Practicality of LED home lighting?

Hey everyone. My friend and I were batting around the idea of using LEDs for home-lighting purposes. WalMart made the switch to the tune of a couple of million dollars in energy savings. Now the problem is, I know nothing about the electronics invloved in either home lighting or LEDs, so I'm not entirely sure that it will work. Could anybody shed some light on this? Some specific questions we had in mind:
Best type of LED, if any, for this purpose?
Best place to buy said LEDs?
Would the diodes be able to be hooked up to the wires directly, or would more work be necessary?
I know this is the best place to ask. Thanks in advance.

Well, Walmart is using Led lighting in refrigerated cases as a replacement for fluorescent lamps because they emit less heat (at low (er) drive levels). This saves money because any heat generated inside a freezer has to be removed by the heat pump which is expensive. Walmart is not using Leds for general lighting because they are not as cost efficient yet as fluorescent/metal halide lamps...... but that's coming.

There is a curve (series of intersecting curves actually) that are defined by:
-Lumens per watt
-Direct cost of manufacture
-Indirect cost of manufacture (life cycle cost, environmental considerations etc.)
-Labor (we have a crew of five replacing lights full time where I work, that would be reduced to one if we moved from 20K hours to 100K hours "bulb" lifetime).
-Thermal considerations related to HVAC (leds operated efficiently don't generate much heat, this is great in warm climates but less of an advantage in cold climates.

And about 10 more considerations........

Anyway the hope is that Leds will become the most efficient light source yet, but they are not the most cost efficient yet*

*One could make some pretty strong arguments about mercury health threats from HID/ fluorescent use and it's overall cost to society........ but that's for another day

.

Home led threads compiled by AndyTiedye/CPF'er.
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/149183

Well, for the time being, the first place I'd consider using LEDs for home lighting is for spotlighting/track lighting. That's one area where fluorescent will not work, as it cannot be focused. Since the LEDs are such a good point source though, and they run much cooler than incandescent bulbs, they are ideal for focusing since a small lens can be positioned right on top of the LED to attain the desired focus.

For flood lighting, LED and fluorescent are about the same for lumens per watt, but fluorescent is much cheaper to buy up front.

The LEDs that Wal Mart are using are actually not even the most efficient ones on the market right now, they only average about 40 lumens per watt, compared to between 60 and 100 for Cree LEDs (depending on how hard they're driven) or 70-100 for fluorescent. However, the reason they achieve such a big savings is that LEDs tend to run best in as cold an environment as possible. Efficiency of fluorescent tubes drops off in the cold though. They can also achieve the same effective illumination for a display with fewer total lumens due to the ability to focus the LED light where it is needed most.

Another thing to keep in mind is that LEDs would be a great replacement for those candelabra type light that are run on dimmers. Those lights are too small to fit CFL, and incandescent efficiency really sucks when dimmed down really low (~3 lumens per watt), but LEDs run most efficiently when dimmed (~100 lm/watt for newest Cree). Since I find most people tend to run these lights at a dim setting most of the time, this is one area where LEDs could potentially save a lot of energy.

my house is full of halogon down lights, i.e little 12V halogon lamps. Is there an LED replacement for those?

Orion1632 said:

my house is full of halogon down lights, i.e little 12V halogon lamps. Is there an LED replacement for those?

Click to expand...

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/147796

Thurmond

Looks like my question has been answered a hundred times over. thanks for the quick reply, folks!