Pretty Inexpensive LED Bulbs...
 

Searching through ebay, I came across what looks like a pretty good bulb at a very good price (Approximately US $5.85, free shipping).

So, I ordered 4 of them.

I have ordered a goodly amount of electronics stuff from China, and have had very good results. Shipping time can be pretty long, from 4 days to 4 weeks.

I will report on the results.

-AC_Hacker

back in the spring I found these at costco. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-t...0/IMG_4782.JPG

$14 for the 3 pack I think. They were quickly voted out of the dining room as not being bright enough and I agreed but they work nicely beside the bed as a reading light at night. they do dim with a dimmer switch but at too low a setting they flash on and off. Same with the 3 way switch beside the bed. Lowest setting is mostly off flashing every 3 or 4 seconds...

My first time! (With 120vac LED bulbs)!
 

I found some nice 40w LED lamps at Lowes,
Shop Utilitech 40-Watt Equivalent Indoor Warm White LED Light Bulb at Lowes.com

Amazon.com: LED 40 Watt Equivalent 7.5 Watt 430 Lumen A19 Dimmable Light Bulb 3000K: Home & Garden

Even with the Vet discount, still not real cheap, but they seem pretty nice.
Only have a little pulsing when the dimmer is set around 20%.
I put five in the light fixture above the kitchen table.

Nice light, not hard on the eyes like some of the CFLs.

I got these to replace the dimmable semi-flood CFLs in this fixture.
My wife didn't like them at all. They directed downwards too much
and the warm-up factor wasn't liked. (I didn't mind). :p

It's still daytime now, but these already look like they might really be equal to incandescent 40w bulbs.

I've also noticed one other neat factor, the RFI does not interfere with the TED,
and does not jam the AM radio. The AM loopstick antenna is about 6' from the fixture.

I have to wonder if they are really 500 lumins at only 6 watts, I figure 70 lumins per watt i really good and these are over 80 lumins per watt.
I also wonder how accurate the color temp is.

I think the spec said 7.5 watts.. Which would have my 5 bulb fixture using 37.5 watts.
So, turning that down to 25%, must be about 9.4 watts..

So, my 600w light dimmer is hardly even seeing the load.
No wonder the lights(LED lamps) are blinking at low power!

I wanted to temporarily install in a plain Off-on switch, but my wife says
they are too bright to leave on full, while we are eating etc!
So, If I install the switch, I'll need to remove a couple of LED lamps! :rolleyes:

We never had an overly bright problem with the five 50w-eq CFLs!
I just put one of those cute little 50w CFLs in my computer room lamp..
WHAT A JOKE!! It's more like a 2 D cell flashlight with old batteries!
The 100w eq pigtail lamp is now back in that socket!

I have two lamps in the house that get a lot of use.
One in the living room and one in the den. Right now, they are running
100w pigtails, burning 23 watts. I would love to replace those two
with some new LEDs, but to get that kind of wattage isn't going to be cheap..

~~~
I don't really know what "color temp" is, but I can tell you the fresh corn on the cob looked
nice and yellow (and buttered up), like it should..
And my BBQ Propane grilled salmon looked the same as usual. It all tasted as good as it looked. :)

Lutron LGCL-153PLH-WH
 

Picked up an LED & CLF compatible dimmer at Lowes, and the new LEDs still strobe at one brightness setting..

The new dimmer has a neat little trimmer adjustment that you can tweak (with cover plate removed),
so that the LEDs can stay on at the lowest brightness setting.
So, when you come in and hit the On-Off button, you know if it's really On or not.. :)
Installed with included wire nuts.

http://images.lowes.com/product/conv...57979450xl.jpg

PS:

Yesterday, Walmart had a display out with 40W eq LED bulbs on sale for less than $10.00 each.
I can't recall for sure, but I think that 'brand' might have had some poor reviews..

Color temperature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Those LEDs are in the 6,000 to 8,000k range... that is a very blue light, incandescent lights tend to be 2,700k and the higher the number the more white/blue the light tends to be, lower the number the more yellow it tends to be.

I double checked and they are 6 watt, so if their lumin output is what they claim then those are some impressive bulbs, of course the higher the color temp the easier it is to get the LED brighter.

I don't mind the crisp slightly blue light of some LED's but my house mate does not like it, so I have a few that are acceptable by her standards but they also tend to be pricier.

Wiki says "2,700–3,300 K Incandescent light bulb"..

The LED blub spec says "Color Temperature (Kelvins) 3000.0"
so maybe these are closer to incandescent than some others..

They sure look a lot like the old 40w bulbs.. ;)

Just a footnote about colour temp. Next time you're in a supermarket look up, most of the fixtures will be equipped wth CW (cool white) flourescents, but over the meat department you'll see WW (warm white) lamps: meat looks dark brown under CW lamps! Retailers in various sectors will use a blend of lamps with different colour temps to their advantage.
In the home colour temps can change the look of paint on the walls, upholstery, and even clothing, an item that looked nice in the store may look completely different at home.

You can use the warmer lights to do just that, psychologically, you can "warm up" your living spaces with the right lighting, it's all about perception.

Since LED and CFL lamps both have similar efficiencies you would need roughly the same wattage for both. There were 13 watt LED lamps rated to work with a dimmer that I saw at Menards but I haven't bought any because I've got everything covered with CFLs already, they are the same efficiency(at least close enough to not replace a good working CFL with an LED), and I have yet to had any of the CFLs I've bought in the last 4 years burn out beside one specific brand's CFL bathroom globe lamps that were a bad experience, I use LED in my bathroom since the on duration is so short for a bathroom that they make much more sense to be there because of the emissive degradation of short cycling a CFL.

As far as color temperature, bluer color temperatures look bad if the total light luminance is too dim for the eye. Since I used one step up when I swapped from incan. lamps to CFL and LEDs using a 3000k seems more ideal than a 2700k which looks too red, drab, and stressful to the eye for me.