anyone try LED flashlights? they're amazing...is there any way to use this technology for....

[Gato Moteado]

home and work lighting?

LEDs last nearly forever and use very little energy. i bought some $40 LED flashlights in the states a few months ago so i could see snakes and frogs and stuff way up in the trees while walking on my properties at night. you wouldn't believe the power of these things, and their small and light weight. i have one type that uses 3 AAA batteries and it is much stronger than a regular flashlight or even those lantern flashlights that use the big 9 volt battery. there's no comparison really...in fact you can't even look into one of these things straight on without going blind. and the batteries last a long time...supposedly 50 to 100 hours. i haven't measured if they really last that long but they last a very long time before they get too dim for my usage.

have you heard of anyone using LED technology for illumination in the house or workplace? i would think that you could light up the inside and outside of a house with these things for pennies a month.

the whole incandescent vs. flourescent debate for saving energy made me think of this. some states and local communities are trying to pass legislation to outlaw incandescent bulbs in favor of the flourescents. i've heard good arguments on both sides of the issue. the main argument against the more energy efficient flourescents is that they contain mercury and that their light is not very warm and not good for reading, etc. as far as i know LEDs don't use mercury, and their energy efficiency is lightyears ahead of incandescent or flourescent.

so my question is: can we use LEDs to light up our houses and workplaces? and, if so, why aren't we doing it already?

[NYCGirl]

1. They're available, but still pretty expensive. Link:

http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx

[CabalPowered]

2. LED bulbs are available

http://www.gaiam.com/retail/product/11-0207_MSTR

[slackmaster]

3. Oh yeah

http://www.theledlight.com/

http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx

http://www.lumileds.com/

[SmokingJacket]

4. My technology investment friend says it's just a matter of time

until they get LEDs powerful and cheap enough for home usage. And when that happens, electricity usage should drop WAY down.

The individual LEDs are still do not let out quite enough light, apparently, so it takes a lot of them to make a regular bulb... but it will happen. And you'll have different color options, etc, using hardly any energy.

[Redstone]

5. For home use, the technology isn't here yet. The LED clusters to replace an incandescent bulb are

still WAY too expensive. But it will happen, and not in ten years either.

I do look forward to the day when I can install a grid of hundreds of LEDs in the ceiling of a room for an "open sky effect" instead of having "point sources" of light in that room. And I don't think that day is far off.

Redstone

[piedmont]

8. That would be sooo cool.

And much less costly in energy.

[Redstone]

10. Yes, we're already 100% compact-fluorescent on lighting, and I'm looking forward to the

LED revolution. As long as they can be manufactured in a non-polluting manner.

Redstoen

[Lurking Dem]

6. I have some LEDs

but they are of somewhat limited use right now. The problem is getting them bright enough for general lighting use.

I only have 4 ceiling cans in my living room and to get LED floods with enough lumens the bulbs are $95 each. Of course, I'll never have to change them!

Have a GREAT desk light called the Z-Bar that is LED. http://www.konceptech.com/zbar.html

They are improving the output and the costs should come down.

[uppityperson]

7. we got x-mas lites last yr that were LEDs.Home buld cost ~$50

there was just an article in seattle paper about making LED lightbulbs, cost about $50 each but lasted over 50 times as long so places that had lots of lights were getting them to save on janitorial services to change bulbs. It will be nice when they come down to more affordable prices. We got a string of LED holiday lights last dec.

[Deja Q]

9. They're unidirectional, but otherwise quite nice indeed.

Either LED or fluorescent is vastly superior to incandescent.

But they are small, need many to light things up, and the unidirectional factor makes them good only as spot lights. Which helps in some cases, but not all.

[Gato Moteado]

12. the arguments against flourescent are that they contain mercury....

...and that it's uncomfortable to spend long periods of time in flourescent lighting or to read under them.

[Lurking Dem]

13. I can't use fluorescent because of the UV.

LEDs don't have that problem (I have lupus). They also burn completely cool so are great for use in tight spots/small areas where an incandescent would heat it up.

[Viking12]

21. More mercury is released into the environment burning coal to power incadescents

than is released from CF bulbs.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/06/what_about_merc.php

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. LEDs are about the same efficiency as fluorescents; but they're great for traffic lights

The new traffic lights you are seeing are made out of arrays of light emitting diodes (LEDs). These are tiny, purely electronic lights that are extremely energy efficient and have a very long life. Each LED is about the size of a pencil eraser, so hundreds of them are used together in an array. The LEDs are replacing the old-style incandescent halogen bulbs rated at between 50 and 150 watts. Most cities in the United States are in the process of replacing their incandescent traffic lights with LED units because of three big advantages:

* LEDs are brighter. The LED arrays fill the entire "hole" and have equal brightness across the entire surface, making them brighter overall.
* LED bulbs last for years, while halogen bulbs last for months. Replacing bulbs costs money for the trucks and people who do the work, and it also ties up traffic. Increasing the replacement interval can save a city big dollars.
* LED bulbs save a lot of energy.

The energy savings of LED lights can be huge. Assume that a traffic light uses 100-watt bulbs today. The light is on 24 hours a day, so it uses 2.4 kilowatt-hours per day. If you assume power costs 8 cents per kilowatt-hour, it means that one traffic signal costs about 20 cents a day to operate, or about $73 per year. There are perhaps eight signals per intersection, so that's almost $600 per year in power per intersection. A big city has thousands of intersections, so it can cost millions of dollars just to power all the traffic lights. LED bulbs might consume 15 or 20 watts instead of 100, so the power consumption drops by a factor of five or six. A city can easily save a million dollars a year by replacing all of the bulbs with LED units. These low-energy bulbs also open the possibility of using solar panels instead of running an electrical line, which saves money in remote areas.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question178.htm

[sam sarrha]

14. there is a NEW led system coming up.. they put luminous crystals on them

you use about 30% of the power

[Wednesdays]

15. My porch light is LED

I bought a "party bulb" from Wally World about a month ago, costs around $7. It's supposed to be a sort of novelty light that changes colors every few seconds, but you can set it so that it shines steady on one color (I set mine at blue). It's rather dim, but it's all I need if I have to find my door key at night...and it uses a whopping 0.6 watts of power.

[uppityperson]

19. Costco sells a batch of LED nightlights that sound similar

they can change color, though you can keep them on 1 color also, and are sensitive to light so go off during day or other light on.

[Old and In the Way]

16. It will happen

the superbrite die costs are still prohibitive for the current generation of lighting, but the traditional 1/4 watt LEDs when ganged with reflectors are starting to show up. Thing is, light bulbs are omni-directional...LED's have a very tightly defined uni-directional area of lighting. Creative reflector design might address address this.

But I'd bet that we see this technology commercially available within 5 years.

[conscious evolution]

18. Not just reflectors but lenses are being developed

to spread or enhance the light from LEDs.Some small flashlights already use convex lenses to improve or alter the light field.

[nealmhughes]

17. I have an emergency lantern/weather radio that has a pad of LED on the base and a big bulb in the

center. It recharges by household AC and has a crank for when the power goes out and you lose charge. I got it for Xmas last year, after my misery after Hurricane Ivan in 04. The dinner tapers and Shabbas candles burnt out pretty quickly and the 9 volt battery for the radio, too!

[conscious evolution]

20. At a hippy festival last March

a group of campers were rigging up LEDs with a watch battery and resistors and then stuffing them into helium balloons.They weighed the balloons done enough that they floated only 10' or so off they ground.
Imagine a bunch of hippies reactions when these glowing colored orbs started drifting by!

[kohodog]

22. I've been using color LEDs in my art

They're digitally controlled with up to 16,000,000 colors. White LEDs aren't quite comercially viable but look for them in the next couple of years. With a life of somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 hours and much lower energy usage look for them to become the standard. Personally I think a smaller company, perhaps Color Kinetics will lead the way. GE, Sylvania and Phillips are invested in current incandescent and flourescent products and may not have the motivation to push LEDs. You can get a edison style LED bulb for about $50 now, but the price will drop and low voltage LEDs will start appearing in homes and commercial buildings in the next decade.