DIYbanter - View Single Post

David Nebenzahl

On 4/12/2010 3:28 AM spake thus:

I believe the LED's themselves as a component, have a service life of
around 50,000 hours. The problems with current LED's for the home is
that they have to have a regulator built into each one to take 120
volts AC and reduce it to just a few volts DC. That is very
inefficient. I am thinking that LED's for retrofits will always be a
problem. In new construction, if the building is wired with low
voltage DC for lighting circuits, I think that problem can be overcome
NOW. It would be pretty easy to set up a battery bank of AGM batteries
that would be charged by solar panels and backed up by an AC charger.

That's an interesting idea, and you may be right: this might be the wave
of the future for home lighting.

One problem with this is that low-voltage wiring loses much more power
over long runs than comparable high-voltage wiring, due to I^2R losses.
(This can be partly compensated for by using heavier conductors, but
that adds cost.) While this may not be a problem in a small, compact
house where the batteries are centrally located, it will definitely be a
problem on a large suburban "spread" where the batteries may be located
in an outbuilding. Maybe not a show-stopper, but there will definitely
be some energy losses to deal with. The homeowner may end up running
8-gauge cables over long runs.

--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)