Do they deliver as advertised ?

Bought one and put it in a recessed light above our washer and dryer.

Much whiter and brighter but at 30$ for a 75 watt spot light ...

We have 3 recessed lights above our washer/dryer and 3 more above the kitchen counter, don't mind paying 150$ for the next 5 because the lighting is much better ...

unless it's a scam

CFLs are better than LEDs for now. Doesn't mean LEDs are bad, but they still need to be developed more to get better quality light at a cheaper price.

I bought a pack of LED bulbs from SAMs club a year ago.  Every damn one burned out in less than 6 months.



I wouldn't rate CFLs as better, but they are cheaper.



I'm going to go Amish and put in gas lights.....ha.



 

I put CFLs in the house a year and a half ago, and about 30% of them have burned out since. Replaced with incandescent.

60 watt equivalent is BS, you need about a 75w equivalent to get the same amount of light as a 60w incan.

Wow, most of my Panasonic CFLs are 5-6 years old.  I've had 2 out of 25 or so go dead in that time.  I wish they still made that bulb.

I have a bunch of cheapo GE CFLs and none of them have burned out.   Where are you guys getting your bulbs?

I want to put LED lighting over my soon to be built workbench, so Im going to keep an eye on this thread.

My old man bought some of those LED array lights from Sams a few years ago for the can lights under the soffit surrounding his house.  They have been turned on (constantly) for at least a few years now, and they all still work.

The light spectrum they put out does leave a lot to be desired though.

I don't understand why these guys have so many burned out CFLs. None of mine have burned out and they've been used for years.

 

LED's are having a problem with longevity. Sure, they last 2 billion hours. However, some of them don't produce much usable light after a few hundred hours. Quality counts!

I have a string of Christmas LED lights I purchased last year. The purple ones are nearly out.

The same goes for my LED floodlight in my den. It's lost much of it's original brightness. Plus the color temperature sucks.

There are some really high quality LED's that are being installed in industrial fixtures. They have excellent color rendition (high CRI) and they do last a long time. However, they are not the typical "overdriven" low quality, cheap, Chinese LED's that you are likely to come across.

Home Depot sells some recessed lighting LED's. They get fair reviews. However, they are not cheap, and I am not convinced they will outlast a very high quality CFL, such as the instant on Sylvania's sold at Lowes (seem to the be the highest quality ones).

The idea of LED retrofit lamps for incandescent lamps is a flawed one as incandescent fixtures were not designed to dissipate heat in the way that a LED needs to dissipate it. In addition, the circuitry needed to rectify and step down household 115VAC to a usable DC voltage for the LED has to be integrated into the LED lamp itself. Now we have the LED, rectifier, and step-down converter generating lots of heat in a small enclosed package. Assuming the manufacturer heatsinked the LED replacement lamp up the wazoo, you might end up with a reasonably long life bulb if you have a fixture that allows for decent airflow around the LED lamp so the heat sink can do its job. Unfortunately, many incandescent fixtures do not allow adequate airflow. Hence I am not the least bit surprised to hear about early failures, even with the better LED replacement lamps. LED lighting really needs a purpose built fixture to live up to its potential.


The issue of dispersion is another problem as LEDs do not radiate light in the same way the Incandescent bulbs. Put an LED in a fixture designed around an incandescent lamp and it will not do as good of a job of lighting up an area.

Inconsistent color temperature should be less of a problem now than it used to be but  you might still notice it depending on how well the mfg binned their LEDs.

I myself will stick with CFLs for now.

.

When I moved from one apt to another 3 years ago I took all my CFLs with me.  They all still work.

I plan on doing the same thing.   I kept all of the original bulbs I replaced.

ETA-  Im glad Im not the only cheap ass that thought of that.