(I’m not the seller or anything – just wanted to point out that with the reduction in price it means that the cost of running the LED would be more like $40)

At any rate, the CFL’s also go out when this happens, and then take several seconds to come back up to full brightness. This is more than a nuisance. I was wlking across a room one night when the lights went out almost entirely, and then came back on. I can not read when this happens.

It also damages the CFL’s as I have had to replace 75% of the installed bulbs. Not a good rate.

this problem may be limited to situations like mine, but I have had no problems with incandescent bulbs. In fact my older incandescent bulbs are still working, even though my CFL.s have already had to be replaced.

Let’s hope the LEDs turn out better.

Taking a closer look in the last few days I see that many of the LEDs are significantly dimmer or completely dead, that is, the LEDs are indeed failing.

I also wonder if they are as bright as they were when installed. I recall thinking at first that they were too bright, but they don’t seem that way now.

How about a 500 lumen LED bulb for $30? Seems they’ve already reached the price-point the article is looking for!

No, I do not believe this is true. The LEDs *may* have a 30,000 hour life, but the base and it’s components almost certainly do not.

Case in point, they replaced almost all the stoplights in N CA with LED bulbs. When I ran the numbers they looked like a good deal, *if* they worked to spec. They were spec’d at 7 years, not 27 years BTW.

Now this was way back in 2000-2001 or so.

Many failed shortly after install and were quickly replaced. For the last 7-8 years most of the fixtures worked fine and no doubt saved quite a bit in electricity and maintenance costs. They do not work when the sunlight hits the LEDs straight on, as happened to one stoplight in the winter on the way home from work, but mostly they worked well.

They are starting to go out now, some have failed completely, many more have partially failed with odd patterns of LEDs dead. One even has a rough smiley face. I don’t think the LEDs have died mind you, although I can’t verify this, I think the solder connections on the circuit board have failed. Probably because of thermal cycling.

The point is, even if the LEDs did last 27 years (and they will not), the LED bulb will not, for many well known reasons.

Note, LED bulbs, like CFLs will require a ventilated fixture as the electronics in the base requires cooling. Most existing fixtures were designed for incandescent bulbs and are not ventilated. Installation in an unventilated fixture will result in premature failure of the bulb same as it does for CFLs, and for the same reason.

As for LED service life, look at any older car with LED brake lights. Even in intermittent “mostly off” operation after 5 years or so half the LEDs are burned out in many car’s brake lights.

I also have read of several people who bought LED lights and have reported that they lasted less than a year. My LED nightlights lasted the same, despite the packages claimed 10 year service life.

Don’t believe everything you read about LEDs, there is plenty of evidence that most claims are marketing and your experience will be quite different.

check it out http://www.Earthled.com

“There are plenty of flaws in the justifications for forcing this new technology on all of us, but the one flaw that stands out in the most glaring way is mercury – a very dangerous neurotoxin.

CFLs contain mercury, so each unit should be disposed of in a hazardous waste collection facility. And because they’re difficult to recycle, you can be certain most of them will be tossed in the trash where they’ll get broken. They can break in your home, exposing you to mercury. They can break in the garbage truck, exposing sanitation workers to mercury. They can break in the landfill, exposing groundwater to mercury. And when the day comes that every light socket in every U.S. home is filled with a CFL, there will be thousands and thousands of CFL bulbs thrown away each day. And the mercury load in our environment will mount and mount and mount…”

I don’t believe most people are aware of the dangers of CFL’s.

Just my opinion!

I’m not thinking about LEDs yet. I have 2 spare CFLs, so I may not need to buy anything for a year or 2.
There should be a consideration of time value of money – a lot of money now for LED or CFL is worth more that the money saved years in the future. Also, The price of CFLs and especially LEDs are likely to drop in the future. I think that if a light is lit more maybe than 15 minutes a day, the energy savings of a CFL will pay for itself in several years. However, if less than maybe 5 minutes a day, the energy savings will be so small that it will take forever to pay for extra cost of the CFL.
I think that the law that will ban most incandescents in a few years may consume more resources that it saves. The best efficiency is to use incandescents where they’re the most efficient(less that 5 minutes a day or other reasons) and CFLs where they are (more than 15 mnintues a day). A refrigerator light should be incandescent – it’s lit maybe 5 minutes a day or less and is perhaps too cold for a CFL. I think a CFL would last much longer that the fridge and wouldn’t save enough energy to pay for itself over the life of the fridge.

I only replaced incandescents when they burned out, so that resulted in the lights that burned the least still being incandescents, which is the right situation.

There are dimmable CFLs for sale, but the one I saw was about $12 at Walmart.