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LEDs: The Technology That Will Soon Replace The Light Bulb
bits.blogs.nytimes.com — In case you didn ’t know it, Thomas Edison’s invention, in use for more than 100 years to illuminate virtually everything, is quickly heading for the exits. What will eventually take its place is the light-emitting diode (L.E.D.) bulb, made up of tiny light sources the size of a head of a pin that use a fraction of a regular light bulb’s electricity
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- rentmitchum, on 06/07/2008, -4/+10I used to rip LED's out of everything as a child and build lights onto my toys, with 9-volt + resistor backpacks of course.. So yea this is exciting news for my inner child.
- yardie, on 06/07/2008, -2/+19I've got an LED desklamp. Sucker is small, but bright and sips power like it was expensive champagne. It replaced my extremely bright halogen that melted itself to death.
- mikephimikephi, on 06/07/2008, -0/+5Dugg for the simile
- bliz, on 06/07/2008, -0/+3And the metaphor. And the personification.
- itsgotyou, on 06/07/2008, -24/+1Ladies and gentlemen: Keenan Ivory Wayans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bhWOga-OEM&feature ...- insanebrain, on 06/07/2008, -0/+6Ladies and gentlemen : buried
- Rijnzael, on 06/07/2008, -2/+6I really hope this catches on fast. CFBs, as green as they are purported to be, are such a pain to dispose of due to the mercury and have such unnatural lighting effects that they're really not worth it. Knowing how easy it is to just toss old lights in the garbage can, but how dangerous it is to do that with CFBs, I don't see how we ever expected fluorescent bulbs to replace incandescent bulbs in the home.
- carpespasm, on 06/07/2008, -2/+2because the amount of mercury isn't that big a deal? as long as you're not licking or breathing through the end of a broken CFL you're going to get more mercury exposure from removing old cheap batteries than from your lights. While I don't think kids should mess with them, the amount of energy saved by using them is very much worth the added trouble of recycling them.
In the mid-term CFLs can save a lot of power until LED bulbs get their colors right (most white LEDs have a much more sickly hue than even cheap CFLs in my book) and until their costs come down.- Rijnzael, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1The problem with CFBs isn't possible exposure to them from breaking. It's them leaking mercury into the water supply when disposed of.
- carpespasm, on 06/07/2008, -2/+2because the amount of mercury isn't that big a deal? as long as you're not licking or breathing through the end of a broken CFL you're going to get more mercury exposure from removing old cheap batteries than from your lights. While I don't think kids should mess with them, the amount of energy saved by using them is very much worth the added trouble of recycling them.
- rossiprojects, on 06/07/2008, -1/+1Here a several organic light sculptures made out of Bamboo and LED. It may be the way to create light and light fixtures plugged in with phone chargers. http://www.organiclightsculptures.com/Lighting_col ...
- Murdats, on 06/07/2008, -1/+5so tell me more about these new revolutionary L.E.D thingamajigs, I have never heard of them or seen them in increasing amounts of usage for the last decade or two.
- wrathchilde, on 06/07/2008, -1/+1Well, soon research submersibles will be using them. They can be mounted to provide a much better field of lighting, are brighter, and use far less juice, which is the dive-time limiting factor.
- ChrisshEnzo, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1a lot of the newer cars on the road are using them, they give headlights a blue tinge and are less blinding than the lights formerly used- especially the german-made like audis, volvos, mercedes. im really excited for these to go mainstream though.
- cslawren, on 06/07/2008, -1/+10I can't wait til LEDs come down in price.
- flipdoubt, on 06/07/2008, -3/+7But can we use them to grow pot??
- superspud, on 06/07/2008, -1/+8Dont' quote me on this, but I don't think so. One of the reasons LEDs are so electrically efficient is that they emit only a small spectrum of light - which uses less energy than emiting all frequencies. This relates to growing plants because although we can see a perfectly bright light, the frequency of light that is used in photosynthesis may be missing, so the plant cannot 'see' the light from the LED.
- AntiMe, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2Yes, you can, although I don't think they're quite perfect yet. Although you can hang the lights down in the middle of the plants due to lack of heat. http://www.fuzzlight.com/ is one place.
- superspud, on 06/07/2008, -1/+8Dont' quote me on this, but I don't think so. One of the reasons LEDs are so electrically efficient is that they emit only a small spectrum of light - which uses less energy than emiting all frequencies. This relates to growing plants because although we can see a perfectly bright light, the frequency of light that is used in photosynthesis may be missing, so the plant cannot 'see' the light from the LED.
- givlpgg, on 06/07/2008, -5/+8Joseph Swann invented the light bulb not ***** edison the thieving maggot!
- gquaglia, on 06/07/2008, -0/+7Edison was a scumbag. I saw a special on NIkola Tesla and how Edison tried to stick it up his ass. If Edison had his way we would still be using DC current and have a power plant on every block.
- mikephimikephi, on 06/07/2008, -0/+4But he definitely invented the electric hammer as well as safety legs on chairs.
I don't think he gets enough credit for that. - om3ganet, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1did that happen to be the Modern Marvels doco?
- mikephimikephi, on 06/07/2008, -0/+4But he definitely invented the electric hammer as well as safety legs on chairs.
- epilonious, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2Well, Edison tried to patent his bulb... failed, and then bought shares in Swann's company and acquired the patent that way.
Edison may not have invented it first, but he was definitely the first to actually monetize the whole thing and push it for world use. - TheMachine1, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2Never heard that before. Edison was a bigger scumbag than I originally thought.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swan
- gquaglia, on 06/07/2008, -0/+7Edison was a scumbag. I saw a special on NIkola Tesla and how Edison tried to stick it up his ass. If Edison had his way we would still be using DC current and have a power plant on every block.
- betona, on 06/07/2008, -2/+1I love my LED Christmas tree lights, but sometimes there's a subtle flicker if you move back & forth. Fix that and make them bright enough to replace a 100-150 watt bulb and I'm in (I think the brightest there is is close to a 30W incandescent bulb)
- carpespasm, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1hey, if they can get them bright enough to replace a 50w incandescent bulb and make the light from it not blind you like a laser when you look at it I'm in.
- mikephimikephi, on 06/07/2008, -0/+360 watts? What do you think this is? A tanning salon?
/Mr Burns
- mikephimikephi, on 06/07/2008, -0/+360 watts? What do you think this is? A tanning salon?
- originaladam, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1LEDs and AC dont get along very well. Good lights are bigger because of the need for a DC converter.
- carpespasm, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1hey, if they can get them bright enough to replace a 50w incandescent bulb and make the light from it not blind you like a laser when you look at it I'm in.
- IphtashuFitz, on 06/07/2008, -1/+18I won't be impressed with LED's, CFB's, etc. until they can replace the halogen bulbs used in stage lighting. I'm a lighting designer that works regularly with 500-1000 watt halogen bulbs. To me the "holy grail" of alternative lighting is when they can come up with a low wattage replacement for these fixtures. The tricky part is they need to be full spectrum and fully dimmable so that they can replace the bulbs in existing stage lights. If they can come up with something like that that takes 5-10 watts instead of 500-1000 watts then they'll make a LOT of theater owners & lighting designers extremely happy. It would cut expenses for theaters dramatically, not just in outright electricity usage but in cooling costs as well.
- carpespasm, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2That'd be the holy grail indeed, but I've seen more and more sets that use LED cluster lights for smaller stages and ambient lighting. While a drop-in replacement for halogens would be killer, it looks like it'll probably come down more to digitally controlled LED clusters for many venues.
- IphtashuFitz, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1I still haven't seen a good LED fixture that mixes colors as well as a good CMY fixture, nor have I seen a good LED fixture that can output a clean white with as many lumens as a 575 watt Source 4. When projecting colored patterns, colored gobos, etc. a pure white is really needed. LED's just don't cut it as far as I'm concerned.
- gquaglia, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1How come you don't use arc lighting instead?
- IphtashuFitz, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1Arc lighting isn't used in theater very much. It's a pain to use and uses a lot of electricity. Most static lights, standard fresnel & leko styles (ETC Source4 & ETC PAR are well known examples) are all halogen based these days. Moving lights are typically HID (High intensity discharge), which are typically based on mercury vapor, metal halide, or sodium.
- bluefusion, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1Well I'm thinking. I've seen LED moving heads a-plenty, but I've never seen a LED replacement for a par or a Fresnel spot. I can't see it being too hard to drop in 10 odd watts of LED chips behind an appropriate reflector / lens into a par can, however I've not seen it done, so there must be some reason behind it.
It's worth noting though that where LED lighting really excels is dimming. LEDs are the ONLY light source that maintain their colour temperature when dimmed.
It may be driving / dimming control issues that hold it back though. LEDs have a threshold voltage, meaning they only come on at such a voltage just below their main drive voltage. Incandescents however come on to some extent at any voltage. So the issue is with a leading or trailing edge dimmer, the LEDs don't come on at all if the voltage never peaks above their threshold. You need to PWM modulate them at 100% voltage, but for a varying duty cycle.
You'd think someone would have solved this by now though.- IphtashuFitz, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1The main reason you don't see LED replacements for the halogen bulbs in fresnels/lekos is because the LED's aren't pure white. They're a very narrow band of the color spectrum. In a nutshell it means that the color gels used on the fixtures wouldn't create the same looks. No lighting designer would use them because it would result in very different results on stage.
- mchisari, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2"Here is a glimpse of what could be the successor to modern day light bulbs, the Plasma light bulb which puts out nearly 10 times as much light, uses half the power of a traditional light bulb and can reach temperatures that are equivalent of the surface of the sun. "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTGsM9pplUs- Jagershot, on 08/19/2008, -0/+0Why would you want a lightbulb that puts out that much heat?
- khyberkitsune, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1A 13W Osram LED outperforms a 50 watt Halogen. I have one for a flashlight, and it's like a damned spotlight. I can light ***** up that's easily 300 feet away from me.
- IphtashuFitz, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1But that LED outputs a very narrow band of the color spectrum, whereas the halogen outputs a wide range of the spectrum. For lighting designers that's a critical issue. Put a blue filter in front of the halogen bulb and you'll get a very different look than that same filter in front of the LED. No lighting designer is going to replace halogen bulbs with LED's for this exact reason.
- khyberkitsune, on 06/11/2008, -0/+1No, Halogen outputs in the yellow and UV spectra, yellow for the tungsten filament and UV for the halogen gas. White LEDs output more red and blue, which balances it out. Lighting designers are so used to yellow lighting they don't know what true white is, any longer.
I have to deal with lighting for photography and horticulture constantly, LEDs are going to blow out incandescent anything.
- khyberkitsune, on 06/11/2008, -0/+1No, Halogen outputs in the yellow and UV spectra, yellow for the tungsten filament and UV for the halogen gas. White LEDs output more red and blue, which balances it out. Lighting designers are so used to yellow lighting they don't know what true white is, any longer.
- IphtashuFitz, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1But that LED outputs a very narrow band of the color spectrum, whereas the halogen outputs a wide range of the spectrum. For lighting designers that's a critical issue. Put a blue filter in front of the halogen bulb and you'll get a very different look than that same filter in front of the LED. No lighting designer is going to replace halogen bulbs with LED's for this exact reason.
- carpespasm, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2That'd be the holy grail indeed, but I've seen more and more sets that use LED cluster lights for smaller stages and ambient lighting. While a drop-in replacement for halogens would be killer, it looks like it'll probably come down more to digitally controlled LED clusters for many venues.
- Senseless, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2They have got to get rid of flicker as well. I, and some others I've talked to, unfortunately notice it in LEDs. When I go by a house with LED xmas lights, for example, those strings stand out like a sore thumb to me vs. incandescents and it's the flicker not the brightness
- gquaglia, on 06/07/2008, -1/+1You are one of the few, because I have never seen LED flicker. They say some have ***** up eyes and they see the flicker, guess you just have to live with it.
- bluefusion, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2The flicker only occurs with half wave rectified AC, or PWM modulation. An LED driven with its correct voltage at DC and 100% on has zero flicker. It's just to do with how they're driven.
- sodade, on 06/07/2008, -0/+3When LEDs can replace 1000w HPS bulbs for indoor growing, it will be a huge leap for cannabis growers because managing the heat of the bulbs is a big issue for both climate control and infrared detection. Reducing KWH will help protect from power meter spikes. Hopefully the increased protection from LEO will inspire many smokers to grow their own stash and reduce the profit factor for a plant that is silly easy to grow.
- Lynxpro, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2It would only help the large scale growers for the brief time that they switch all of their lights to LED before the rest of the communities did so as well. What does in the growers is their large usage of electricity compared to regular customers. If society converts en masse to LED lights, the large growing operations would still stick out unless they removed themselves completely from the grid.
Now, what you are saying does apply to Joe Blow growing 6 or 12 plants in his own home for his own usage. In 50 years time, we'll probably all be able to do this legally with some type of permit, just like home brewing...granted, home growing of tobacco is illegal in order to protect the actual subsidy receiving tobacco farmers like Al Gore.
- Lynxpro, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2It would only help the large scale growers for the brief time that they switch all of their lights to LED before the rest of the communities did so as well. What does in the growers is their large usage of electricity compared to regular customers. If society converts en masse to LED lights, the large growing operations would still stick out unless they removed themselves completely from the grid.
- epilonious, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2Weren't Compact Fluorescents supposed to be the great replacement for light bulbs? I filled my house with those already... ah well. Maybe by the time those all burn out the LED bulbs will be releasing 1500 lumens of "soft white" using only 15 watts instead of 23 and cost $5 a bulb.
Until then... people will still buy droves and droves of incandescent bulbs because, well, you can get 4 of them for a couple of bucks. The transistor and microchip replaced the vacuum tube after they got smaller, more efficient, AND cheaper.- betona, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1CFL's save energy and all, they just dump mercury into the environment when you throw them away. Oops!
- jasongbc, on 06/09/2008, -0/+0didn't that mercury come from "the environment" in the first place?
- betona, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1CFL's save energy and all, they just dump mercury into the environment when you throw them away. Oops!
- drgkstep, on 06/07/2008, -0/+3Article states as much as $90 for an LED, am I missing something are those 89¢ keychain lights at the gas station LEDs?
- jgzman, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1Not A LED, a LED bulb, containing up to 90 LEDs. That, plus the additional hardware is the problem. My 36-LED bulbs went for $20 or so.
- VooDooBrAnMaN, on 06/07/2008, -0/+0My ipod has an extremely strong LED light program on it. It is called flashlight. Its pretty useful.
- mwmccullough, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1Google "Quantum Dots". This is way more interesting and has an even brighter future.
Sorry for the pun. - singletrack861, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1Ikea is way ahead of the pack then.
- Barackalypse, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2Buried for failing to mention that currently fluorescent lights have higher luminous efficacy (more lumens per watt) and lower cost than LED's. Production white LED's top out at 90 lumens/watt currently, whereas a T5 fluorescent is 104. Now, I fully expect LED's to surpass this in the next year, but you aren't going to be seeing LED lights replacing fluorescent for general lighting for a number of years, they're just too costly right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy - onerythym, on 06/07/2008, -0/+12004 called. They are excited about this fabulous new tech story.
- greatname, on 06/08/2008, -0/+0"how many men does it take to screw in a light-emitting diode bulb?" just doesn't have the same ring to it
- ATPCanada, on 06/09/2008, -0/+0Hey guys,
We may be able to help.
We are an Energy Efficient Lighting Distributor from just outside Toronto, Ontario, Canada specializing in LED Fluorescent Tube Replacements.
If you are interested, we have 2-6' LED tubes in different colors and lumen.
As well we offer MR16, GU10, E27 and PAR38 LED spot lights.
Email Greg@atpcanada.ca (sales manager) if you are interested in having information/pricing sent to you.
Also refer to www.atpcanada.ca for more about our company.
Thank you,
Sanjay Modi
President - shamsgames, on 08/06/2008, -0/+0Weren't Compact Fluorescents supposed to be the great replacement for light bulbs? I filled my house with those already... ah well. Maybe by the time those all burn out the LED bulbs will be releasing 1500 lumens of "soft white" using only 15 watts instead of 23 and cost $5 a bulb.
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