Tungsten? What's that? CFLs? On the way out! LED is the new king!!!

[Cooking Goddess]

I've been reluctant to switch our table lamps to the CFL style because we have a cat who gets possessed on occasion. I just know she'll knock a lamp over, break a bulb, I'll have to call in the hazmat team and we'll get hit with a large hazardous waste fee. Now that the price of LEDs have dropped a lot I'll be switching over to those.

 

[Dawgluver]

yer darn tootin'!

i looked into buying my boy an easy bake oven a few years ago when he became interested in cooking. the only ones available wete pink and advertised only for girls.

how reverse chauvanistic is that? or would that still just be regular chauvamistic, expecting only young girls to be interested in baking.

anywho, some kid started a campaign to make an easy bake for boys, or at least a gender neutral one for all.

i think they should make a version that's black with red racing flames and white "go faster" stripes over the top for boys.

i think the latest ones use some kind of heating element instead of a bulb, taking all of the fun out of it.

DH begged for an Easy Bake for Christmas when he was a kid. His folks got him one, but made him open it in the attic.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Part 4: how to replace a square base fluorescent can lamp with an LED can lamp

The square base lamps present an additional problem because the LED kits are designed for screw in lamp replacement and won't mate with the square base sockets. Additionally the squares have a ballast built into the can assembly, which is incompatible with the LED kit.

(1) Drop down the trim ring, unhook it and discard it. Remove the square fluorescent fixture and dispose of it in an environmentally safe manner.

(2) Remove the 4 screws that attach the can to the can assembly. If you are working in a bathroom I suggest you cover the sink with a plastic bag so that dropped screws won't go down the drain, and close the toilet seat.

(3) Push the can up into the ceiling to expose access to the junction box and ballast. Remove the junction box cover (usually by depressing a clip) and set the cover aside. Locate the Romex cable coming into the box and note all connections are made by means of twist nuts. One of the incoming wires is attached to a wire leading to the lamp socket. The other wire is attached to a wire leading to the ballast: disconnect it. Locate the other wire leading to the lamp socket and disconnect that too. Cut off both ballast wires, you won't need them any more. Connect the remaining incoming wire to the remaining wire leading to the lamp socket by means of a twist nut.

(4) Push all the wires into the box and replace the junction box cover. Pull the can assembly down and reposition it to its original position. Note that I ran into a problem where the trim ring would not engage properly because the can was too far up into the ceiling. The correct position for the can will be where it is just barely recessed up into the ceiling, by perhaps about 1/8 inch. Tighten the four screws when you have positioned the can correctly.

(5) Cut off the old square socket as close to the socket as possible and strip the wires about 1/2 inch. Referring to the LED kit, locate the dongle and cut off the lamp screw base leaving as much wire as possible, and strip those wires too that same 1/2 inch. Attach the black wire from the dongle to the black wire from the can, and same for white to white. You can use screw nuts (easiest way) or perhaps you may use a butt splice (google that) and wrap with electrical tape. Since I'm an engineer I did it the best way, butt spliced the wires, soldered them, then insulated them with heat shrink tubing. Any of these ways should be fine although IMO the last method is best if you have the available tools. (You can shrink heat tubing with a kitchen match in a pinch.)

(6) Use Windex or other cleaning product to clean the ceiling around the can opening. The trim ring may not match the old trim exactly so this cleans off any dust or scruff.

(7) Pinch the clip wires of the new assembly on one side and engage them with the housing prongs.

(8) Mate the plug from the dongle with the plug from the LED assembly. (This is one of the most exciting steps of the whole process, mating the plugs. Actually the whole process is rather boring.)

(9) Engage the clips from the other side of the LED assembly with the can prongs. Shove the old socket on top and cram the whole thing back into the ceiling. You're done!!!

Reflect on the fact that now that darned fluorescent that always blinks 2-3 times before coming on is gone, as is gone the yellowish dingy light which is now a nice white color!

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Addie, I have expected that the payback will be much sooner than advertised, because the lamp manufacturers have to worst case it in order to avoid the possiblity of being accused of false advertising. Yes, electricity is expensive in Los Angeles, so energy savings cost is likely to be better than claimed too. I suspect that estimated lifetime is also rated conservatively for the same advertisinng reasons.

I expect my LED lamps will pay off much, much sooner than as advertised. Currently I have replaced 14 incandescent 65 watt lamps with 11 watt LED lamps. Yes they were expensive but every ceiling lamp in the house is now identical and emits a pleasing 3000K bright white light (pleasing to me), matches the 3000K table lamp LEDs, and there are no bulbs for bugs and lint to get behind. The new LED cans have an extremely clean look and are visually pleasing even when not illuminating.

There is no question that the new LEDs use only 1/6 the amount of energy (65 watts to 11 watts), but I suggest that the advertising claim that they produce equivalent light to the old 65 watt incandescents are incorrect. They look like 100 watt lamps to me!!! And as you pointed out, they produce very little heat so your air conditioner won't have to work as hard and you'll save energy there too.

My four kitchen ceiling lamps are actually almost overly bright even in the daytime! Together they consume 44 wats but the light they put out looks like 400 watts of incandescent to me. Perhaps the shift to a higher color temperature (bright white) accounts for part of that. I'll begin installing dimmers in the next day or two so I can create a perfect level of illumination for all situations.

I'm very pleased with the end result of my work of the last few days. All my lights and lamps are now bright white 3000K and the LED units won't require replacement for many, many years. This is my retirement home and I expect to enjoy my upgraded lighting for as long as I'm able to live unassisted so the investment is well worth it to me.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Bakechef and Fiona, we had an electric utility subsidiation here in Los Angeles too and I too replaced many of my incandescents with squirrels, except for the table lamps for which I required dimmer ability. At the time the squirrels did not play nice with dimmers, although present day squirrels (CFLs) are dimmable.

Tom, most of the modern CFLs are now as compact as the incandescent bulbs they replace. The LED bulbs are already size equivalent, although the sides generally have heat sink fins to cool the electronics. (LEDs also produce byproduct heat although way less than incandescents.) However they appear attractive and you seldom see the bulb directly. By the way, some LED bulb replacements feature a more omnidirectional light emission pattern in order to illuminate more uniformly when used in table lamps. I very much like the effect of the Feit Electronic omni LED bulbs I purchased at Costco. Again the 60 watt tungsten equivalents look like 100 watt incandescents to me, yet they consume only 13.5 watts!

Feit Electric 60 watt replacement #645592 sells at Costco for $13.

Feit Electric 40 watt 3-pack replacement #728181 sells at Costo for $20, that's $6.66 each.

Except for the heat fins they are practically interchangeable (mechanically) with incandescents. The 60s say they save $1.63 per year (3 hours operation per day), the 40s use 7.5 watts and claim $0.90 per year savings.

Considering the 40s as an example, $0.90 per year x 22.8 years estimated lifetime = $20.52 total energy savings, yet the LEDs cost $6.66 each! And that doesn't even consider the likely scenario that inflation will cost higher electric prices!

BTW Tom I'm so tired moving and replacing lighting fixtures and doing all the other stuff associated with my move that my brain spaces out from time to time and I was too weary to remember the correct term is "incandescent."

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

I've been reluctant to switch our table lamps to the CFL style because we have a cat who gets possessed on occasion. I just know she'll knock a lamp over, break a bulb, I'll have to call in the hazmat team and we'll get hit with a large hazardous waste fee. Now that the price of LEDs have dropped a lot I'll be switching over to those.

That's an excellent point! Most people dispose of CFLs and fluorescents by tossing them in the trash so even if they aren't broken they'll break when the trash truck picks up your trash, and that's more mercury going into the environment.

I have a bit of a complicated problem. When I sold my old house I took all my CFLs with me and filled all the sockets with incandescents. (I had them as spares when I switched to CFLs, saved them.) Even then I had boxes of new 60 and 100 watt incandescents, to cover my table lamps for which there were no good CFL dimmables at the time.

So now I have a batch of incandescents from the old house, all the incandescents from replacing them in the new house, plus all my old CFLs and even some of them unused!

I bet I got more light bulbs of various types than anybody else on the block!!!

My present plan is to toss all the small wattage incandescents, keep all the 60 and 100 watt incandescents, keep all the new incandescents, and consider for a time what their final disposition will be.

I'll keep all the new CFLs and cherry pick the old CFLs (some of them produce ugly light) and perhaps I can either donate them or give them to friends or neighbors who still use CFLs.

Maybe there will be a time when I can sell the new incandescents on eBay...

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Considering the 40s as an example, $0.90 per year x 22.8 years estimated lifetime = $20.52 total energy savings, yet the LEDs cost $6.66 each! And that doesn't even consider the likely scenario that inflation will cost higher electric prices!

I neglected an important calculation:

Regarding the above, the lamp costs $6.66 and saves $0.90 energy costs per year, $6.66 / $0.90 = payback in 7.4 years! And that's from energy saving alone, totally neglecting the 2-3 times an incandescent will burn out in that same 7.4 years, and a nice free benefit: you won't have to drive to the store and buy a lamp to replace the incandescent, and you won't have to spend the labor to unscrew the old one and screw in the new one.

I plan to live in my new house perhaps 25 years or more, so anything other than replacing all my lamps with LEDs is silly/stupid in my situation. I spent a lot of effort this week installing everything, but I can just forget about it for the next 20 years unless I knock over a table lamp and break the LED.

I can spend my time cooking instead of screwing light bulbs!!!

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

By the way, I rounded off the LED bulb prices to the nearest dollar so if anybody notices imprecise math (BT) that's the reason. Feit Electric 60 W $12.99, 40 W 3-pack $19.89, at Costco.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...Most people dispose of CFLs and fluorescents by tossing them in the trash so even if they aren't broken they'll break when the trash truck picks up your trash, and that's more mercury going into the environment....

Lowes provides recycling bins at all their stores' entrances that collect CFLs, rechargeable batteries and, I think, plastic bags. (I take bags back to grocery stores.) Don't know about that other home improvement store since our daughter works at Lowes. Lowes also price-matches the prices from the other store so if you're heading to one of them I hope it is Lowes. Just sayin'...

 

[buckytom]

lol, greg. fuzzy math or logic is a specialty of mine.

and most people would have no idea that tungsten is the filament in most old timey lamps.

it happens to he something i know more then i'd like about due to lighting on tv stages, and the literally hundreds, or maybe into the thousands of different types, sizes, and voltage lamps that computers have used since the early 60's.

the reason i mentioned leds not fitting all hoods/enclosures is that they can be a little longer than cfl or incandescent lamps such as in small fixtures in art deco recesses and ceiling fans, so you just have to measure.

btw, i'm amazed at how much work, calculations, and effort you've put into this project, and have shared with us.

kudos, and thanks.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

How many Greg's does it take to screw in a light bulb?

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Lowes provides recycling bins at all their stores' entrances that collect CFLs, rechargeable batteries and, I think, plastic bags. (I take bags back to grocery stores.) Don't know about that other home improvement store since our daughter works at Lowes. Lowes also price-matches the prices from the other store so if you're heading to one of them I hope it is Lowes. Just sayin'...

I'm going to give my good CFLs to my first friend that wants them. My GF hates anything but incandescent so I already told her she can have all my remaining incandescent from the old house plus I have a new 4-pack of 60W and a new 4-pack of 100W (maybe 95W). Gotta treat the GF good, right?

GF doesn't use floods (65W). I got about a dozen 65W incandescent floods for anybody at DC who lives in Santa Clarita Valley or San Fernando Valley who wants to meet me at In 'n Out, Carl's Jr. or Tommy's and buy me a hamburger and fries.

I have a bunch of CFLs I think I'll ask my new neighbors if they want. I have a few new ones I'll probably keep. I realize puttig an LED in the attic light was over the top. You use it like 30 minutes a year... I'll put a nice high intensity CFL there. My LED virginity is already tarnished by the 4 cool white fluorescents overhead in my garage.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

lol, greg. fuzzy math or logic is a specialty of mine.

and most people would have no idea that tungsten is the filament in most old timey lamps.

it happens to he something i know more then i'd like about due to lighting on tv stages, and the literally hundreds, or maybe into the thousands of different types, sizes, and voltage lamps that computers have used since the early 60's.

the reason i mentioned leds not fitting all hoods/enclosures is that they can be a little longer than cfl or incandescent lamps such as in small fixtures in art deco recesses and ceiling fans, so you just have to measure.

btw, i'm amazed at how much work, calculations, and effort you've put into this project, and have shared with us.

kudos, and thanks.

Thanks BT for the compliment. I'm doing the work and calculations, and the work to reduce the process into step by step, partly to commemorate my returning to regluar posting on DC, and partly if you learn something by your labor, why not pass it on and help other people get the benefit too?

If I didn't care about other people I'd just chuck the whole lot into trash