Switching to LEDs
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Yeah i meant domestic stuff. None of the big bulb companies seem to be taking an interest in that.Berserker said:
On the other hand, as you say, led torches have really taken off, and i don't think thats purely because of the low energy nature of leds.
MikeHunt79 said:Nice! I'm guessing you got the CE (cree edition)... how is it?
I've got the L1T with CR123 body myself and it's lovely... I'm really tempted to get the P1D CE once christmas is over and done with. Did you get your's from the UK, as I've only seen Fenix's overseas.
I also forgot to mention, these CREE LED's are now beating tubes as far as efficiency goes.
EDIT: Most of these manufacturers (nichia, souel) are claiming sky high efficiency... Most of them are only getting this efficiency with 20ma. The CREE XR-E is where it's at for a good few months at least.
I haven't got mine, still weighing up on getting a P1D or a P1D CE. The P1D is already out but the CE won't be out until Jan, will be $70 if you don't know. Also join the http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/ if you already haven't. Then you get 5% off at http://www.fenix-store.com/ which I find the best place to buy Fenix torches at. Will really come in handy though for quick car inspections in dark corners.
Go on this link for lots of offers you get by joining that forum. Like $1 CR123's!
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=56067
Edit - Seen the new LED Maglites? At $24 for the 2AA one they seem good money for a cheap torch to keep in the car etc.
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Go for the CE... You won't regret it. Pretty much twice the brightness of a luxeon and pretty much the same battery life. I'd have one already but I'm using RCR123's which don't work too well apparently.saitrix said:
CPF is a good forum, I'm on there also (as MikeHunt79) 
. My most recent torch is a 100W+ modded 5D maglite that can set fire to newspaper! 
Anyway, I'm going off topic a bit... The MagLed's are ok, but I'm not a fan... Now if they made a CREE drop-in, that would be good. I reackon fenix should have a UK distributor... They would then sell more torches then, as you wouldn't have to worry about customs and the extra time it takes to ship.I've just bought my first LED torch (for use as a reading light) and I can't believe how much light it pumps out. From 3 tiny button cells (LR44) it will last for 12 hours, I reckon it's even brighter than my maglight.Joe42 said:
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Mr Joshua said:
Maglights are useless really for the amount of light they give out. For example the 2xAA one does 15 lumens and the 5xD one does 119 lumens. That is shocking thinking that the one I linked that I like the look of buying can do 135 lumens and is so much smaller.
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Opticube > * .
.Tesla said:
Cheap lamps will pop B6 breakers when they fail quite often, an arc is drawn across the break in the filament and it ends up extending across the supply posts in the lamp eventually, with CPDs such as 5A BS3036 fuses the arc usually has time to extinish before anything happens, but a modern circuit breaker is too fast and the fault current to trip a B6 on the magnetic part is 'only' between 18A and 30A and it'll do that in sub 0.1sec, and usually quite a bit faster. The solution is to use lamps that incoparate internal fuses which fail first, or choose a less sensitive protection device for the light circuit if the ELFI allows, of course this won't help the fact that dimmers get damaged though (some dimmers have internal fuses to protect against this, btw)
Do you mean normal bulbs?Adam_151 said:
I thought this was only a problem with gu10 bulbs... i've certainly never seen it with any other bulb type. And as far as i know gu10s are the only bulbs that have had fuses fitted as a result.
My dimmer did have a fuse and the gu10 that failed short circuit blew the fuse and the dimmer.
Thread revival blah blah but just wanted to say that I've got one of those myself, well had it a couple of weeks now. I went for the cheaper luxeon version but damn, I've never needed to take it off medium... and the medium on the cree version is brighter than the full on minesaitrix said:Cree's LED's certainly are good. 1 hour runtime, 135 lumen, £35
Managed to lose it after just 2 hours... then found it again 6 hours later. Its almost too small
Also I was amazed just how much amusement the strobe function gave on a boozy new years eve!
As for the original thread its been an interesting read. My gf wants me to change the three 25W MR16 halogen spot lights in our lounge, she should be more worried about the three 50W GU10's in the kitchen
I just can't justify the cost involved to get a decent output set of bulbs and there currently nothing on the market that will be a simple direct replacement for the lights in the kitchen.lordrobs said:My gf wants me to change the three 25W MR16 halogen spot lights in our lounge, she should be more worried about the three 50W GU10's in the kitchen
You think you've got problems - we've 10 50w GU10s in the lounge, eight in the kitchen and four in the bathroom.
I swear the house lifts on its foundations because the meter is spinning so fast when we have that lot switched on.
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Von Luck said:You think you've got problems - we've 10 50w GU10s in the lounge, eight in the kitchen and four in the bathroom.
I swear the house lifts on its foundations because the meter is spinning so fast when we have that lot switched on.
Those lot of lights cost about 11p per hour to run that could be £1 aday
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Have a look at the OSRAM Halostar ORC bulbs. Pretty much the most efficient incan bulb available. A 35W irc bulb gives out more light than a 50w "normal" halogen bulb.
lordrobs said:Thread revival blah blah but just wanted to say that I've got one of those myself, well had it a couple of weeks now. I went for the cheaper luxeon version but damn, I've never needed to take it off medium... and the medium on the cree version is brighter than the full on mine
Managed to lose it after just 2 hours... then found it again 6 hours later. Its almost too small
Also I was amazed just how much amusement the strobe function gave on a boozy new years eve!
As for the original thread its been an interesting read. My gf wants me to change the three 25W MR16 halogen spot lights in our lounge, she should be more worried about the three 50W GU10's in the kitchen
I think later today I'll be ordering the cree version.
You found anywhere cheap to get the CR123's?Just wondering how bright 135 lumens will be.
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LED for home use will make for most efficient bulb
LED for home use will make for most efficient bulb
http://www.suntimes.com/business/222395,CST-FIN-led22.article
Lighting the way
LED for home use will make for most efficient bulb
January 22, 2007
BY HOWARD WOLINSKY Business Reporter
Light bulbs went off in inventor Carl Scianna's head when his cousin Anthony, an Illinois State trooper, died in the early 1990s because his safety vest wasn't visible to a motorist.
Carl Scianna, who had developed phone gear for GTE and Motorola and a popular bicycle safety helmet, set out to build a better safety vest -- one lit with a digital LED (light emitting diode) bulb visible at a mile's distance. And he and his company, Naperville-based PolyBrite International, did just that -- and then LED collars for dogs, armbands for joggers, batons for the military to land aircraft and batons for police to direct traffic.
These items have sold in the millions of units.
But Scianna, who trained as a chemical engineer at DePaul University, said, "I always had my eye on the bigger picture."
» Click to enlarge image
Carl Scianna is the President & CEO of LED based lightbulbs.
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
That bigger picture soon will be clearer: PolyBrite plans to begin shipping white LED bulbs to light up homes, offices, street lamps, theaters, hotels, you name it. Scianna said the LED bulbs are far more energy efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs and even beat the compact fluorescent bulbs now being touted by Commonwealth Edison.
Scianna, 54, said PolyBrite has developed the first screw-in, white-light bulbs in the typical sizes used in the home, such as the equivalent to 65- and 75-watt bulbs, each using 90 percent less energy than traditional lighting. He said PolyBrite will ship the bulbs in the next 60 days for the office market, and for the home market within the next year.
LED lighting was invented 40 years ago at General Electric by Nick Holonyak, now a University of Illinois engineering professor. The cool bulbs convert electricity to light, in contrast with the traditional incandescent bulbs that create light by burning a filament.
Ron Smith, president of Curtis Stout, a lighting manufacturer's agency based in Little Rock, Ark., which represents PolyBrite, said major lighting manufacturers for years have made color LED bulbs aimed at retail displays, but none up to now were able to make white bulbs aimed at a mass mainstream market.
"The Holy Grail has been white bulb," Smith said.
PolyBrite has spent the past 10 years working on the bulbs using a $100 million investment from friends and family, including Jack Goeken, who started MCI, which emerged as a long-distance phone carrier that helped break the AT&T monopoly. Goeken has partnered with Scianna for more than 20 years, and PolyBrite is a subsidiary of the Goeken Group.
Scianna, who has three patents and 30 more in the pipeline on the LED technology, said PolyBrite had a breakthrough two years ago in developing technology to manage heat generated by LED bulbs to produce white light.
It used nanotechnology to build a bulb lens from nano-sized silicon that lets through 40 percent more light than is possible with other materials, creating a bright white bulb. Carbon nanotechnology in the base of the bulbs made efficient heat management possible, Scianna said.
Commonwealth Edison, which has been feeling the heat for its 24 percent rate increase that took effect Jan. 1, has been pushing the fluorescent bulbs.
Timothy Melloch, Edison's manager of energy efficiency services, said, "Compact fluorescent bulbs are available and work. We are excited about LED technology, but it hasn't yet penetrated the market."
He said Edison won't promote LED unless the bulbs are accepted by the U.S. government's Energy Star program, which labels the energy efficiency of products. Scianna said PolyBrite is in the process of applying for the rating.
Scianna and Goeken are working on a solar-powered lantern using LED lighting aimed at people in underdeveloped countries who live off the electrical grid.
Scianna said, "This isn't just about making money. We want to help the environment and also the 2 billion people who don't have electricity.
Veteran entrepreneur Goeken said, "MCI changed telecom. Now PolyBrite will change the lighting industry."
[email protected]
Goeken, friends pool $600 to start MCI, David vs. Goliath battle
John D. "Jack" Goeken, 76, a major backer of PolyBrite International, the LED bulb maker, has come a long way since he ran a two-way mobile radio repair business in the back of a friend's vacuum cleaner store in downtown Joliet while in he was high school in the 1940s.
The high school graduate and son of a Lutheran minister learned about microwave electronics in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He started an aircraft radio repair business after he left the Army.
Goeken came up with the idea of using microwaves for two-way communications for truckers driving between Chicago and St. Louis on U.S. Route 66. He and a couple friends pooled $600 to start Microwave Communications Inc., known as MCI, to start the service. It would become a multibillion-dollar business.
AT&T, then the world's largest company, seeing that MCI could move into long-distance phone service, tried to stop Goeken to protect its monopoly. A legal battle ensued, and MCI won, leading to AT&T's first competition in long-distance service.
Goeken treasures the editorial cartoons from the late 1960s now hanging on his office wall depicting his David vs. Goliath battle. "If AT&T hadn't opposed us, I don't think we ever would have succeeded the way that we did," he said.
In the 1970s, Goeken left MCI and founded the FTD Mercury Network, an electronic network over which florists processed orders. "At the time, this was the biggest data network in the world -- and that was before PCs," said Sandra Goeken Miles, Goeken's daughter and president of the Goeken Group. (The group is a 60-employee holding company based in Naperville that runs PolyBrite lighting company and also Global MED-NET International, emergency medical data storage business.) In 1977, Jack Goeken started Airfone Corp., a pioneering air-to-ground phone service. Through this, he met Carl Scianna, an inventor and phone manufacturer, who designed tough keypads and switches for the air services' phones.
"These switches had to stand up to Coke spills and whatever other damage that could result on board an aircraft," Miles said.
Goeken sold Airfone to GTE in 1986, and then in 1989 launched In-Flight Phone Corp., a rival with improved digital technology with games, stock quotes, news headlines and e-mail, all of which predated such features on cell phones. MCI purchased In-Flight Phone.
Business Week named Goeken "the best entrepreneur" in 1991, referring to him as "the phone world's most prolific inventor."
Scianna, president of PolyBrite, said, "I have a lot of respect for Jack. He's a true visionary. It's not just about making money. It's always about helping people."
--Howard Wolinsky
A key strategy behind Naperville-based PolyBrite's LED light bulbs will be its guarantee -- under all weather conditions -- that its white lights will last 50,000 hours compared with 1,000 hours with incandescent bulbs and 8,000 hours for most fluorescent bulbs.
Inventor Carl Scianna estimates a PolyBrite 60-watt equivalent bulb will sell for $12 to $15, but expects the price to drop once mass marketers start selling large volumes. This compares with $2 or less for an incandescent bulb to $2 to $7 for compact fluorescent bulbs.
The bulbs can pay for themselves in energy savings in about 16 months.
Also bolstering PolyBrite's LED bulbs: they are "green," or environmentally friendly, products, while compact fluorescent bulbs contain mercury and other environmental hazards.
--Howard Wolinsky
50,000 HOURS OF LIGHT, GUARANTEED
LED for home use will make for most efficient bulb
http://www.suntimes.com/business/222395,CST-FIN-led22.article
Lighting the way
LED for home use will make for most efficient bulb
January 22, 2007
BY HOWARD WOLINSKY Business Reporter
Light bulbs went off in inventor Carl Scianna's head when his cousin Anthony, an Illinois State trooper, died in the early 1990s because his safety vest wasn't visible to a motorist.
Carl Scianna, who had developed phone gear for GTE and Motorola and a popular bicycle safety helmet, set out to build a better safety vest -- one lit with a digital LED (light emitting diode) bulb visible at a mile's distance. And he and his company, Naperville-based PolyBrite International, did just that -- and then LED collars for dogs, armbands for joggers, batons for the military to land aircraft and batons for police to direct traffic.
These items have sold in the millions of units.
But Scianna, who trained as a chemical engineer at DePaul University, said, "I always had my eye on the bigger picture."
» Click to enlarge image
Carl Scianna is the President & CEO of LED based lightbulbs.
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
That bigger picture soon will be clearer: PolyBrite plans to begin shipping white LED bulbs to light up homes, offices, street lamps, theaters, hotels, you name it. Scianna said the LED bulbs are far more energy efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs and even beat the compact fluorescent bulbs now being touted by Commonwealth Edison.
Scianna, 54, said PolyBrite has developed the first screw-in, white-light bulbs in the typical sizes used in the home, such as the equivalent to 65- and 75-watt bulbs, each using 90 percent less energy than traditional lighting. He said PolyBrite will ship the bulbs in the next 60 days for the office market, and for the home market within the next year.
LED lighting was invented 40 years ago at General Electric by Nick Holonyak, now a University of Illinois engineering professor. The cool bulbs convert electricity to light, in contrast with the traditional incandescent bulbs that create light by burning a filament.
Ron Smith, president of Curtis Stout, a lighting manufacturer's agency based in Little Rock, Ark., which represents PolyBrite, said major lighting manufacturers for years have made color LED bulbs aimed at retail displays, but none up to now were able to make white bulbs aimed at a mass mainstream market.
"The Holy Grail has been white bulb," Smith said.
PolyBrite has spent the past 10 years working on the bulbs using a $100 million investment from friends and family, including Jack Goeken, who started MCI, which emerged as a long-distance phone carrier that helped break the AT&T monopoly. Goeken has partnered with Scianna for more than 20 years, and PolyBrite is a subsidiary of the Goeken Group.
Scianna, who has three patents and 30 more in the pipeline on the LED technology, said PolyBrite had a breakthrough two years ago in developing technology to manage heat generated by LED bulbs to produce white light.
It used nanotechnology to build a bulb lens from nano-sized silicon that lets through 40 percent more light than is possible with other materials, creating a bright white bulb. Carbon nanotechnology in the base of the bulbs made efficient heat management possible, Scianna said.
Commonwealth Edison, which has been feeling the heat for its 24 percent rate increase that took effect Jan. 1, has been pushing the fluorescent bulbs.
Timothy Melloch, Edison's manager of energy efficiency services, said, "Compact fluorescent bulbs are available and work. We are excited about LED technology, but it hasn't yet penetrated the market."
He said Edison won't promote LED unless the bulbs are accepted by the U.S. government's Energy Star program, which labels the energy efficiency of products. Scianna said PolyBrite is in the process of applying for the rating.
Scianna and Goeken are working on a solar-powered lantern using LED lighting aimed at people in underdeveloped countries who live off the electrical grid.
Scianna said, "This isn't just about making money. We want to help the environment and also the 2 billion people who don't have electricity.
Veteran entrepreneur Goeken said, "MCI changed telecom. Now PolyBrite will change the lighting industry."
[email protected]
Goeken, friends pool $600 to start MCI, David vs. Goliath battle
John D. "Jack" Goeken, 76, a major backer of PolyBrite International, the LED bulb maker, has come a long way since he ran a two-way mobile radio repair business in the back of a friend's vacuum cleaner store in downtown Joliet while in he was high school in the 1940s.
The high school graduate and son of a Lutheran minister learned about microwave electronics in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He started an aircraft radio repair business after he left the Army.
Goeken came up with the idea of using microwaves for two-way communications for truckers driving between Chicago and St. Louis on U.S. Route 66. He and a couple friends pooled $600 to start Microwave Communications Inc., known as MCI, to start the service. It would become a multibillion-dollar business.
AT&T, then the world's largest company, seeing that MCI could move into long-distance phone service, tried to stop Goeken to protect its monopoly. A legal battle ensued, and MCI won, leading to AT&T's first competition in long-distance service.
Goeken treasures the editorial cartoons from the late 1960s now hanging on his office wall depicting his David vs. Goliath battle. "If AT&T hadn't opposed us, I don't think we ever would have succeeded the way that we did," he said.
In the 1970s, Goeken left MCI and founded the FTD Mercury Network, an electronic network over which florists processed orders. "At the time, this was the biggest data network in the world -- and that was before PCs," said Sandra Goeken Miles, Goeken's daughter and president of the Goeken Group. (The group is a 60-employee holding company based in Naperville that runs PolyBrite lighting company and also Global MED-NET International, emergency medical data storage business.) In 1977, Jack Goeken started Airfone Corp., a pioneering air-to-ground phone service. Through this, he met Carl Scianna, an inventor and phone manufacturer, who designed tough keypads and switches for the air services' phones.
"These switches had to stand up to Coke spills and whatever other damage that could result on board an aircraft," Miles said.
Goeken sold Airfone to GTE in 1986, and then in 1989 launched In-Flight Phone Corp., a rival with improved digital technology with games, stock quotes, news headlines and e-mail, all of which predated such features on cell phones. MCI purchased In-Flight Phone.
Business Week named Goeken "the best entrepreneur" in 1991, referring to him as "the phone world's most prolific inventor."
Scianna, president of PolyBrite, said, "I have a lot of respect for Jack. He's a true visionary. It's not just about making money. It's always about helping people."
--Howard Wolinsky
A key strategy behind Naperville-based PolyBrite's LED light bulbs will be its guarantee -- under all weather conditions -- that its white lights will last 50,000 hours compared with 1,000 hours with incandescent bulbs and 8,000 hours for most fluorescent bulbs.
Inventor Carl Scianna estimates a PolyBrite 60-watt equivalent bulb will sell for $12 to $15, but expects the price to drop once mass marketers start selling large volumes. This compares with $2 or less for an incandescent bulb to $2 to $7 for compact fluorescent bulbs.
The bulbs can pay for themselves in energy savings in about 16 months.
Also bolstering PolyBrite's LED bulbs: they are "green," or environmentally friendly, products, while compact fluorescent bulbs contain mercury and other environmental hazards.
--Howard Wolinsky
50,000 HOURS OF LIGHT, GUARANTEED
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Philips Lumileds Shatters 350 mA Performance Records with 115 lm/Watt LED
http://home.businesswire.com/portal...d=news_view&newsId=20070123005508&newsLang=en
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Philips Lumileds, the pioneer, and the leader in high-power LED technology, announced today new performance records for high-power white LEDs. Philips Lumileds 1x1 mm2, chip based white LEDs, operating at just 350 mA, delivered 136 lumens for a light source efficiency of 115 lumens per Watt at a correlated-color-temperature (CCT) of 4685K. At 2000 mA, Philips Lumileds white LEDs delivered 502 lumens at a corresponding 61 lumens per Watt. These LEDs are the first high-power LEDs to break through the 100 lumen per Watt mark and demonstrate the real potential of solid-state lighting technology.
Philips Lumileds High-Power, White LED
Current 350 mA 2000 mA
Lumens 136 502
Lumens per Watt 115 61
Watts 1.2 8.3
Philips Lumileds, the creator of the 350 mA high-power LED, continues its innovation by developing more powerful LEDs capable of long life when driven at 1000 mA – 2000 mA and higher. This innovation improves the light efficacy and the light quality, all while offering the lower cost required by many applications. Notable in the performance numbers is the CCT which is significantly lower than those typically reported. These results clearly demonstrate Philips Lumileds’ progress in both light output and light quality.
Philips Lumileds achieved the record results for white LEDs by combining several new and innovative technologies it has developed. The first devices using these technologies will be introduced in a new generation of products during this quarter. These new technologies will continue to proliferate in new, and existing, products throughout the next 12-18 months. Philips Lumileds breakthroughs in epitaxy, device physics, phosphor, and packaging technologies are critical to delivering the performance required of LEDs as they continue their growth into a preferred light source.
The light output performance announced today and available to the industry in the near future, is 17 times greater at the same power than was available in 1999 when Philips Lumileds introduced the first high-power LED. While performance numbers continue to increase for low power LEDs, operating at lower currents such as 20mA, high-power LEDs are required to deliver the quality and quantity of light required for today’s and tomorrow’s lighting applications.
About Philips Lumileds Lighting Company
Philips Lumileds Lighting Company is the world’s leading high-volume manufacturer of power LEDs and a pioneer in the use of solid-state lighting solutions for everyday purposes including automotive lighting, camera flash, LCD televisions, portable lighting and general lighting. The company’s patented LUXEON® Power Light Sources are the first to combine the brightness of conventional lighting with the small footprint, long life and other advantages of LEDs. Philips Lumileds also supplies core LED material and LED packaging, and manufactures billions of LEDs annually. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, with operations in the Netherlands, Japan and Malaysia, Singapore and sales offices throughout the world. For more information, contact Philips Lumileds Lighting Company at 408-964-2900 or visit www.philipslumileds.com.
About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE
HG) (AEXHI) is a global leader in healthcare, lifestyle and technology, delivering products, services and solutions through the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs approximately 121,700 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 27 billion in 2006, the company is a market leader in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring systems, energy efficient lighting solutions, personal care and home appliances, as well as consumer electronics. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.
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Von Luck said:You think you've got problems - we've 10 50w GU10s in the lounge, eight in the kitchen and four in the bathroom.
I swear the house lifts on its foundations because the meter is spinning so fast when we have that lot switched on.
I dont know if you know but you can get energy efficent Gu10s now but they are about £8-10 each
Great news. We're in the process of losing our 12V 25W halogens in favour of some 240V 50W ones so we can lose the transformer box in our bedroom. LED's would make much more sense than having 150W burning away. Just need to wait for the price to come down a bit to make it worthwhile.Stephen7372 said: