DIYbanter - View Single Post - LED lamp sellers with 'equivalent' ordinary lamp wattages

Andrew Gabriel

In article ,
writes:
I'm looking for 12 volt LED lamps for our boat and I can find
*nowhere* that gives any sort of indication of how bright they are.
How can I decide what to buy if I haven't a clue whether the lamp is
the equivalent of a 6 watt incandescent or a 60 watt incadescent?

I mean it's a rather fundamental thing about a light - how bright it is!

Even CFLs quote a (very optimistic!) equivalent which does at least
give you a sort of ball-park figure for their brightness.

The LEDs which don't say are usually the lowest efficiency ones,
which are 1:1 equivalent with filament lamps, and limited to 3W
max because of LED heat handling problems.

LED lamp manufacturers are usually cagey about light output because
most people think they are significantly more efficient than they
really are, and that's not a misconception the manufacturers want
to break. There are some real high efficiency LED lamps available,
but expect to pay well over £50 for them.

If you are able to manfacture your own, the component LED parts are
not expensive (at least, nowhere near as expensive as commercial
efficient LED lighting).

--
Andrew Gabriel
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