Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ranch

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JR.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by JR. »

Well I finally popped my cherry and bought my first LED lamp.. a 9W GE rated to replace 40W IC bulb. I first tried in my living room area lamp that I read under... My first impression was not much light but that was last night and I didn't give it much of a trial before pulling it back out. Today I popped it into a lamp I have over my computer desk in a sometimes dark corner, and it seems very adequate. I like the whiter color of the light it gives off also. Hard to describe but the CFL light seems more tiring, this seems less stressful... I may be seeing stuff that isn't there, but right now the only thing I don't like about LED lighting is the price.. and that should come down over time.

Note: the light given off by CFL is less stressful than having to replace IC lamps every several months.

JR

EDIT I tried it again last night, and the 9W LED was just not enough light output for my area lamp,, so it has a permanent home in my computer area where high quality but not too much light is a benefit. /edit
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mediatechnology
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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My neighbor, Darla Seible, recently won an Oncor "Best Energy Saver" award and received as one of the prizes (in addition to a new kitchen) two GE Nucleus Home Area Network, "HAN," intelligent gateways.

http://www.wfaa.com/good-morning-texas/ ... 11749.html

The GE Nucleus allows, via ZigBee, direct readout of the SmartMeter real-time load information.

Darla gave me the spare unit and after I got it setup (which was pretty easy) I was able to capture a screen shot of the real-time load updated every 30 seconds.

This is a typical base load for Rancho Rosada:

Image

Using GE servers it's possible to display load information on your Smart Phone: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ge-nucle ... 77211?mt=8

I'll be providing updates after I have a chance to experiment.

Base Loads, Air Conditioner, Dishwasher (heating), Double Oven, Toaster Oven:

Image

The above is a +12.8 dBkW increase. ;)

Don't see dBkW often around here...
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JR.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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That's cool in a gee whiz way...

I have been thinking about a crude microprocessor controlled vent system to alternated move air from attic to beneath the house in summer/winter for advantage... to feed heat exchanger.

I often notice a disconnect between interior temps and outside temp due to thermal lag... Smart controls co better take advantage of actual temps.

It seems more insulation on interior space would make the disconnect even greater.

JR
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mediatechnology
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by mediatechnology »

Since the display can read down to 10 Watts and it samples every 30 seconds you see a lot of stuff you don't normally think about.

Like the gas dryer's high peak current demand...

You'd think a gas dryer would only have a small 1-2 Amp continuous motor load for the tumbler.
The igniter generates 600W to 1kW peaks.
Though short in duration you do see them.

My Leader 'scope uses 40W.

This thing is like a "kill-A-Watt" for the entire house.

There are HAN load devices.
I need one for the driveway security flood lighting which, in addition to the vent hood and Lava Lamp, are the only tungsten loads left in the entire house.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by mediatechnology »

There's a nice tear-down of a Samsung LED lamp by Margery Connor here:

http://www.edn.com/blog/PowerSource/416 ... umbers.php

Image

This one uses the Link Switch LNK403.
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JR.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by JR. »

cool...

I just bought an under shelf LED fixture... 3x 1.5W LED chips, seems pretty damn bright. I'm going to mount it into my computer desk as a work light when I am trying to debug a circuit...nowadays everything I do is mixed technology with a micro-computer chip in it. SO need to talk to my PC for debugging and software development.

All these high efficiency lamps all around are low output so I don't have enough light to see SMD parts to probe. This light looks good, but $44 for one little fixture is not cheap...

I also bought another CFL light bulb looking for a little more brightness in my general reading lamp... After I got it home, it turns out to be almost the same as my old one 27W vs 26W, but it looks like the new CFL is using PFC,,, The current draw is rated for around 250mA but almost the same exact power as the old one that was rated at 400 mA. My speculation is the 400 mA is rectified and only conducts briefly at the peaks while the 250mA is spread over the entire waveform....

I like the LED for efficiency but still don't care for the cost premium.

JR
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by JR. »

mediatechnology wrote:What I have in my bench Luxo lamps are the Sylvania LED8A/DIM/830. Those are "40W" 3000K. I find the color or quasi-point source nature of these make laser-marked part numbers "pop." THAT and ADI SMT were some of the hardest to read.

I'm pretty sure that the "Utilitech" "60W" 3000K up earlier in the thread would also be pretty good. I use those in overheads and they are very similar to the Sylvania but "60W." I would not use the Sylvania 60W. It' sickly pink.

In my kitchen I use the Utilitech series like this one (Lowe's Item #: 122252 Model #: GU0518LD-BKSS-I)

Image
Utilitech Undercabinet Linkable LED Light Bar

Those are great for kitchen task lighting and I almost always keep them fully-dimmed. I have one on my bench but I haven't figured out how to position it correctly. They are available in several different lengths.
Since I just spent a painful weekend building up some SMD prototype PCBs and could have used better light sources, do you have any recommendations for modern bench or under-counter lighting?


Sounds like today would be a good day to spend staring off into space.

As were are getting back to air conditioning weather I am reviewing the heat load generated by my recent lighting changes..

The LED light by my computer desk is a winner but not cheap.

I now have two of my old (circa '70s) dual fluorescent fixture running, but I can tell from the heat the ballast is throwing off that these are not winners.

====

I am half ass thinking of a 4 socket vanity fixture filled with 4x $10 40W equivalent LED edisons, or cheaper yet 4x CFLs. I have seen mixed opinions about efficiency of those xenon fixtures searching the WWW, but 3x20w (real watts?) sounds not that great in todays world.

I like the color of the LED lamps and lowes has the 40W equivalent for only $10... maybe they're blowing them out? 40w equivalent doesn't cut it for stand alone lamps, but 4-up could be a fair bench light. I obviously don't care as much about the aesthetics as the efficiency and output.

JR

[edit- It looks like I could improve efficiency of my old fluorescents around 10% by replacing the ballast with an electronic ballast... still not as cool as 4x LEDs... but better for $15-20 per fixture.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by mediatechnology »

4X 40W equivalent 4X 430 lumens is pretty bright - enough to light our offices and bedrooms here. I think you'll do well with that.

You might not be interested in dimmability on the vanity and I don't know for sure about Xenon, but Halogen can't be run dimmed for long periods without a reduction in lamp life. Xenon may have the same problem.

Regarding the undercounter lamps I posted about earlier. I run them fully dimmed all the time. I think only once in the last year did I run one up to full to look at something. For task lighting I would recommend dimmables because they really do run bright with very little power. I think full up one 21" strip is 7W.

The last time I looked the GE 62180s were down to $30 at Lowes. They may be less now.
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

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This weekend I'll be channeling my inner green... saving electricity... I will replace one fluorescent fixture with 4x LED bulbs stuck in a cheap vanity fixture, and will replace the 30+ year old ballast in the other fluorescent fixture with a new electronic ballast... I am looking forward to seeing how much cooler the new improved ballast runs compared to the old ones. Less heat is a good thing in the summer...

JR
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Re: Residential Lighting with LEDs: Retrofitting the Pink Ra

Post by mediatechnology »

and will replace the 30+ year old ballast in the other fluorescent fixture with a new electronic ballast
You might entertain replacing the entire fixture. There's an article here on T8 vs. T5. http://lightingsolutions.ca/index.php?o ... &Itemid=26
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