On Sep 15, 6:00*pm, "Vortex3" wrote:
Many of the LED lights around have quite high intensity beams,
but an extremely small solid angle, so the total lumen output
is tiny. That's why they look bright when you stare back up
the beam, but don't manage to light up anything much bigger
than an ant crawling directly under them on the floor, never
mind a whole room.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

These LED lamps use SMD components without lenses so are not very
directional compared to traditional LED's, but there is less light loss
because of the lack of lenses and also less heating. *Lower junction
temperature means more light. *Positive things.

They are "warm white" which is achieved by using a yellowish filter, this
does cost some brightness....and cause additional heating. *I've not tried
the "daylight white" ones yet. *I suspect they take a little getting used
to.

From ceiling height a tratitional halogen GU10 delivers an intense pool of
light about 2' diameter at counter level. *Tweaking 3 of them to
illuminate - say - a breakfast bar is a bit of a compromise. *IMHO these LED
lights are much less directional.

D

Who could have anticipated that 'lighting', could get so complicated!
What with LV starting circuits, LED and transformers, halogen down
lighters etc. etc.!
Interesting though.
Here, for the moment sticking with plain old 115/120 volt
incandescents, costing about 25 cents Canadian (about 14 new pence)
each, in packages of four. Nice simple technology.
The wasted lamp heat, now that temps have dropped below 12 degrees C
(about 50 deg F) at night just aiding the electric heating, along with
wasted heat from the TV etc. until we go to bed.
Oddly the only bulb that failed in any spectacular manner was a 230
volt low wattage that I brought back (new) from the middle east, and
placed above the work bench to monitor the 230 volt feed (115 plus
115) for some 230 volt tool/items there.
It 'went off' with quite flash and tripped a 30 amp breaker!
In workshop/garage we have quite a supply of used four foot, two and
four tube fluorescent fixtures. Some are not cosmetically perfect but
clean up well and work fine even in low temperatures. Also have a back
up supply of used ballasts and tubes so can also keep neighbours
fixtures supplied. Main fluorescent string fixtures in downstairs
workshop have 'electronic ballasts' and are from a school
refurbishing. They were just chucking em out; so went in and asked if
could take a few. Their only question was "Can you take all of them;
save us a trip to the dump/tip?". Seek and you shall find; I guess.