# From Light Emitting Decorations to lighting.. never thought I'd be posting this!



## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

Never did I expect I'd be posting this.. the evolution from Light Emitting Decorations to solid state luminaires. I can't believe I pulled off a CFL to LED retrofit. The retrofit was a result of ballast failure. 

I still don't care too much for LED "light bulbs" due to their unsteady supply. Say you use LED lamps in a fixture. 6months later, one of them fails. Well, how many LED products can you think of that was on the shelf? Most of them are gone, so the replacement will be a big eye sore of a mismatch and all for something that perform pretty much comparably with CFLs for much higher prices. LED "bulbs" don't tolerate heat well and they tend to fry when it is used in a covered luminaire. 

But I'm growing on modular LED luminaires like the CREE CR6 and the ETI screw ins. Each "piece" is a luminaire, so the performance is not a function of fixture/lamp combination like CFL, but they install like a "light bulb" so it fits into a housing with somewhat established standards. 

I researched the products after the fact. The outcome.. and specs are nothing short of impressive. I used a screw-in disposable modular 7" flush mount 7" ETI brand luminaire.

The ETI is 830 lumens 11.5W.. 72 lumen/W.. They claim 70% output maintenance at 35,000 hours. That efficacy don't look good and about the same as CFL, but in actuality it's nothing short of impressive, because it is the LUMINAIRE lumens delivered into space per watt. 

There's a 0.1 to 0.2 seconds delay on start-up for some reason, but it's a huge improvement over having to choose between 1.5 seconds lag of programmed rapid start to protect the lamp life or the instant start that is brutal on CFLs in frequently started application in order to reduce annoying delay... 

LM-79 standards rate it as a fixture, so the performance isn't contingent to what you install it into, however I expect poor reliability and performance if it is used in high ambient conditions. 

A concern with permanent LED luminaire is the proprietary driver/lamp module combination that causes a long outage and expensive repairs or require entire luminaire replacement if parts are no longer available. This modular lumianire came with two install options. Permanent of screw-in. Instead of permanent installation, I chose to add a standard light socket and screw into it so if the driver fails (which is probably just as likely as ballast failure...), a standard bulb can be screwed to avoid loss of light. 



1600 lumen 26W CFL with 58% utilization getting 950 lumens. This would be "100W equivalent" fixture. 

After:
830 lumens out the bottom, so I lost about 13% output, but seeing this luminaire was advertised as "60W equivalent", this isn't bad. It is actually closer to a mushroom fixture using a 75-100W incandescent. It's actually keeping up well with a dual 13W PL-C luminaire of the similar type.

Picture on top is before.. 
http://www.acuitybrandslighting.com/LIBRARY/LL/DOCUMENTS/SPECSHEETS/MUSF.PDF

bottom is after. 
http://www.etissl.com/wp-content/up...-11_5w-7inch-RoundFlushMount-120D-40k-PIB.pdf

The cheaply made plastic diffuser makes the light quality comparable to RE80 4100K CFL. Without the cover, it casts a very strong shadow and glares so bad that its useless, so you're screwed if you lose/break the diffuser. Fortunately, the 830 rated lumens is with the cover in place.

It's sold at Home Depot rebadged as Commercial Electric for $25 or so. 3 months in... so far so good.


----------



## Black Dog (Oct 16, 2011)

Bump!


----------



## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

Well Enlightened one

you really don't want to go down the _green brick_ road with me.

fact is we've all been privy to the _save the planet _evolution of lighting , with every new item marketed like it was God's own salvation for humanity

it's all the same old bull, pure and simple *bull,* most of which would fold quicker than a Kmart card table , if it weren't greased by our tax $$$'s

~CS~


----------



## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

chicken steve said:


> Well Enlightened one
> 
> you really don't want to go down the _green brick_ road with me.
> 
> ...


Can you paraphrase that in plain English?


----------



## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

Perhaps you could try this if your english challenged Enlightened one.

but i digress, same shtick, different day

The fact is, we can copy/paste from when we went to T5's from T8's 

before that it was T8's from T12's

same roi marketing shtick each time.

but _you're _lamenting _performance specifics_ here, which we can see the art 410 in the '14 is all over. 

what it's addressing is LED *heat*

the new regime makes the old A bulbs , which we're told wastes energy due to heat, look _cool _side by side




> (C) *Location.* The minimum clearance between luminaires
> installed in clothes closets and the nearest point of a closet
> storage space shall be as follows:
> (1) 300 mm (*12* in.) for surface-mounted incandescent or
> ...


>>>



> 410.136 Luminaire Mounting.
> (A) Exposed Components. Luminaires that have exposed
> ballasts, transformers, LED drivers, or power supplies shall
> be installed such that ballasts, transformers, LED drivers,
> ...


~CS~


----------



## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

I have no idea what you're trying to say... Here's a what it looks like with the globe off. Picture was downloaded off the web. Credit to whoever took it. 









What I am getting at is that A-type (A19/A21, etc) light-bulb shape LEDs are only marginally better than CFLs. Most CFLs and LED bulbs are not recommended for use in the very common bowl type fixtures. They're considered totally enclosed. When you do it, they tend to fail early. 

The LEDs have to be laid out in a fist shape to mimic the A shape and size. 

Modular luminaires can lay out the LEDs however they want and this is where you can leverage the biggest performance advantage. Naked LEDs can be spread throughout the fixture and actually depend on the fixture cover as the sole diffuser and spacing them further apart makes it easier to spread the heat out. 

CFL fixtures are notoriously inefficient. 30-50% is quite common. If you use a screw-in A-shape LED bulb to replace a CFL, you can expect about the same performance. 

Total luminaire efficacy of 72 lm/W comes out to be about twice that of CFL luminaires. A high performance T8 fluorescent system can reach and exceed this level, but they're usually much larger luminaires in 5,000 to 10,000 lumen range. This LED luminaire is rated at 35,000 to 70%. Degradation of LEDs brings them similar in performance maintenance to older phosphors used in standard T12 lamps. Modern T8 fluorescent lamps are about 36-48K hours and degradation is under 10%. 

You increase LED output by adding more LEDs, so higher lumen commercial lighting will cost considerably more, but I think LED luminaires will displace CFL cans and Circline surface mounts.


----------



## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

Electric_Light said:


> I have no idea what you're trying to say... .


Most salesfolk don't , imagine my surprise!.... ~CS~


----------



## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

chicken steve said:


> Most salesfolk don't , imagine my surprise!.... ~CS~


Don't you know better how me and LEDs generally don't belong together? 
What makes you think I'm LED sales? :laughing::laughing::laughing: You know how I am far from easily impressed and I catch flak from LED and induction sales people all the time. 

I could not care less if anyone buys this product or not. What difference do you think it will make me if a few people seeing this thread buy a few from the Home Depot?

I got these for personal use and I said I've had them for 3 months and "so far so good"... you'd definitely not hear sales people talk that way about their products.


----------



## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

_lessee_, you usually post high 5's about led's here 

but this thread is about _your _pointing their flaws out 

i counter with specifics , and code articles as back up

and you _still _don't understand .....



well understand this.... 

the green machine is bull____

~CS~


----------



## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

chicken steve said:


> _lessee_, you usually post high 5's about led's here


LOL. You've got to be kidding me. I've never been a big fan of LEDs. I generally don't like lighting products that don't use mercury. 



> but this thread is about _your _pointing their flaws out


My usual threads are about pointing LEDs' flaws out, because marketing hypes about LEDs are usually terrible. "ten times energy savings" etc and LEDs generally did suck. 

LEDs really have been unpractical greenbie toys until the last 2-3 years. I think something like this would've cost $100 or so back in 2010. When it comes to CFLs with life rating of anywhere from 6000-12,000 hours, it's no secret that frequent switching rip them apart fairly quickly. The ability to start quickly without having lamp life literally getting shredded off is a big advantage in residential. Until the Energy Star and LM-79 standards, they often had terrible efficacy along with terrible CRI.



> i counter with specifics , and code articles as back up
> 
> and you _still _don't understand .....


None of which are relevant.same applies to CFLs or incandescent. It's not a good idea to use any fixture with a missing cover in a closet space. There is no exposed driver or lamps with this. This is basically the same thing as a common ceiling mushroom light. No exposed parts.

This thread's comparing a common Lithonia CFL mushroom flush mount light vs a similar type LED fixture they sell at the Home Depot. Not really a comparison that is done in the typical LED super efficient green friendly spam threads.


----------



## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

Well i never thought i'd be posting this, but we may actually have achieved _detente _Enlightened one.

~CS~


----------



## 6 shooter (Feb 4, 2008)

Electric_Light said:


> Can you paraphrase that in plain English?


I know what you mean sometimes. When ever I read the chickens post I some times think. I wonder if he was a English philosopher born of a aristocratic nobleman from centuries ago.


----------



## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

chicken steve said:


> The fact is, we can copy/paste from when we went to T5's from T8's
> 
> before that it was T8's from T12's


We didn't really go from T8s to T5s. Those T values merely mean the differences in the diameter of tubes. The phosphors historically used for T12s don't provide an acceptable life if you increase the UV intensity to the levels seen in T8s. The efficacy difference between T5, T8 and T12 are minimal. There are rare-earth T12s as well, but they're quite expensive due to small production volume and larger material requirements.

T5s just look like they have better lumens per watt, because the lamps are rated on electronic ballasts while T8 and T12 lamps are rated on magnetic ballasts. The system efficacy of all 3 systems using rare-earth phosphor lamps on electronic ballasts are pretty close. T8s usually have the highest efficacy (low 100s lumens per watt) since that is where the most improvement efforts are going. 

T5s are a tad bit shorter, so they have their place when F32T8s are too long. Right now, F32T8 is the mainstream and almost entirely replaced the F40T12. Europe standardized on F36T8 instead which looks exactly the same as F32T8, but designed to work in F40T12 fixtures. 

So, it's not about what's better. T8s make sense, because they're cheap thanks to mass production. 

The 8 foot T8 F96T8/59W is a few percent more efficient than the 4' lamp but they're fading away in favor of 4 foot lamps back-to-back. I think it has to do with difficulty of shipping and handling 8 foot lamps. 

The mainstream high output is the F54T5/HO. 
The non-HO F28T5 does exits, but they never really took off. They're only used for under-counter lights and such where low-profile is important. 

So, my crystal ball is on F32T8 and F54T5/HO sticking around for a long time and LEDs replacing CFLs, and low-wattage HIDs in some applications.


----------



## JDJ (Aug 9, 2011)

Thanks for the breakdown Electric, I've been contemplating a shift to some low profile LED fixtures. And the back and for between you and CS is enjoyable too.


----------

