Other LEDs light bulbs drop in price 10x thanks to new discovery

Create a circuit containing a variable resistor, a power source and a led, vary the resistor value, what happens?

 

most dimmers are PWM, yes. (Or PHM)

They do, however, need load to work since the "switch" is a thyristor/triac.


They do make dimmers that work with LEDs, but they are often expensive and far from common.



Dimming will also depend on how the lamp is constructed. If it have some sort of smoothing the dimming will work very poorly. It will be just as bright until a certain limit where it will start to just flicker.

 

My GCSE electronics project is a LED "dimmer" of sorts.

(@Smilodon: Did you get that quote in your sig from the wiki page? I might use it myself, it's so good.)

 

Yep.

There was another good quite there as well, but I can't remember what it was...

Is your Nick after the melody by Opeth?

(We are drifting a bit OT here now...)

 

Halogen lights are more efficient than standard incandescents. Fluorescent bulbs are still problematic: they do not produce a very warm light, they flicker and they take a while (and quite some juice) to get going, making them inpractical for quick on-off applications. They work less well in very cold temperatures.

I have a Phillips Living Colors light which contains four high brightness LEDs: two red, one green, one blue; the lamp can produce all colours of the visible spectrum, each from full colour to white, at any brightness setting. No flicker.

Meanwhile, in Japan some scientists have already developed cheap substrates that make for brighter, warmer white LEDs.

 

I'd only use the LED bulbs if they were as good as the original, non-energy saving bulbs. The energy saving ones here in my room are utter tosh, they take like 10mins to warm up, and the light isn't a particularly nice colour.

 

I'm sticking with tungsten filament incandescents for now. I've seen some impressive LEDs but they're still not quite "there" yet in terms of output, and until I see some real results I'll be dubious about the colour temperature, all the LEDs I have are quite harsh in their whiteness.

And for the most part, the heat from my lights is not all that wasted as I live in Scotland

As a side note, it's a poor sign that the government are legislating what type of light bulbs I can use

 

Brussels is, so it's not just us - it's europe-wide.

 

Back off Brussels

It's all a case of energy efficiency though, and that does vary from place to place, so banning them in Italy might make more sense than Scotland. But legislation on lighting? c'mon

 

Energy efficiency makes sense where ever you live. The energy used to make and dispose of the bulbs also needs to be taken into consideration when legislating. LED's as a main lighting source is not really viable just yet imo. I have experimented with different bulbs in my house and unless you buy the uber expensive LED's they simply do not give out enough light.

 

Well that's where this new discovery steps in

However, I'm in no rush to go out and buy a LED bulb anyway? 60 years? More like 6 weeks in my house, in my old house, energy efficient bulbs literally lasted until I moved out, about 10 years or more, new house, last about a month. Same situation in my Cardiff house.

 

How come they don't last Veles?

 

Hence why I said most, I'm sure there are ways but not any that are readily avalible to consumers for domestic lighting. At work we install thousands of pounds worth of lutron dimming systems and they will switch but not dim LED fittings.

The other problem is the voltage drop over any lenghth of cable, most 12v transformers for spots etc can't deal with 1.5mm t and e cables longer than 2 or 3 meters before the voltage drop becomes a problem.

 

Great that they're finally dropping in price, though I for one will not be taking advantage of the new prices (at least for the foreseeable future). I swapped all the bulbs in my house for warm-white LED-ones last fall, and neither I nor my other half regret the swap. The bulbs I got work perfectly with my dimmers, and though they are slightly less luminous than the regular ones, they do a more than adequate job of lighting our home.

 

No idea, we have to get electricians round my Cardiff house check it almost every year since it's a rented property, although I suppose that is looking at safety issues, any other issues don't get dealt with so it could be one of those is causing the problem. My bristol house also has pretty poor electrics.

(Updated the title to a more accurate one too, I forgot to link to the news post too, I'll do that now)

EDIT: Can't find it again for some reason, damn BBC search sucks

Possibly because it was actually from the telegraph XD

 

If they're old houses then they may need to be rewired, fluctuating voltages and such aren't got for anything

 

Cardiff one is ancient and is on the verge of needing rewiring for safety reasons, this one however is newer than my old house that had the bulbs lasting ages, wouldn't have thought the wiring was redone before we moved in that one.

Might be the reason my xbox died, especially since it's not a common malfunction, was connected to a surge protector though, but I'm sure they're not really sufficient.

 

I've got the white ones from B&Q, not much better tbh.

I tried replacing all 3 of the halogen bulbs in my bedroom with them and the light was pathetic.
I ended up putting 1 halogen back in and 2 LED bulbs. but of the 4 LED bulbs I had, 2 have died already (talking around a 6-8 month period).

 

My wife put up a string/band of white LEDs under our kitchen cabinets and up and over the microwave. It makes a very nice/cheap source of counter lighting and general ambiance. She wants to do the other half of the kitchen as well.


It's just feint enough that it doesn't glare in the dark. Morning coffee made in the mic, without having to open sleepy eyes too wide to see the instant and creamer, makes waking up a little more pleasant.

 

They are shite --basically a cluster of very cheap white LEDs slapped in a GU10 reflector, so they are not very bright and have a blue-ish hue about them.

For the real deal you need to look at specialised LEDs --Phillips Luxeon, Nichia and CREE and the like. They cost considerably more but give you a good halogen-like light. Lookie here for examples.