LED Lighting for the Home

LED lighting for the home is here now. What products are available and how much energy can a homeowner save? The American Lighting Association's Director of Engineering Terry McGowan discusses LED lighting for the home and shows what lighting products are available to the homeowner.

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Howto & Style

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• zTerry
• McGowan
• LED

[twirlingchair]

I really like the burn color of incandescent so was wondering if they would have different hues of lighting for LED similar to the old bulbs.

[wllauck]

@twirlingchair The color you talk about is very important in all kinds of lighting, whether CFL or LED. You want to look for a color temp of around 2700 Kelvin on the label. That is the warm color. LEDs can replicate about any color in the spectrum. I have seen it. It is very amazing what can be done. They are a bit pricey now but that will come down as more volume is produced and sold.

[wllauck]

That light you mentioned is the new generation of lights called LED or light emitting diodes. It is replacing the standard light bulb.

[Leecolighting]

I'm engaged in LED Lighting for 2 years,and LED Lighting is new generation for all people it's said,but I notice there are very problems for LED lighting with cost and technology,as know,LED lighting mainly consists of LED Source,Power supply and AL heat-sink part etc,what is power supply's work life?AL alloy price is if reduced in the futuer? Looking forward to your reply.Thanks! Email:leeco2006@gmail.com

[jesse1186520]

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[sbergman27]

@free2drm You are deluded. Incandescent lights are not being banned. Your waterlogged mini-lights will not be taken away from you. You can even buy more, and watch them melt all the ice you want. What's happening is that minimum efficiency standards are being put into place for the most commonly used bulbs. If incandescents could make the grade, they'd be fine. But they can't, because they are so very inefficient.

[sbergman27]

@1988tq What is it with this Hg-phobia? It's one of those Internet hysteria phenomena with a grain of truth. Look. Certain compounds of mercury, like HgS (cinnabar) are toxic. (Roman women used it as a cosmetic, but it took rather a long while to figure it out.) But elemental Hg doesn't get absorbed. Modern CFL's contain about as much Hg as 1/4 of the ball of a pen. Why do people even consider this an issue?

[par4par72]

Mr. McGowan for such an esteemed position you should really watch what you say about LEDs. Yes LEDs are smaller but you DO have to worry about heat dissipation. In fact this is the primary cause of failure! The inability to 'wick' the heat away from the element and the circuitry. and yes lighting manufactures are redesigning luminaries but they have to be cognoscente of thermal dynamics of the LEDs. Plus it would have been nice if you would describe to folk about the difference of SMDs.

[par4par72]

Mr. McGowan for such an esteemed position you should really watch what you say about LEDs. Yes LEDs are smaller but you DO have to worry about heat dissipation. In fact this is the primary cause of failure! The inability to 'wick' the heat away from the element and the circuitry. and yes lighting manufactures are redesigning luminaries but they have to be cognoscente of thermal dynamics of the LEDs. Plus it would have been nice if you would describe to fine folk about the difference of SMDs.

[ddsurace]

The "warmth" issue is taken care of with either the addition of some amber LEDs to the "cone", or by covering the outer surface with an amber coating. We have LED bulbs in our house that differ very little from an incandescent in terms of output color.

[ddsurace]

@free2drm While I agree with "less government intrusion" and hate the idea of "banning" incandescent, we are actually experimenting with replacing some of our incandescent and halogen bulbs with LEDs and I can give you one example of how impressed we are: we have a "night light" above the kitchen sink that is super bright, yet we feel completely comfortable with leaving it on all day and night, it doesn't produce heat and doesn't suck too much power.

[1988tq]

@HHRich Yes, it is very true that LED's are not practical for lighting large rooms or even small bedrooms. THey can be used for desk lamps and Christmas lights and that's about it. Also, if you want an LED lightbulb that pust out light in different directions, you need many LED's pointing in different directions. As for the silver cone in side of the white and blue LEDs, as I have also noticed. Incandescent lightbulbs are the safest lightbulbs to use as far as I am concerned.