Heat LED or Incandescent

Out of these two type of torches which one produces more heat, also I noticed LEDS also have a heatsink in them, but I thought LEDs dont rea;;y get that warm for the need of a heatsink, as I thought LED's by themselves are quite a cool type of light.

Albinoni said:

Out of these two type of torches which one produces more heat, also I noticed LEDS also have a heatsink in them, but I thought LEDs dont rea;;y get that warm for the need of a heatsink, as I thought LED's by themselves are quite a cool type of light.

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most people think they are...and for that matter LED's life are often short lived. despite the recent trends in LED efficiency, I'd still recommend buying yourself a surefire L4 or any LuxV based light, LEDs can be quite hot:nana:

LEDs are only "cool-running" if driven below 100ma

People say LEDs are "cool" because they produce less radiant heat than incandescent lights. Unfortunately, they operate off of a circut which naturally generates heat. LED lights should have a heat sink to move that heat away from the emitter and the circutry. Despite of all this, incandescent lights make more heat everywhere.

Illum_the_nation said:

most people think they are...and for that matter LED's life are often short lived. despite the recent trends in LED efficiency, I'd still recommend buying yourself a surefire L4 or any LuxV based light, LEDs can be quite hot:nana:

LEDs are only "cool-running" if driven below 100ma

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I always thought a life expectancy of an LED is far more longer than that of a Incandescent. When I say Incandescent I am referring to your normal tungsten lamps.

Incandescent bulbs produce tons of heat, LEDs not so much, but LED's are cool running devices so heat must be removed, most Incans are happy running at 3000C.

LEDs and Incandescents produce heat in different ways. Both are less than 100% efficient, so both produce heat. Incandescents send heat out in all directions, much of it radiates out with the beam. LEDs heat must be conducted out the back side of the die into the heatsink (or the LED will overheat and fail). The lower temperature (of an LED) is not sufficient to radiate much at all, so it must be conducted away.

-- Alan

Also would you say that an Incandescent wastes more energy through its heat dissipitattion than LED.

Albinoni said:

Also would you say that an Incandescent wastes more energy through its heat dissipitattion than LED.

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Much more.

Incans manage around 12 lumens per watt efficiency. Modern LED's can do more than 100 lumens per watt efficiency. The current generation of LED's is a full 10x more efficient than incans.

The best Incan efficiency I've seen was around 45 lumen per watt with overdriven lamps. The Cree Q5 has around 95 lumen per watt(More if driven at a lower current then 350 mA, can hit around 120 when driven at around 30-40 mA). LED efficiency varies with current and heat.

Check this thread for some info.

Albinoni said:

I always thought a life expectancy of an LED is far more longer than that of a Incandescent. When I say Incandescent I am referring to your normal tungsten lamps.

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Drive a LED hard enough and you might just get it to burn out as quickly as an incandescent globe.

Drive it at lower than its rated power and it'll last forever.