LED lights and wattage


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Old 12-14-13, 05:35 PM
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LED lights and wattage

I have replaced two lightbulbs with LEDs and love them. So far I replaced a 40 and 60 watt bulb and have bought what is advertised as the equivalent to those wattages. One question is do they sell 100 watt LED replacements? I can only seem to find 40 and 60 both in stores and online.

Also whether an LED or CFL, they advertise for example 60 watt replacement, uses only 11 watts or something like that. I think for CFLs a 100 watt replacement they say uses 26 watts. Could I in theory put a 100 watt CFL into a lamp that says 40 watt max since it only uses 26 watts or is this a safety issue?
 
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Old 12-14-13, 06:02 PM
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I think a big limitation of the new technology lights is their output. Like you I've seen LED bulbs to replace 40 and 60 watt incandescents but nothing brighter.

Fixtures are limited by their heat tolerance for an old fashioned light bulb. Go by the actual power consumption of the bulb you use. So, a 26 watt bulb in a 40 watt fixture is OK.
 
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Old 12-15-13, 06:06 AM
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From experience, you wouldn't like any more than 60 watt LED. They put out more than adequate comfortable light in a residential situation.
 
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Old 12-15-13, 06:19 AM
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The 100W equivalent LED bulbs are coming, but as chandler said, they will be bright. Outside floods are an example. The other aspect of new lights is their color temperature. 2700K is similar to warm incandescents. 4000K and up will be much brighter at the same wattage. Individual preferences and applications vary widely. With the start of the coming year there will be more restrictions on the old incandescents so the sales volume for LEDs will increase and hopefully improve selection and price.

With the new lighting we all need to start watching the number of "lumens" as well as actual watts to be able to compare lamps.

Bud
 
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Old 12-15-13, 06:47 AM
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Bud's right. You will see new nomenclature after Jan 1, and the emphasis will be on lumens more than wattage. We got used to measuring light in wattage, and that is wrong. Lumens is the amount of usable light you will get, while wattage will remain an electrical term in Ohm's law.
 
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Old 12-15-13, 08:40 AM
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Hi, I work in the portable flashlight industry, engineering department, responsible for new product development. As LED forward voltages drop, you will start to see higher lumen outputs. The amount of heatsink available limits how much power can be applied to the bulb assembly. Power is defined by the current x voltage. As the LED forward voltage goes down, more lumens (visible light) can be had for the same amount of current applied to the LED. 8 years ago, forward voltages approached 4v, but now they are closer to 2.8v.
In addition to forward voltage improvements, advances in phosphor coatings (which convert the blue LED to a white LED), die technology improvements and how the LED die is packaged all contribute to increased performance.
I am excited to see the changes in tech over the last 8 years.
 
 

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