Posted: 7/17/2016 12:51:40 PM EDT
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Wow, with the proliferation of LED lights for residential use, efficiencies have gone way up and cost down. Selection of various form factors is huge.
Many can be adapted to be powered from 12VDC. Often using the inexpensive switching power supplies on eBay that have constant current and voltage functions. Here's an installation I did yesterday in the shipping container we live in a lot, in the bathroom where, over the years, we first used a compact florescent, then upgraded to an LED flood light, now this new ~18" round light... Originally the light was mounted in an old-timey wall mount socket -see last picture. A few mods were needed on the new round light to dress the wires and a 5" by 26 inch aluminum bracket was sheared and bent to mount it. The bathroom is tiny, being in a shipping container, the RV style toilet in under the light and the 2' x 4' shower is to the right. Note the macerator pump and holding tank camera controls... 
No flash. My SO loves the new light... Last night I came down from the barn and she was cleaning the bathroom with Clorox and all her cleaning stuff... 
We use remote controls that have remote wall switches for convenient wiring... These are 2 of the remote base controls... 
Finally, this socket and flood is what we used for years to light the bathroom. The new light is super bright and wonderful. The socket was mounted on the sidewall to the left and pointed horizontally over the toilet to the shower.... The last lights drew CF [30 watts] the LED flood 15 watts, this new one about 30 watts. Use is intermittent so no big deal. 
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LOVE the newer LED bulbs. Replacing a lot of assorted incandescent and fluorescent bulbs at the apartment and house.
Been slow, starting with the Cree bulbs for about $10 each a few years ago. Mainly 75w= ones for the yard lights. Now with Phillips 60w equivs being $2.50 each at HD for the slightly better ones, I've replaced almost everything now. Biggest thing, THROW AWAY those Mag Lites. Even the LED conversion kits suck. Also, giant/heavy flashlights that take D's and C's aren't very useful as just a source of light. Been slowly replacing flashlights with decent LED ones that take AA or AAA batteries. Sometimes CR123's. |
| Another nice thing with LEDs now is they are dimmable. We had a couple lights that we use on dimmers as well as outside coach lights that run on a dim setting and then full power when they see motion. A 40-watt LED equivalent uses 6 watts on full power and 3-watts when dim. It's funny in the winter now however that you need to wipe snow off the lamps outside as they are not warm enough to melt the snow anymore! It's a huge problem with street lights too! |
| At the beginning of the year I found a deal on dimmable 60 watt equivalent 9.5 watt actual LED lamps for $1.88 each. I bought three cases and changed out almost all of the lamps in my house with them, a lot of the lights had 13 watt compact fluorescent lamps before the change. I went from 1480 watts worth of lamps to 418 watts, plus the LED lamps are far brighter than the old compact fluorescents. |
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Quoted:
Another nice thing with LEDs now is they are dimmable. We had a couple lights that we use on dimmers as well as outside coach lights that run on a dim setting and then full power when they see motion. A 40-watt LED equivalent uses 6 watts on full power and 3-watts when dim. It's funny in the winter now however that you need to wipe snow off the lamps outside as they are not warm enough to melt the snow anymore! It's a huge problem with street lights too! One point about dimming LEDs - your dimmers, even the new digital ones, are limited to basically the same number lights as they would be with incandescents (generally around 6 lights). Switches aren't a problem at all, but try to run more than 6-8 LED lamps on a dimmer, and you'll usually find that you have a much larger voltage drop than expected - the last ones on the loop will likely start to behave erratically. In small numbers, though, they dim rather nicely 
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Quoted:
LOVE the newer LED bulbs. Replacing a lot of assorted incandescent and fluorescent bulbs at the apartment and house. Been slow, starting with the Cree bulbs for about $10 each a few years ago. Mainly 75w= ones for the yard lights. Now with Phillips 60w equivs being $2.50 each at HD for the slightly better ones, I've replaced almost everything now. Biggest thing, THROW AWAY those Mag Lites. Even the LED conversion kits suck. Also, giant/heavy flashlights that take D's and C's aren't very useful as just a source of light. Been slowly replacing flashlights with decent LED ones that take AA or AAA batteries. Sometimes CR123's. I have a few cheap Defiant brand 3 d cell flash lights from Lowes. Those things throw some light |
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Leds are great but they do not last as long as promised, not even close.
I have spent the money on the GE with Crees and had them fail less than a year, I just get the cheap ones since you have to replace them. The do use a lot less power and make less heat-great for large houses |
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I'll keep my 3 D cell factory LED maglite thank you very much... Thing lasts 1.5-2 years before I have to even think about new batteries and its bright as all hell! Decent noggin knocker too!
Been replacing the crazy amount of incandescent bulbs in our new house with sylvania LED (think I got that spelling close). I'm happy so far. |