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Pete C. Pete C. is offline
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Default Finally an alternative to incandescents?


wrote:

On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:42:51 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:


wrote:

On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:45:17 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:


wrote:

On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:12:25 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:


nestork wrote:

I think the biggest selling point of these LED bulbs is that they're
dimmable, and they're instant-on like incandescents. You don't have to
wait a minute for the light output to rise.

But, the economics are an uphill battle for them.

Converting to CFL's was a no-brainer when they first came out because
even at their $7 per bulb price tag, they'd save you 80% on your
electricity, and that made them pay for themselves in a relatively short
period of time.

Now, unless there's a government subsidy involved, paying even $15 extra
to save an additional 3 watts is economically difficult. In a house
with 20 light bulbs, $300 is a lot of money to invest in them, whereas
60 watts isn't a lot of savings to justify the investment. It's not
even economically attractive to replace incandescents with LED's when
the option of replacing them with CFL's is open to you.

I expect some people will buy these LED bulbs for dining rooms where
they want the dimmability, but other than that the transition from CFL's
to LED's is gonna be a slow one... until the price of LED bulbs drops to
within a buck or two of CFLs. Unfortunately, the price won't drop until
they start being mass produced, and that's not going to happen until
they're economically competitive with CFL's and, except for a C-change
in technology, that's not going to happen until the price drops.
Your classic Catch-22.

--
nestork

Remember that these LED lamps have 30,000+ hour life, so even compared
to your old $1 incandescents with 750 hour life the cost isn't worse,
it's just front loaded (30,000/750=40 i.e. 40 incandescents for the same
span as 1 LED). So if you are paying even $40/lamp you are at break even
just on lamp cost. The LG LEDs I'm using and quite happy with cost me
$9ea so I'm way ahead on base lamp cost, and much further ahead on power
savings as well as not having to replace them for a decade or two.

Tell me that after your LED lamps have 30,000 hours on them. IOW,
bull****!

There are decades of supporting data for 30,000hr LED life. LEDs are not
remotely new technology and they are well studied.

Utter bull****. The LEDs themselves, if cooled to the datgasheet
numbers (probably 25C) will last 30KPOH but NOT as they're used in
crap appliances. Let me know when yours actually last that long.


I'll get back to you in a decade or so...


You do that. BTW, do you really run your light bulbs 8 hours a day,
seven days a year? Look at all that power *YOU'RE* wasting!


A couple run about 14hrs/day, so those should go in just under six
years.