescent are serious contenders.

********UpdATE************

I thought some more about your question and realized you don't actually need to invest in the LED part. You could invest in the drivers. If you walk around in my town tube type fluorescents are the reigning kings of commercial and retail spaces. If you open up these fixtures you will find a variety of bulbs. All of them have ballasts (performs the same function as an LED driver) Essentially all of these ballasts are made by Advance - http://www.advancetransformer.com/ It doesn't matter who makes the bulbs, they have a part in every fixture. Lately they have come out with their "Xitanium" line of current regulated LED drivers. I see this as an effort to position themselves early in a potential market. They already have expertise, distribution, and a solid rep. You might look into them because they are positioned to ride along with the winner no matter who it is.

You could also mouse up to CPF Custom Builders and Modders and talk to them. I don't have a good feel for how large or small they are, but they wouldn't last very long around here unless they had a solid product. You could simply ask if they need investors (although this makes you a venture capitalist rather than just a stockholder) or see if anybody is thinking about going public or otherwise expanding. I had my eye on an NYC based company called "acolyteled.com". I have bought the products and like them, and they were still pretty small. They went dark for a while and I thought they were out of business but there's sort of a website back up again. You could see if any of the CPF builders are located in your area and go talk to the owners, see what you think. This is of course a little harder than firing up a web browser and making a quick E*trade...

 

[greenguy]

Our company sources bulbs from China, Korea and Taiwan - trying to find the best of the best. What we found is:

1) Reputable is relative. CREE is the brightest american chip maker that we've seen. Korea uses "no-name" chips - that are extremely bright and in configurations that are brighter than CREE chips and even the LR-6. They're hard to find though... We received a 22W bulb that is equivalent to about a 120W incandescent bulb (conservatively). No joke - we've seen them side by side.

2) Following on from point #1, best high power LED's we've seen is Cree. However you can take a no-name manufacturer - that makes decent high power LED's and put them in a package that keeps the heat off - and you can blow away the output of any bulb that uses a "Cree" chip.
Here's some photos of said bulb:

100W Incandescent

22W Korean LED Bulb - since the light comes out the top, it's not as omnidirectional as an incandescent bulb - but in a recessed can - all that light is wasted anyway.

Closeup of the cluster of high power LEDs in action. Cree what?!

This thing is a monster

MR16 3W - This thing blows away ALL Cree chip 3W LED bulbs that we've seen (3 x 1W LED's). Manufacturer says 80 lumens/watt - so 240 lumens total.

3) We have a 55W equivalent - using a 10W LED: 10W LED Globe
and an 85W equivalent - using 15W: 15W LED Globe (out of stock)

4) I would say our 15W Globe is the brightest. In a previous post - someone said equivalencies our over stated VERY OFTEN. Completely true. That's why for all our bulbs - we show side by side comparisons. No BS.

One thing also - a 10W Globe bulb will be much dimmer than a 10W flood since the light is being diffused through a lens. Globes have their place, but the best bang for the buck is in LED floods/spotlights for applications like:
recessed lighting, track lighting or any kind of directional light.

 

[Cemoi]

Lately they have come out with their "Xitanium" line of current regulated LED drivers. I see this as an effort to position themselves early in a potential market. They already have expertise, distribution, and a solid rep.

What about the Lumidrives microdrivers?

 

[Ken_McE]

What about the Lumidrives microdrivers?

Their site looks good. Pity there's no prices or dealers.