Re: Anyone moved to LED Lighting?

[don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Don Klipstein)]

In article <he5lv7$8mj$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Robert Green wrote:
>"Jeff Volp" <JeffVolp@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:HxCHm.141327$8m4.28654@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Except for the "intricately curved delicate glass tubes", 120V LEDs have
>> essentially the same production and noise issues as CFLs.
>
>That's a pretty big exception. As a guy who custom builds electronics by
>hand, I am sure that you realize that even one delicate step in a process,
>say soldering an SMD component to a circuit board by hand, can cause your
>reject rate to soar. Take a look at some of the spiral shapes of bulbs and I
>think you'll realize that it takes some significant heat and tooling to
>create narrow but even diameter glass tubes that then must be twisted into
>spiral shape, uniformly coated internally with phosphor, primed with
>mercury, and then sealed and capped with electrodes.   Forgive me for taking
>a technical note and turning it into polemic, but this is an important
>issue.
>
>Even if LED and CFL production costs were equal, manufacturing CFL's means
>increasing the mining for mercury and causing much more of the neurotoxin to
>enter the world at large.

<Along with several more pages of tirading on mercury>

  Compared to incandescents, in USA on average CFLs actually reduce mining
of mercury-containing materials and transfering mercury to the
environment.  This is because about half of all electricity produced in
the USA is obtained by burning coal, a major source of mercury pollution.

  LEDs are better once they become sufficiently cost-effective and
cost-effectively improve upon CFLs in energy efficiency and do so in
versions with similarly warm color high color rendering index light.
Until then, mercury is a good reason to use CFLs instead of incandescents.

 - Don Klipstein (don@xxxxxxxxx)