NEw and not that Bright?! ahha

hey im new to the forum and wanted some advice.
i'm trying the whole living green lifestyle and want to upgrade all my flashlights and other lights around the house with something more eco friendly.
I heard LED's are the way to go and even read an article about Vancouver using LED's in street lamps. How cost effective are efficient set ups for things from flash lights to lamps or lighting?

Thanks guys!

Cost-effectiveness depends on so many factors that no one can tell you what will be cost-effective for you.

I think it's still pretty pricey at this point.

McGizmo has a nice page showing LED lighting in his house. Quite impressive.

PS: :welcome:

Efficiency for light is usual measured in lumens/watt a big number means good efficiency a low number is bad.

The good leds can give a efficiency up to about 100 lumens/watt, but high power leds in flashlights are more like 70-80 lumens/watt.

A old fashion flashlight with a red glowing incan is not more than 5 lumens/watt

See more values here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy

realtime said:

i'm trying the whole living green lifestyle and want to upgrade all my flashlights and other lights around the house with something more eco friendly.

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"trying" the green living lifestyle? What if you don't like it?!

LEDs in flashlights are a no-brainer these days, especially if you use rechargeable batteries, too.

LEDs for household lighting are not quite there yet IMO because they are simply not bright enough except for close-quarters working lights (under cabinet etc.). But there are very good alternatives to traditional incandescent bulbs in the form of the latest generation compact fluourescent bulbs, which use a fraction of the electricity, are instant-on, and come in a variety of color temperatures.

What would there be to not like? Replace incan bulbs in house with cfl...pretty easy....recycling....easy....replacing MiniMag and Solitaire with Fenix L2T and E01...pretty freaking easy and kick butt if you ask me! Yay me for being green!:tinfoil: I even reused the tinfoil from last nights steak to make a hat. You can even leave all the lights off so you can play with your new leds. More fun. MP3 player cell died. Still runs in the E01 near full output. Saved me a few buckeroos too.

I think I've made my point

What if you don't like it? I feel like that comment was a bit rude.
I meant trying as in I'm trying to make all the right decisions which is why i joined the forum. I thought a few polite people could give tips and steer me in the right direction. Considering companies now are all over the "GREEN" way of living and advertising their products this way it can be hard for people to know which are actually serious about their contribution to saving face or just want the profit gained from what they treat as the new trend.

and I dont really know what Fenix L2T and E01 is.

Fenix is a Chinese company that makes good lights. The L2T is an earlier 2 stage Luxeon III LED powered by 2 AA. The E01 is a 5mm LED model that they have and it is powered by a AAA battery.

From the Welcome Mat:

Here's how it works. All are Type 3/HA unless otherwise stated.

E = AAA powered
P = CR123 powered
L = AA or AAA powered
T = CR123 powered with a forward clickie, two mode, tighten for high, loosen for low, uses a Cree XR-E Q5 LED (for now; when they add more models, this might change)

0 = 1 AAA powered, for the E series, 1 5mm LED, currently the Nichia CS, all twisties.
01 = 1 AAA powered, E series, multicolor anodizing, 1 5mm Nichia GS.
1 = 1 battery, for the E series, 1 Nichia Power LED, For the P series, a twistie.
2 = 2 battery powered or for the P series, 1 CR123 with a clickie.
3 = For the P series, 2 CR123 powered.
K10 = TK10, an "improved" version of the T1 with a removable grip ring, aluminum bezel, and removable clip. Performance is not changed.

+ = Special stainless steel run, a small run prototype that Fenix sold
P = "Premium" Luxeon I, V2.0 means 2 modes, Luxeon
S = Two mode (tighten for high, loosen for low) Luxeon I, Type II andodizing
T = Two mode (tighten for high, loosen for low) Luxeon III, V2.0 means Rebel 80, twice the output
D = Digital, Multimode
CE = Cree XR-E LED, newer and at least twice as efficient as the Luxeon I/III LEDs. For the same power, it puts out twice or more output
Rebel 80/100 = Luxeon Rebel 80/100 used, usually has a warmer tint
No designation = Luxeon I or III

If there is a thing after the CE, that is to designate the Bin of the Cree XR-E LED used. Q5 means it uses the Cree XR-E Q5 LED. No designation after the CE means it uses the P3 or P4, depending on date of manufacturing.

The Civictor V1 is a 1 AA twistie with Type II anodizing. There was a multimode stainless steel model made.

There was a special Titanium version of the L0D made. It was called the L0D Ti. There was also a Christmas version(red type II anodizing with Christmas decorations) called the L0D SE. There is also a Q4 version.

As you can tell from McGizmo's house, LEDs are defiantly enough to light up a house. The main problem is the cost.

High power LEDs can be much brighter then the 5mm ones you usually see.

:welcome:

realtime said:

What if you don't like it? I feel like that comment was a bit rude.
I meant trying as in I'm trying to make all the right decisions which is why i joined the forum. I thought a few polite people could give tips and steer me in the right direction. Considering companies now are all over the "GREEN" way of living and advertising their products this way it can be hard for people to know which are actually serious about their contribution to saving face or just want the profit gained from what they treat as the new trend.

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I would advise that you use CFL bulbs for general lighting. They are not as efficient as LEDs, but their color is a lot more natural (only buy warm white) and they easily replace incadescents without a wiring mess or expense. CFLs are still >5X more efficient than incadescents, so they make a big difference.

Visit bogolight.com for truly different led lighting!

:welcome:

Check out fenixstore.com. The L2T I'm refering to has a Cree led.

realtime said:

What if you don't like it? I feel like that comment was a bit rude.

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The comment was perfectly civil and reasonable.

realtime said:

What if you don't like it? I feel like that comment was a bit rude.
I meant trying as in I'm trying to make all the right decisions which is why i joined the forum. I thought a few polite people could give tips and steer me in the right direction. Considering companies now are all over the "GREEN" way of living and advertising their products this way it can be hard for people to know which are actually serious about their contribution to saving face or just want the profit gained from what they treat as the new trend.

and I dont really know what Fenix L2T and E01 is.

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From your first post I take you are quite new to LED so you might want to find out more about it. First the light generated by LED is not the same as incan or CFL bulb, it's heavily biased toward blue spectrum and some people may not like the color in the long run. Second it's not easy to upgrade fixtures, there are no simple drop in avaliable. You need to know a bit about how to set up a circuit, how to drive and heatsink LED's and finally solder up everything yourself. Also even with today's high powered LED you still need 5 of them or so to generate same amount of light as a typical CFL bulb, and the end cost can be pretty prohibitive for average people.

jzmtl said:

From your first post I take you are quite new to LED so you might want to find out more about it. First the light generated by LED is not the same as incan or CFL bulb, it's heavily biased toward blue spectrum and some people may not like the color in the long run. ... Also even with today's high powered LED you still need 5 of them or so to generate same amount of light as a typical CFL bulb, and the end cost can be pretty prohibitive for average people.

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1. Unless you use warm white LEDs.

2. Three high flux LEDs running at 3-3.5W each in a recessed fixture deliver the same number of lumens as a 26W CFL in the same fixture.

1. Look at the spectrum graph of warm white.

2. If I recall 26w CFL is in the neighborhood of 1500 lumen, and drive several LED's at 3.5W each in an enclosed light fixture with no build in heatsinking is not good idea, and making specialized heatsinks is beyond most people.

jzmtl said:

1. Look at the spectrum graph of warm white.

2. If I recall 26w CFL is in the neighborhood of 1500 lumen, and drive several LED's at 3.5W each in an enclosed light fixture with no build in heatsinking is not good idea, and making specialized heatsinks is beyond most people.

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1. Look at the spectrum graph of a CFL.

2. A 26W CFL in a recessed fixture delivers about 600 lumens. The fixture is very inefficient and lots of CFL lumens are wasted pointing at insulation and subfloor. LEDs in such a fixture don't waste light by emitting it in useless directions.

I never mentioned heatsinking and I certainly don't recommend running LEDs without it.

1. Like I said, some people are sensative to it, some are not, no use arguing with me.

2. I don't use recessed fixtures and all of the houses I've seen don't use them for main source of lighting. My initial point is it's not practical for most people.

realtime said:

and I dont really know what Fenix L2T and E01 is.

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I do know what a Fenix L2T and E01 are, but I'm still not brave enough to try to set up LED lighting for my house. I daresay that very few of us here would know how to go about such a project.

Unless you know a lot about circuits, wiring, and LEDs, I think the suggestion to use compact flourescent lights is your best bet.

jzmtl said:

1. Like I said, some people are sensative to it, some are not, no use arguing with me.

2. I don't use recessed fixtures and all of the houses I've seen don't use them for main source of lighting. My initial point is it's not practical for most people.

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My point is this: you said the CFL lumens and incandescent light spectra are the same and that the two are different from LED spectra. That is not the case.

LukeA said:

My point is this: you said the CFL lumens and incandescent light spectra are the same and that the two are different from LED spectra. That is not the case.

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I just re-read all my posts, but I don't see where I said that.