Looking for an LED standard light.

[Bricky Brian]

Firstly, I have to say that the state of my knowledge on such things means that I can only hope, rather than know that LED lighting is greener than a normal electric light bulb. Secondly, I am getting on a bit and need a decent light in the evening to read by and the other evening I was eating out and the lighting was LED and I was very impressed at how effective it was. I looked through a catalogue or two but could find no mention of LED standard lights. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[Dave Turpin]

Not sure where you are located, but you can get LED bulbs at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. They are either in the recessed lighting section or in the bulb section, or both.

They are not cheap. A single bulb is like $50-$60 USD. On the other hand they last forever and are dimmable with the right kind of dimmer switch. (Can't say the same for the "dimmable CFLs")

[Bricky Brian]

I'm in England and pherhaps I should have given a fuller explanation on a Standard Lamp which is about six feet tall and stands behind an armchair.

[Dave Turpin]

Well, those lights still take a 60 Watt bulb. You can (probably) get the bulbs at whatever home improvement stores exist there in England.

The Phillips EnduraLED is the one they sell here.

[Bricky Brian]

Obviously I have not made myself clear. Its a tall standard reading light I'm looking for with LED fittings.

[Dave Turpin]

When your standard lights burn out, do you replace the whole light instead of just the bulb? That's a little wasteful.

[Bricky Brian]

Are you saying that it is possible to buy an LED bulb and fit it into the place that an exisiting bayonet fixing?

[Rob Beckers]

Bricky, what Dave is saying is that your local home improvement shop should have LED bulbs for us in regular sockets (and I'm hearing that bayonet is your common light socket; it's a screw fitting over here). I'm sure England has lots of choice in LED bulbs, much like over here.

To add my own comments to the LED vs. CFL debate: At this point in time the regularly available LED bulbs that I know have about the same light output per Watt of electrical power as CFL bulbs have (around 60 - 65 Lumens per Watt). A number of manufacturers of the LED chips used in those bulbs have items in the pipeline that reach much higher efficiencies, 100 lumens per Watt and up, most prominently there are the LED units from Cree. However, despite claims by many Chinese LED bulb manufacturers that they use those chips, and that their bulbs reach those efficiencies, measurements by the US Dept. of Energy showed this was all marketing and not reality. Reports of premature failure of LED bulbs are widespread as well, though I would assume that the big brands such as GE and Phillips will live up to their claims.

Another issue that plagues LED bulbs at this time is that they have a very poor CRI (colour rendition index, where 100 is natural light, and for bulbs anything over 85 is decent). In other words, the 'quality' of the light coming off LED bulbs is not great.

With all that in mind, a 4 Watt LED bulb will produce about the same amount of light as a 4 Watt CLF (ie. very little, about equivalent to a 20W incandescent bulb). To replace a 60 Watt incandescent you'd need a 13 or 15 Watt LED bulb, and those are pricey. For now I'm sticking with CFL bulbs, which are cheap, efficient, and last a long time (a 13 or 15W CFL bulb will replace a 60W incandescent). We can have the discussion about mercury that CFL bulbs contain, there are arguments pro and con to this.

For the future I'm sure we'll be moving to LED bulbs, and they will be very efficient. Prices will certainly come down, and actual life expectancy will increase. We're just not there yet IMO.

-RoB-