LED's?

[chuck]

Anyone ever used LED lighting I been researching 12v lighting for our place. I think it would be a great power saver but what with the price of those puppies I don't want to do a lot of experimenting.

[patricimo54]

Ya you are right they are expensive. Over all I am not totally impressed with their illumination. I have limited Led in the home 3 night lights plus a 12LED lantern on the mantel. I also have another one in storage. I have a young friend who is an electrician. He is experimenting with LED in his home, primarily in one room. I can see and appreciate the efficiency of the technology, and I know that there are multiple options to any given application,
Living off the grid, they are the most efficient by far. Let me get with my friend and see what insite he can lend.

[chuck]

May 3, 2009 21:42:48 GMT -5 patricimo54 said:

Ya you are right they are expensive. Over all I am not totally impressed with their illumination. I have limited Led in the home 3 night lights plus a 12LED lantern on the mantel. I also have another one in storage. I have a young friend who is an electrician. He is experimenting with LED in his home, primarily in one room. I can see and appreciate the efficiency of the technology, and I know that there are multiple options to any given application,
Living off the grid, they are the most efficient by far. Let me get with my friend and see what insite he can lend.

Thanks I appreciate it have karma (if I can figure out how to do it)

[patricimo54]

Okay chuck here we go. I've talked with my electrical buddy Jerry about the LED's and here is his .02 cents worth. I shared with him your situation,(off the grid needing maximum illumination with minimal demand or draw on your power supply) and my frustration( lighting from what LED fixtures I have in place leaving me less than satisfied with the light produced.) Here is his spill;
The first thing he wanted to remind me of is the cost/demand LED's have on a budget, next to nothing, pennies. With that said he helped me think outside of the box. To start with because the demand is so small you can use multiple fixtures in any given room. Such as, a school girl might do a halo of Christmas lights around the perimeter of her bedroom celling.Use LED's instead. He told me he picked up a small sting of them in a clearance rack for next to nothing that run on 2 AA batteries.
I showed him my LED night lights,(single LED as a night light,once unplugged 3 LED flashlight) He tells me that W/M has one with a much better reflector, I have yet to check it out. I will get back to you on this one once I give it a look. Multiple/maximum LED bulbs in over head and lamps. LED night lights with maximum reflector in every receptacle, a halo of LED Christmas lights around the ceiling in any given room. The one thing that he wanted me to keep in perspective, that only around a hundred years ago, we were all burning oil or candles to read by. His point was that LED technology is far removed from candle power and much cheaper to maintain.

[chuck]

Hey thanks, ;D LED's do have the smallest drain on the batteries that is the good part but they also produce a very harsh light. I've been thinking about trying color combination's like white and yellow or white and red. We'll still use oil lights some but for reading and cooking we really like to have something a littler brighter.
Our solar system has a small battery set up so I'll probably get a couple for the kitchen and maybe one or two for the living room just to see what kind of drain they have on the batteries. In the winter we don't get much sunlight so we run the generator to charge them but at $5.00+ for gas we really have to limit our generator time in the winter.

[Admin]

I have a few LED nightlights and I really like them. They are suppose to only consume around 25 cents of power in a year based on 10 hour per day run time. I'm impressed with that. I have seen colored LED lightbulbs on line and wonder if a yellow one would shed a nicer light. I really don't care for the harsh whiteness of regular LED's. I have thought of experimenting by having some sort of a yellowish globe over the LED to soften the light - but haven't gotten that far. I love anything to cut down my living cost and the LED nightlights have helped. If I'm working in the office or watching the boob tube I don't need all kinds of lights on in the rest of the house. I don't like having the rest of the house dark either becasue I might want to go get a drink or take a leak or whatever and flipping switches as I go doesn't really help anything. One or two LED nightlights in the kitchen etc will throw enough illumination for me to find a beer and pickled egg if I ever decided to seek one out, or let the dog out, or put wood in the stove etc. I just roll my eyes when I drive by someones house and there's lights on everywhere including outside and in the garage. I'd hate to have to work a regular job to pay for the illumination of all that air I just don't get it

[TrappinTommer]

L.E.D. lights are definately cheaper to use as they are very energy efficient. They are also good if you don't need a lot of light. Like JC said, if you are just watching tv or doing something in the house that doesn't require a lot of light they are much better to have than regular lights. However, They don't put out enough light to do things that require a lot of light. Things such as bookwork, reading the paper, or tying flies require more light and L.E.D.s in these situations might give you a headache straining your eyes to see in the light that they put out. I know they make taillights on vehicles made of a bunch of small L.E.Ds that are bright so I would imagine doing the same in a house would provide more light, I don't know how much power a light made of a bunch of L.E.Ds would use, it would still probably be less than a regular bulb.

[patricimo54]

My electrical friend/son is trying to join the swamp. Once he does I will have him share his insight. I may be mistaken but I am thinking he was talking about a rose colored light he has. I just tried calling him to confirm but no answer. I am by no means wanting to give up on the technology, I am just admitting I don't 'understand everything I know'.