LEDs

I used halogen 60W bulbs for the front, back and garage lights, I run them on timer switches all night long.
About 10 hours a day average, 180W an hour, 1.8KW a night. Each bulb about $4 each.
I tried a new Cree 60 LED when they first came out, we sold them at Home Depot, $14.99 ea.
Liked the Cree so much that I changed out the other two bulbs. Had two fail but get them replaced at the store.

The real saving is not the power but the bulbs, the halogens would last about four months average,
My bulb cost was $12 a year per fixture, $36 total per year plus getting the step ladder out and changing bulbs.
I used the Sylvania halogens because they run brigher and lasted longer then regular bulbs.

You can replace an old 150W halogen Par38 flood with a LED that uses about 10W,
if you run a pair all night long your saving 2.8KW a night in electricity usage.

I got two dozen bulbs no cost direct from Duke, about 1/3 of them failed early.
 
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Like any other consumable thing, there are cheap versions and there are good versions. When LEDs came out a decade or so ago, they were pretty exclusive cost-wise, and maintained a higher level of quality control. Now that LED’s are so popular, companies have trimmed production/quality control back to save money. That results in sporadic realizability.

I’ve had good success with LEDs around the house. Only some can light bulbs gave me some trouble. That’s about 2 out of maybe 50 or so that I have around the house of various sizes/types.
 
A word of caution with putting LED's into your garage door opener. Some can created radio interference with the receiver which will diminish the range of your remote control.
The led bulbs that cause these issues are the ones that are dimmable.
If you get non-dimmable led's these problems will go away.
 
Isn't there a World Record Incandescent Bulb still burning from like Edison's days at a Fire House somewhere? I think because of the low voltage and the way it was mfg'd, they said it would still light for quite a while.
Centennial bulb: http://centennialbulb.org

Another testament to "they don't make things like they used to"
 
I had 130V 100W commercial bulbs in the garage for over 30 years when I changed them out to LED.
 
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Electricity bills are usually one of my smallest, so while century old technology might not be “optimal”, it works pretty darn well, and I’m pretty sure the failure rate of these LEDs, and their upfront costs negates any actual dollar savings.
I can Only speak for me. I wanted More light and Way Less heat that I had. The HO fluoresences I had were 11 years old.
 
If you want REALLY bright lights, change the color temperature of your bulbs. I have used LED bulbs in my office for a while, but recently picked up a box of "Daylight" bulbs instead of the "Soft White" bulbs I have used before. The "Soft White" bulbs have the typical warm yellowish light while the "Daylight" bulbs put out a glaring white light that is so bright that it makes my eyes hurt.
 
I can Only speak for me. I wanted More light and Way Less heat that I had. The HO fluoresences I had were 11 years old.
I would have probably done the same thing. We were a little off topic on the replacement bulbs which don’t seem to last very long.
 
Almost every light fixture in my house is LED. In over 2 1/2 years I haven't changed a single one. These are all the cheap ones that Duke Power gave me as well. Maybe I've just had better luck than most, but the few that aren't will be eventually. The only reason my tube bulbs are still fluorescent is that Lowes didnt have the proper size LED to replace them with.
 
Holy cow! I had an outside CFL light that is possibly no longer manufactured burn out, so I went to Lowes and got a new twin spotlight fixture. Much to my amazement, they had LED spotlights, which are about 1/4th the weight of the traditional glass spotlights.
 
Holy cow! I had an outside CFL light that is possibly no longer manufactured burn out, so I went to Lowes and got a new twin spotlight fixture. Much to my amazement, they had LED spotlights, which are about 1/4th the weight of the traditional glass spotlights.
Yup, and at least when pulling up to our gate at night, it's instant-on and ultra bright- my wife likes to joke that angels suddenly started singing...

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Sold a bunch of Cree 150W LED replacements, they use about 10W each.
 
Looking at jumping into this myself.

Found some t8 sized dual sided/ended or whatever they are on amazon that Im looking at to swap in my basement fixtures. Currently the 2x4ft panels use 3 4ft bulbs, and two of the fixtures need ballasts swapped.looks like itll run me 80 bucks, and some time (ballast removal) and hopefully last a few years..was not looking forward to dropping 80 bux a fixture to just out right replace the entire thing.
 
. Before the conversion they were pulling 34 amps on a 40 amp breaker and afterwards they pull 11 amps on the same 40 amp breaker so the cost to operate should be substantially lower.
Great news!!!!!!!
LED's are MUCH, MUCH brighter.
Really it's hard to try to tell how Much brighter!! Amazing.
 
I finally found some time to get my LED conversion lights installed.. SO NICE!!! got about another dozen in the house/garage to swap out...
 
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Somebody post a link to the lights you’re replacing your shop lights with. Been wanting to do this
 
Lowes doesn't carry the ones I bought anymore (~2 years ago)--they were about $8 or $9. Home Depot has a good offering though:

3' 3000 lumen for $10: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commerc...ght-with-Power-Cord-SHOP-3X1-840-HD/305059320
4' 1850 lumen for $12: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commerc...lity-LED-Shop-Light-SHOP-4X1-840-HD/306380608

I can't remember the brand of the ones I got from Lowes, but they were more along the type of the 4' option from HD. They are bright as heck. I can land airplanes in my 10x10 tool room. I would even put them in my garage if I didn't already have other lights in there.
 
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Reviving this old thread, back from the dead!

I am looking for some quality LED bulbs to replace several different size florescents we have around the house/garage. I know the LEDs themselves will last a long time, but the rest of the stuff seems to be where the bulbs fail. So who makes good ones these days? I need 2ft and 4 ft bulbs.
 
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