Move over CFL - regular LED bulbs have arrived!

I was hesitant on posting this because I felt for SURE someone beat me to it. If someone did then blame the search engine because I searched!!

I was in Sam's Club last night and low and behold what do I find? A 3 pack of 40w equivalent, standard screw in LED "light bulbs." If that link doesn't work, search for item 116212 on their site.

They're priced at fifteen bucks for 3 and the power consumption is only 1.5 watts! Life expectancy rating is 30,000 hours!! They also had some chandalier lamps (116205) and some floods (116198).

Here we go folks . . . this is going to get interesting!

NOTE: Online reviews for all of these are POOR. They said they were too expensive and not as bright as claimed. However, this is an "off" brand.

yeah review does say that it seems more like 20watt than 40 watt.

i do like how leds are instant. i have a bunch of motion sensor lights that still use incadencent because of the warmup of cfls.

Thanks for telling us about this. Only uses 1.5 watts, and only five bucks each - not bad! The reviewers on the Sam's club site say it is not as bright as a 40 watt bulb, but if you have an application where a 25 watt bulb would work, I'd bet it would be great.

Can't wait until something like this is available elsewhere [I'm not a Sam's club member]

:sigh: I was hoping for LED bulbs that were actually useful...

I was hoping for LED bulbs that were actually useful...

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Yeah...I agree. Instead we're doing free advertising for Walmart/Sams to push low powered, near useless LED fixtures based on novelty LED clusters that many of us here have concluded have dubious longevity.

As least the packaging claims "Accent", which is kind of a disclaimer that translates into: "too dim to have much practical use". The uneducated public will buy these things and conclude that LED technology is junk, which only sets the industry back further. :scowl:

Funny one about them competing with CFL; a brand name CFL will likely have a longer life, will be more efficient, and put out orders of magnitude more useable light.

There are a bunch of Cree powered LED bulbs out there that are pretty good. Not perfect for everything, but pretty good. I have used a few and in the right application they are nice. They just are fairly expensive!

blasterman said:

Yeah...I agree. Instead we're doing free advertising for Walmart/Sams to push low powered, near useless LED fixtures based on novelty LED clusters that many of us here have concluded have dubious longevity.

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LOL . . . how in the world are "WE" doing that!!?? Just by talking about it here? I never meant to do that with my post!

Hey, the first CFLs were nowhere near as good as today's. They were bigger, heavier, a LOT more expensive and didn't work well north of Miami or Phoenix (a sarcistic remark about how poorly they worked in the cold).

Sure, there will be some dissapointed buyers out there. I was smart enough NOT to fall for it and I'm a fan! Better ones will follow but somebody has got to be first.

I was smart enough NOT to fall for it and I'm a fan! Better ones will follow but somebody has got to be first.

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First 'what' may I ask? Near as I can tell these bulbs are based on typical 3mm or 5mm clusters, which is a type bulb that (if you read these forums and reviews) needs to be avoided because, to be blunt, most of them are junk. If you get a fraction the 30k hours out of them I'd be shocked.

There is no technology curve here. Bulbs that use 1 and 3watt LEDs and put out over 100Lm might present the consumer with sticker shock, but they are available and have been available for a couple years. Simply put, I'm not aware of a 'Jewlery' or 'toy' class for Cree or Luxeon (well, maybe K2s )

blasterman said:

we're doing free advertising for Walmart/Sams to push low powered, near useless LED fixtures based on novelty LED clusters that many of us here have concluded have dubious longevity.

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I must respectfully disagree. I feel that our early adopters are reporting back from the bleeding edge of new technology as they find it. If a store or brand benefits, that's fine. If they suffer, well that's their problem.

As least the packaging claims "Accent", which is kind of a disclaimer that translates into: "too dim to have much practical use".

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I agree that the new CFL and LED lighting products suffer from tremendous misrepresentation in their packaging and advertising. With CFLs you can basically assume that they are at least one bulb dimmer than claimed, ie: if it says "EQUALS 60 WATT BULB!!" assume 50 or less, if it claims 100 watt assume 75, etc.

blasterman said:

Yeah...I agree. Instead we're doing free advertising for Walmart/Sams to push low powered, near useless LED fixtures based on novelty LED clusters that many of us here have concluded have dubious longevity.

As least the packaging claims "Accent", which is kind of a disclaimer that translates into: "too dim to have much practical use". The uneducated public will buy these things and conclude that LED technology is junk, which only sets the industry back further. :scowl:

Funny one about them competing with CFL; a brand name CFL will likely have a longer life, will be more efficient, and put out orders of magnitude more useable light.

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I'm with you here...
Why spoil the future of LEDs with junk and false claims?

When Menards opened here this year, they had LED undercabinet lights on display and in the span of a couple months, these had faded and turned purple. Yep, they were 5mm clusters, probably cheap emitters that were overdriven. Same thing at Lowes with LV yard lights. These were so badly faded and purple, they were almost out.:laughing: I found that some cheap emitters faded quite a bit in a 192 hr. 30ma test. Even a quality emitter faded, but most quality ones did okay. I have doubts about 5mm LEDs performing well after a few thousands of hours of operation.

I bought a pkg of these and the color is very nice, around 4000k. They are about a 25watt amount of light. I have one that will run 24-7 so we will see how they hold up.

There is too much 'energy' 'green' stuff being tossed around IMO. LED's are nothing different than any other light 'emiting' type..they all have their own place in lighting. The 'energy savings' part of lighting has been pushed to the point where normal consumers dont' realize that.

Thread revival time!

Okay, here's another Sam's Club LED attempt. This one looks a little better and it's made by GE. I should have included the price placard in the picture but it's around $26. I'll wait for a price drop or two. It claims a 200 lumen output.

Wattnot said:

Thread revival time!

Okay, here's another Sam's Club LED attempt. This one looks a little better and it's made by GE. I should have included the price placard in the picture but it's around $26. I'll wait for a price drop or two. It claims a 200 lumen output.

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Nah, this isn't a revival. The earlier thread you mentioned talked about cluster LEDs- proven high rates of failure. We've got a fixture that barely lasted 4 months- it's so dim now that it's actually useful as a nightlight.

This item has been talked about (looks like it) here:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/208468

Can you confirm the UPC?

$26 for 200 lumens isn't that bad if it lasts a long time....

I paid $35 for 200 lumen 6000K / 180 lumen 3000K bulbs so $26 is not bad.
I expect the bulbs based on power LEDs to last a reasonable time. I bought some 1 watt bulbs 2 globe style 2 spot style.
The globe style bulbs have lasted close to 3 years 24/7 now with no noticeable deterioration in output.


I have a 90 lumen 2 watt Cree XRE globe in my headboard lamp. Bright enough to read the morning paper in bed. I tried the 3xXRE 180 lumen spotlight style bulb but that one has a beam pattern that makes reading the paper difficult.

I have a Evolux-S that I have been running in my outdoor lamp post since June 24/7. It still looks the same as the day I put it in there, thats about 5000 plus hours of use in Michigan weather. It's powered by Cree.

jayb79 said:

I bought a pkg of these and the color is very nice, around 4000k. They are about a 25watt amount of light. I have one that will run 24-7 so we will see how they hold up.

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Well from personal experience with the Lights of America 120V LED lights (5mm cluster type) is that they are pure JUNK. :sick2: Don't even think about buying them. I had 2 of them dead right out of the package. Had 4 die after running them for a while. Had 4 that lost half their brightness. All of this happened in less than 6 months. I had replaced as many of my CFL's with these as I could. Now I'm back to all CFL's. I still had all my receipts and Walmart gave me all my money back ($132). I advised the store manager to remove them from the stores shelves so that other people would not have to go thru the problems that I did. Not sure if they actually removed them or not. Haven't been to that Walmart since then. Not because of this situation tho. Have access to 3 Walmarts here.

holiday light express said:

I have a Evolux-S that I have been running in my outdoor lamp post since June 24/7. It still looks the same as the day I put it in there, thats about 5000 plus hours of use in Michigan weather. It's powered by Cree.

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I've been searching for a light like that for eons now, thanks! Scary price though at $79USD. Works out to over $100 CDN in Canada. A regular light bulb of 1075 lm here still cost one dollar so I guess I can't justify paying 100 times more or 10,000% more for it. Geez.

About the evolux..There is some cooling fan? Or is there? Will the fan last 50 000Hrs?