Re: Long Live the Incandescent!

["B Fuhrmann" <b-fuhrmann-usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"John M"  wrote
 I woould have bet that LEDs are the wave of the future.  In fact I have
4 lamps in my bathroom fixture.  They product intensely white light.
Unfortunately the light goes straight down with very little spill to
the sides.  I've become accustomed to it, and lean a little further
forward when I'm shaving ;-)  These were reasonably priced at Sam's
Club for something like $7.00 each.  IIRC they use around 4 watts
each.  For 16 watts they product a LOT of light.  At the same time
I've been using CFLs for perhaps 14 or so years now and have been very
happy with them other than much shorter life than advertised.

Cheers,
John, SW Missouri

-------

Unfortunately, my experience with LEDs is different.

I agree with them being very directional, but that should be able to be
changed with appropriate diffusers.  That will be improved as the product
becomes more mature.

The problems I have are:
     The lights are very dim.  They are stretching the truth with their
"equivalent to" numbers.
This may be fixed in the future.
     The lights are not dimmable (assuming that they were bright enough that
dimming would be useful) even though they say that they are.  When used on a
dimmer, they stay at full brightness until the dimmer is almost full off and
they go completely dark.
I like to have enough light available in a room for all tasks but keep the
lights dimmed for more typical use.  This may be able to be fixed in future
designs by having groups of the LEDs go dark at different dimmer levels.


--
Bill Fuhrmann