Re: Anyone moved to LED Lighting?

["Josepi" <JRM@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As some of the articles point out LED testing may be done unfairly, is many
cases. The manufactures show lumen output for bare elements and then add the
reflectors, lenses and other external parts later.

The ballast in not usually included in the efficiency testing, either.

Are these the white phosphour screen based LEDs, you refer too?

As a side note our company put in hundreds of OSRAM indicator pilot lamps on
electrical control panels. After 10-15 years of replacing bulbs, burnout,
sock melting, changing ballast current limiters, lenses and filters, we
changed them all back and retrofitted them to incandescent bulbs.

Certain colours, green especially, could not be dicerned, when illuminated,
if there was any windows with sunlight entering into the buildings. If we
put a similar green pilot lamp  with a lime green filter in it (unlit)
beside a normal green illuminated unit, no difference could be detected.
When we increased the drive current, the bulbs only lasted a month or so (at
a cost of about $5 per bulb). These were very tiny LED segments with about 9
elements in each bulb. The ballast resistor dropped the current from a
130vdc battery bank and was a burn hazard for humans. Inverter technology
was a much better proposition but too expensive a retrofit for so many
bulbs. They spent tens of thousands of dollars trying all of OSRAM's
tehnologies they had availble for about 10 years and finally went back to
incandecent bulbs with low current supplies (less than the LEDs) and the
bulbs last about 10-15 years (or until your turn them off, after a few years
of usage...LOL).

In the last few years the pilot lamps got smarter and went to a non-filtered
LED holder, so the area of illumination decreased and the LED elements were
now visible. This made the LEDs visible and workable but the whole thing
dazzled the eyes like a Christmas tree.


"Don Klipstein" <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:slrnhglqq8.6b4.don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In article <aNBOm.39295$X01.30413@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Josepi wrote:
>  Cost is an obstacle, but plenty of available white LEDs are now a lot
> more efficient than incandescents.  Efficiency like that of CFLs is now
> the cutting edge for available warm white ones, and cool white ones
> without high color rendering index now get as efficient as T8
> fluorescents.
>
>  Osram recently put an 8 watt LED bulb on the market in Europe, with as
> much lumen output as an 8 watt CFL.
>
> - Don Klipstein (don@xxxxxxxxx)
>