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Pete C.

wrote:

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:20:50 -0600, "Pete C." wrote:

wrote:

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 09:31:54 -0500, Frank frankdotlogullo@comcastperiodnet
wrote:

Dan_Musicant wrote:
Fact is you can find CF's that don't take a minute to get usable light.
Some are nearly instant on. The only filament lamps I use at all are
maybe a couple I haven't bothered to change that I leave on for 5-10
minutes at a time only.

I find it grating to read posts which make fun of federal lawmakers. I
wouldn't want to spend more than 10 minutes of every year sitting in the
halls of congress. I know it's a madhouse, but walk a mile in their
shoes before you paint them all with the same brush.

Believe it or not, letting people do what they damn well please doesn't
work in this country.

You must be in the 15% that thinks congress is doing a good job.
Let the market decide. I use CFL's not to save the planet but because
in the long run, I save money.

I switched over almost every light in my house to CFL last spring. There were a
few that were just unworkable, such as the candelabra in the dining room that
had "electric candles. I just unscrew most of the lamps in that rather than
using the dimmer. Results? My electric consumption compared to the previous year
averaged 14.1% lower. The power company added to that by rewarding me 10% off
my bill for the acheivement.

I'll be even happier when the price of LED's drops. That will happen as demand
increases. a few years ago, CFL's were $15-20 each. Now I'm buying them for
under $2.

Price isn't the only factor, functionality is a bigger one.

The early CFLs were crap - slow start, long warm-up, hideous color
temperature, too bulky to fit in many fixtures, etc. The current CFLs
are vastly better than the early ones and that is the primary factor in
people adopting them, not price. Since the early units were so bad, a
lot of people were turned off to CFLs and waited well past the time CFLs
got good (or are still waiting) to adopt them.

Sorry, I disagree strongly. When you add up the cost of replacing all of the
lamps at once in an average sized home at $15 a pop, versus $2 a pop, it's a
radical difference. Cost was a monumental hurdle, which both manufacturers and
retailers have acknowleged. Adoption of CFL's was slowed more by price than
anything else. Once the price came down drastically was when you started seeing
them everywhere.

Cost is certainly a factor, however you could give the CFLs away for
free and people would still not use them if they had not progressed and
fixed all the faults of the early ones.

LED lamps are in a similar position to the early CFLs, they just aren't
ready for the mainstream yet due in large part to issues with light
distribution and color temperature. CFLs were an easier fit for light
distribution as they are an omni directional source like an incandescent
is. LEDs are very directional and getting an even omnidirectional
distribution with them hasn't really been worked out from what I've
seen. LED color temperatures are also terrible as is their spectrum.

I have a few LED's, and they are great. I don't have any incandesent lights an
my sailboat, either and if you shop around you can get LED's with very pleasant
characteristics now. It will only get better. They are going through the same
thing as many new technologies. They start out with very high prices early on,
before they have really been perfected. Lack of sales during that period slows
development. At some point they hit critical mass and then prices plummet and
the technolgy improves rapidly.

It takes both price and performance for general adoption to begin.

When they get LEDs that either individually or in a group can achieve
the relatively warm color temperature that most people want (vs. the
harsh bluish high color temp of most), and have good, even
omnidirectional light coverage then the mainstream will consider them.

Given the pace of LED technology lately, I don't expect it will take
that long for these issues to be resolved, but I haven't seen any LED
lighting that would be remotely acceptable to me for general residential
use so far.

Then you just haven't been looking hard enough. 8^)

I've not seen a single LED unit with either acceptable light
distribution or acceptable color temperature so far. Care to suggest a
unit I should look at that solves those problems?