New Better LED's Coming?

The January 2011 issue of Photonics Spectra magazine showed up at work - odd trade journal in hydroelectric plant, but we do use more and more optical cable and opto-electronically coupled devices. On page 43 there's an article about GE's Global Research and Lighting division working with U. of Maryland to develop a 1500 lm LED bulb. Here's a paragraph:




Quote:



Which the new cooling technology, the number of LED chips required to generate 1500 lm of light is just a fraction of that required for today's LED lamps, which produce less than half of the light output. With a more effective cooling solution, GE says that the chips can be run harder to produce more light.



Im not sure what that lm abbreviation is. Im guessing it may be lux at one meter from the light source. Theres a photo of a man holding a headlight sized lamp that appears to have 19 LEDs. Oh sure, they say we still have some work to do in the lab... but I cant help wondering if 5 years or so down the road, well see mostly LED headlights (and tail lights, and marker lights, and brake/signal lights, and dome lights, etc.).



Back when LED's were only about good enough for tail and signal lights, I recall discussing with a friend how the reduced lighting load would mean less copper in the wiring, smaller charging systems, less horsepower going to make electricity, slightly lighter vehicles, etc. Although the lifespan of the LED means the makers won't be selling very many replacement bulbs, the overall benefits seem to be trending toward where car makes will want them, just to stay competitive.



One wonders...:thinking:

Hamilton Felix said:

Im not sure what that lm abbreviation is.

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Lumens. 1,500 is close to the output of a 100 watt incan.

but I cant help wondering if 5 years or so down the road, well see mostly LED headlights (and tail lights, and marker lights, and brake/signal lights, and dome lights, etc.)

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I'd say LED is potentially superior for everything but headlights. We'll see them switch over as the cost comes down. The first LED headlights are out now, we'll see how they hold up.

I recall discussing with a friend how the reduced lighting load would mean less copper in the wiring, smaller charging systems, less horsepower going to make electricity, slightly lighter vehicles, etc.

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Nah. I think they'll go the other way and add more lights to the car instead. Sometimes you see long haul truckers who have their rig and trailer dotted with marker lights every foot or so along all the edges. Between the safety nazis and the product designers we'll have this on cars too.

"And for you sir, perhaps the snarling jaguar grill done in 500 points of light?" "Why yes, we do have that in a nice ice blue." "Can I interest you in the eyewink feature?"

a bit of a warning. These LED's are not better. at least not what "I" consider better.

they are talking about overdriving existing LED's and using superior cooling to let it work.

the problem is for me the entire POINT of LED"s is low power. Durable. Clean Light and most important next to low power. EVER LASTING. last light you will have to buy in your lifetime.

this and this alone is why we DO NOT see mass adoption of LED's manufacturer's have zero interest in making you a bulb you will never have to replace.

that is why the new phillips bulbs are JUNK.

sure they are super bright but they will only last 15-20k hours. not much longer than a GOOD CFL but at 60 times the price ($1 for the CFL $60 for the LED)

so in 5 years you need to REPLACE that $60 bulb. no thanks.

I run typically 2watt LED's in my home (more than half the house is now LED) I use MULTIPLE BULBS to get the desired amount of light. I then "undo" the damage they do. I use twice as many as I need and then use a variac to lower the voltage until its half as bright.

you just tripled or more the lifespan. Now they are 60-80k hours bulbs not 15-20k hours bulbs.

the trick with led is you do not make them brighter with more power. you use lower power and then just KEEP ADDING led's till you get your desired brightness. you "array" them.

Car headlights are a little harder since beam pattern is important and you have limited real estate to mount an array. So that I can understand.

LED headlights I've tried in my Jeep so far:

Truck-Lite's updated 7" round --


Lowbeam


Highbeam

JW Speaker #8700


lowbeam


highbeam

Truck-Lite offroad lights --- 7" spot & 4" flood




Just floods


Just spots


Floods & spots & JWS lowbeams


Floods & spots & JWS highbeams

With all the lights burning I measured 9 LUX at 125 yards; it was bright enough to read a book.
They're not quite there but they're getting better all the time.

Look at Rigid Industries' Dually D2; 2600 lumen from a little 3"x3" cube. Nifty.

nerys said:

they are talking about overdriving existing LED's and using superior cooling to let it work.

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Sounds risky.

I run typically 2watt LED's in my home (more than half the house is now LED) I use MULTIPLE BULBS to get the desired amount of light. I then "undo" the damage they do. I use twice as many as I need and then use a variac to lower the voltage until its half as bright.

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Got piccies?

the trick with led is you do not make them brighter with more power. you use lower power and then just KEEP ADDING led's till you get your desired brightness. you "array" them.

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Can I interest you in a nice "snarling Jaguar" pattern grill? :naughty:

Car headlights are a little harder since beam pattern is important and you have limited real estate to mount an array. So that I can understand.

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You have the entire front of the car available, no?

nerys said:

These LED's are not better. at least not what "I" consider better.

they are talking about overdriving existing LED's and using superior cooling to let it work.

the problem is for me the entire POINT of LED"s is low power. Durable. Clean Light and most important next to low power. EVER LASTING. last light you will have to buy in your lifetime.

I run typically 2watt LED's in my home (more than half the house is now LED) I use MULTIPLE BULBS to get the desired amount of light. I then "undo" the damage they do. I use twice as many as I need and then use a variac to lower the voltage until its half as bright.

you just tripled or more the lifespan. Now they are 60-80k hours bulbs not 15-20k hours bulbs.

the trick with led is you do not make them brighter with more power. you use lower power and then just KEEP ADDING led's till you get your desired brightness. you "array" them.

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Another advantage (for most who like diffuse light without stark shadows or harsh glare) is that the arrays naturally reduce stark shadows and harsh glare. Additionally, the luminous efficacy may increase as the LEDs are underdriven, with the highest efficiency attained when the LEDs are fed just enough to get them to glow at all. (Granted, there will be so much other loss in an array that size that it's not really practical.)

Car headlights are a little harder since beam pattern is important and you have limited real estate to mount an array. So that I can understand.

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Indeed. Only now are great strides in thermal management and beam control being made. The complexity of producing a compliant beam, and keeping the LED from degrading is rather high. Any individual or small enterprise claiming to have solved these issues almost certainly has not.

I have had the equivalent of BOXES of led die and every one dies NOT because of bad LED design but because of "heat death" most people do not realizes LED's make heat. lots of it. typically 80% of the power you put in comes out as heat! might not sound very efficient but when you compare that to 98-99% heat from an incandescent (don't know the exact number but you get the idea)

the problem is two fold. LED's not only make 80% heat but they are almost completely INTOLERANT to heat. murders them FAST especially your typical white LED. anything over 100'F is BAD BAD BAD. problem is most people do not realize this and they think its running cool because they have a distorted concept of "warm"

your skin is 95-97'F so if you feel "ANY" sort of warmth its already too warm.

For flashlight? No problem. they are very "short duration" devices. IE your don't normally have them on for more than a few minutes at a time. so you can "burn em hot" with minimal damage. but primary lighting like in your house is another ball game.

If possible I adjust all my LED's to run at no hotter than 5'F below ambient. when using tubes of LED's this is easier. I shove a thermometer in them and lower the variac till they stop over heating. consumption went from 12 watts to 4 watts at about half the light (so increased efficiency too) now they run about 5' below ambient. 7+ years no failures since and even the ones that "started" to fail stopped. (they were hitting 160' in the tubes! I will try to get some pics online)

Some of them died in as little as 4 days in the summer.

when the bulbs are CHEAP and low power its easy to solve all sorts of brightness and shadow problems. you SPREAD the lights around. Typically its suggested to have 9cm/2 of passive cooling area per watt of LED consumption.

the "rated" power consumption of an led ASSUMES this cooling is in place. most manufacturers do not do this.

Most manufacturers WILL NOT do this. its not profitable to make a $5 bulb that will last longer than you will breath air.

so they don't. instead they make crazy bright "single" point LED lights and prance around see we did it this is as bright as a 60watt bulb till you read the package and realize in 15k hours its dead. I have quite a few 12k hours CFL's that cost me $1 each put out equiv of 60watts and some of them are 6 years old.

GE, Sylvania are the only main brand bulbs I will buy (in my area) reason is simple. they warranty them FOR the lifespan they "rate" them at. when they say this bulb lasts 5 years but warranty it for 2 they are really saying this bulb will not last more than 2 years.

for LED I would avoid lights of america. While some of them are nice I have not had success with them lasting. the GE and FIAT bulbs seem pretty nice so far. Sam's Club has them 2 packs $20 thats $10 a pop. not bad. took 6 to light my kitchen. Later when I have more cash I will install ANOTHER 6 and then variac the power down so its the same brightness as just 6 to extend the lifespan.

I will be using 2.4 watt Warm White led strings underneath the cabinets (install them this week I hope) got them for 75 cents a box clearance from big lots after Christmas!! oh yeah they are going to be fun

the trick is to UNDER-DRIVE LED's and then array them for more brightness as needed. without the LONG LIFE you defeat one of the primary points (at least to me) of LED lights.

any led that does not last 50k hours for specialized usage and 80k hours for general usage is "not ideal" to me and a bad design because it throws away a CRITICAL benefit of LED usage.

thats why you have to shop places like china and ebay and Deal Extreme. YES most of the stuff is CRAP but when you "DO" find something good its REALLY good.

I tried to find a picture of a GOOD led design but I can't find any. I guess they don't sell them anymore (figures they actually work)

its a BALL light where the top half is clear ad the bottom half is a solid hunk of finned metal. its a pretty heavy bulb.

the emitter is a PLATE with LED's on its surface. Don't know how to describe them. they are not standard bulbous emitters and are not SMD like 5050's its like they are EMBEDDED into the surface of the emitter place.

http://www.mylittlemouse.com/other/goodled.jpg

that bulb is 7+ years old (maybe more don't remember exactly its very old) and has well over 40,000 hours of burn on it and its no different than the day I bought it.

Got it on ebay for around $20-25 shipped (they cost a lot more back then) would probably be $10 today.

sadly I can NOT for the life of me find any more like it. not exactly like it at least. this design is VERY nice. I have 3. excellent in bedside lamps and "recessed" lighting such as above your kitchen sink etc.. 5 watts consumption I would say as bright as say a 30-35 watt equiv bulb in "feel"

nerys said:

the problem is two fold. LED's not only make 80% heat but they are almost completely INTOLERANT to heat. murders them FAST especially your typical white LED. anything over 100'F is BAD BAD BAD. problem is most people do not realize this and they think its running cool because they have a distorted concept of "warm"

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Especially when they enter thermal runaway.

If possible I adjust all my LED's to run at no hotter than 5'F below ambient. when using tubes of LED's this is easier. I shove a thermometer in them and lower the variac till they stop over heating. consumption went from 12 watts to 4 watts at about half the light (so increased efficiency too) now they run about 5' below ambient. 7+ years no failures since and even the ones that "started" to fail stopped. (they were hitting 160' in the tubes! I will try to get some pics online)

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Did you mean 5 Fahrenheit *above* ambient? Or do you have some sort of refrigeration system for them? Without actual refrigeration, the coolest they can get is ambient temperature.

for LED I would avoid lights of america. While some of them are nice I have not had success with them lasting. the GE and FIAT bulbs seem pretty nice so far. Sam's Club has them 2 packs $20 thats $10 a pop. not bad. took 6 to light my kitchen. Later when I have more cash I will install ANOTHER 6 and then variac the power down so its the same brightness as just 6 to extend the lifespan.

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Many of us have had similar poor luck with LoA's compact fluorescents, and I personally have had poor luck with some of their "accent" lights that have about 25 or so LEDs on a very simple circuit board. It went from white to pale blue to very pale blue. Very dissappointing.

I have a Feit Electric LED candelabra bulb in a "dressing light" application (brighter than a nightlight, but not so bright as to be harsh) and it's done quite well so far. If I recall, the package said that it was not for use with dimmers, but maybe it's simpler to say "no dimming" than to try to clarify that it takes better than a common dimmer switch.

Getting back on topic, such arrays of lights are great for car interiors (or in motor homes and buses), but for automotive lighting applications, fewer but brighter emitters are needed.

hilldweller, thanks for those beamshots. Looks like trucklite's made a few adjustments.

yes 5 above. I have no idea why I said 5 below. ambient is 5 below light operating temps but that makes no sense to say it that way even if correct (brain fart)

so yes if its 80' in the house I turn down the voltage till then run no hotter than 85' I could probably get away with 10' but the lumen difference is so small I would rather not risk tickling 100' (since it can get to 90' in the house at times)

I just keep adding bulbs till its bright enough for me.

its much HARDER to do this in other rooms (where do you hide the variac? in my room I hide it in the closet and run the wires above the ceiling via the attic to each fixture)

not so easy to do on the first floor though. Still working on it. wish there was a cheap small electronic version of the variac. I get them on ebay for around $40 or so. new they are crazy expensive

I had had one of the .9 watt fiat's going above my sink for 3 weeks now no sign of color or brightness change. seems ok so far. we will see what happens when summer time hits I will leave this one burn till its dead or I am satisfied the design is "ok"

but scares me is the 20k hours life rating. that usually means they are over driving or running them "hot" but it could also mean they don't want to figure our what it can do so they "aim low"

pity the LOA bulbs I really love them but they just do not last.

the truck lites are nice but wow they consume 32 watts (not much lower than normal 50watt sealed beams) and holy crap over $300 a pop !!!

a pair of them cost more than my car cost and can never ever pay for their own cost in savings especially with a meager 4000 hour lifespan meaning they would last me less than 7 years.

I hope they can get the cost down!! and the power consumption down below 25 watts for low beam.

Dupe post I am whacking them.

Forum went nuts dupped the post I deleted it sorry.

nerys said:

...

the truck lites are nice but wow they consume 32 watts (not much lower than normal 50watt sealed beams) and holy crap over $300 a pop !!!

a pair of them cost more than my car cost and can never ever pay for their own cost in savings especially with a meager 4000 hour lifespan meaning they would last me less than 7 years.

I hope they can get the cost down!! and the power consumption down below 25 watts for low beam.

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The JW Speakers work much much better for headlights but cost $535 each (full retail).
They have much bigger heatsinks and a built-in fan that's rated for 100,000 hours itself.
I'm long-term testing them all.

Hilldweller said:

The JW Speakers work much much better for headlights but cost $535 each (full retail).
They have much bigger heatsinks and a built-in fan that's rated for 100,000 hours itself.
I'm long-term testing them all.

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Can you tell me where to buy the JW Speaker lights? Has anyone compared to the Truck-lite product?

GTB said:

Can you tell me where to buy the JW Speaker lights? Has anyone compared to the Truck-lite product?

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I have the photos above in this very thread, both the new Truck-Lite product and the JW Speaker product.

You can contact Speaker through their website for a list of retailers. One of the membes on JeepForum found a big-truck chrome shop in Arkansas that had the best price.

Here's my headlight shootout with some numbers from my light meter.

Hilldweller said:

I have the photos above in this very thread, both the new Truck-Lite product and the JW Speaker product.

You can contact Speaker through their website for a list of retailers. One of the membes on JeepForum found a big-truck chrome shop in Arkansas that had the best price.

Here's my headlight shootout with some numbers from my light meter.

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thank you, answered all my questions. :thumbsup:

River Raider in PA is selling JW Speaker "kits" for Jeep JKs and TJs, btw. IMHO, the "kit" isn't complete and needs a full bypass harness for the JK. There are also a few other issues due to the size of the heatsink.