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I posted this earlier in "Green Living," but no one replied, so perhaps this forum will be a better venue:
I have about 25-30 PAR38/R40 recessed cans at my house. They are currently burning a mix of 90 Watt PAR38 and 100 Watt R40 lights. And they are on about 8 hours a day.
I don't care for CFLs as every CFL PAR38 bulb I have tried had three major problems -- they took a long time to reach full intensity, gave off horrible light quality (even ones claimed to be 2700K) and died A LOT sooner than the claimed lifespan.
I am considering replacing the current PAR38/R40 halogen/incandescents with LED lights. While the latter are quite expensive ($40-50 per bulb, so I am looking at $1500 max), I like several of the benefits such as more rapid warm up to full intensity (.25 to .5 second as I understand), lower energy consumption and better color quality than CFLs.
I have two questions to anyone out there who might be knowledgeable about such bulbs. First, how do LED lights compare in quality to halogen? The ones I found have CRI of 85 (both 2700K and 3000K). Obviously halogen has 100 while the CFLs I tried in the past had 80-82. Will they seem "pretty close" to halogen and substantially better than CFLs in terms of light quality? Jump from CRI 80-82 to 85 doesn't seem like much.
Second, lumens. Most 90 Watt PAR38 Halogen equivalent LEDs (18 Watts) seem to have considerably fewer lumens than the halogen (around 1300 lumens vs. 850-1000 lumens). I may have to up the wattage in my LEDs to around 19-24 watts to achieve 1300 lumens plus. Is that safe in recessed can meant for 90 Watt PAR38 halogen/100 Watt R40 incan? I am asking whether the spikes/heat with LEDs pose any danger when exceeding "equivalent" figures.
Sorry I don't have an answer on this, but I've been considering LED replacements for cfls. Reflector (par) bulbs have always seemed needlessly complex- replacing the reflector along with the bulb is a waste. Did you price out an option that uses non reflector bulbs with new baffles?
I posted this earlier in "Green Living," but no one replied, so perhaps this forum will be a better venue:
I have about 25-30 PAR38/R40 recessed cans at my house. They are currently burning a mix of 90 Watt PAR38 and 100 Watt R40 lights. And they are on about 8 hours a day.
I don't care for CFLs as every CFL PAR38 bulb I have tried had three major problems -- they took a long time to reach full intensity, gave off horrible light quality (even ones claimed to be 2700K) and died A LOT sooner than the claimed lifespan.
I am considering replacing the current PAR38/R40 halogen/incandescents with LED lights. While the latter are quite expensive ($40-50 per bulb, so I am looking at $1500 max), I like several of the benefits such as more rapid warm up to full intensity (.25 to .5 second as I understand), lower energy consumption and better color quality than CFLs.
I have two questions to anyone out there who might be knowledgeable about such bulbs. First, how do LED lights compare in quality to halogen? The ones I found have CRI of 85 (both 2700K and 3000K). Obviously halogen has 100 while the CFLs I tried in the past had 80-82. Will they seem "pretty close" to halogen and substantially better than CFLs in terms of light quality? Jump from CRI 80-82 to 85 doesn't seem like much.
Second, lumens. Most 90 Watt PAR38 Halogen equivalent LEDs (18 Watts) seem to have considerably fewer lumens than the halogen (around 1300 lumens vs. 850-1000 lumens). I may have to up the wattage in my LEDs to around 19-24 watts to achieve 1300 lumens plus. Is that safe in recessed can meant for 90 Watt PAR38 halogen/100 Watt R40 incan? I am asking whether the spikes/heat with LEDs pose any danger when exceeding "equivalent" figures.
My main concern is light quality (CRI) rather than brightness (lumens). I read that LED quality is much closer to halogen/incan than CFL. Yet CFL is around 82 CRI and LED is around 85. So I am wondering whether a CRI improvement of 3 makes really that much of a difference.
Once you get away from incandescent forms of illumination and arc lamps, color temperature and light quality are horrid approximations at best. Sad to say, about the best full spectrum light I have ever seen comes from the old doped carbon arcs used in movie theatres. The rare earths added to them make them a no-go today. Second in line are the hp xenon shrouded short arcs. Only then do we get to halogens and full wattage classic incandescents. With CFLs, approximations have to be made with mixing phosphors, but those result in peaks at certain colors and valleys elsewhere. LEDs are somewhat similar although not quite as spikey.
Bottom line, if you have artwork or are sensitive to variations in color, anything less than halogen is not going to be fully satisfactory. Read that line again. There is no way to properly display color artwork with CFL or LED (unless, I suppose, that the artist painted it under such light).
We have some can lights. I have a love/hate relationship with them. They look decent, do the job, but raise issues with insulation and insects, and will kill most CFLs on short order. The ONLY reflector CFLs that I have ever had that held up are the Philips brand. Even with those, a percentage will fail early, but the bulk will last for years. Color is an issue.
Bottom line, if you have artwork or are sensitive to variations in color, anything less than halogen is not going to be fully satisfactory. Read that line again. There is no way to properly display color artwork with CFL or LED (unless, I suppose, that the artist painted it under such light).
So in your view LEDs and CFLs are not all that different in light quality? I was hopeful about LEDs because I have seen a number of reviews that suggest LEDs are a substantial improvement in light quality from CFLs.
In my view, neither are sufficient for art, and there are enough tell-tales that I can generally notice differences. I don't care for that spectral examination on the site you provide. There are industry standards and that is more a consumer gloss.
Very rarely on the net, I run across someone who simply knocks a subject out of the park consistently, to the point that I don't even bother to cross reference and do checking of the statements. One of those people is Don Klipstein. Don's homepage! Go there, browse around. If Don says something different than what I'm saying, follow his advice.
All I can add is ain't government wonderful! They tell us what lightbulbs to ues, what to eat, and regulate us to death. They take our hard earned dollars, devalue them and give them away to foreign governments that hate us. They will not be happy until we are back to a sun up, sun down existence. Raw foods and no cooking allowed. Not sure what they will allow us to wear. No fur.
Back to the forest. Live under a leaf. The 25th century won't look like Star Trek. It will resemble 1,000,000 B.C.
Gets down off soap box as the government guy is taking it away as it was not made with recycled wood.
Sits on the ground and chews on a soylent green bar.
I was at a demo last week of the philips ones and they looked darn good. Excellent color
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