[ale] OT Just bought my 1st & 2nd "lighting-class" LED bulbs

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd throw this out there since you guys like geeky stuff.  I just bought my 1st & 2nd "lighting-class" LED bulbs.  I have a couple of fixtures that are hard to get to and work with to replace bulbs on my porch.  For some time, those bulbs have been out and we've been using a free standing lamp out there.  Today, I decided to take the leap and try LED.  I've only had the product open for a little while and have been testing it in a table lamp, but my initial reaction is that I'm VERY impressed.  At $ 13 / bulb, I won't be replacing all my CFL's yet, but maybe one at a time when they burn out.  The porch lights have to wait until I deal with some uninvited wasps that are there.

This is the Cree warm white 2700 K color temperature 60 W bulb replacement from Home Depot.  The appearance and shape is like a standard incandescent bulb and this particular one puts out a pretty omnidirectional light.  Right on the top of the bulb is a small area of dimness at the top of the "LED Filament Tower", but otherwise, I wouldn't know it's not a standard bulb by looking at its light.

This bulb has some really cool features:

* It uses just 9.5 W of power to provide the equivalent of 60 W of incandescent light.

* It's warranted for 10 years at 6 hrs / day (with proof of purchase).  This works out to 25,000 hrs.  This is 20X the life of an incandescent and 2X the life of a GOOD CFL.

* You can touch the bulb, even hold it, while running; and your hand will get warm but not burned.  However, DON'T touch the heat sink directly.  This is about hot enough to burn you.  Another Home Depot shopper gave me that tip.

* It has a rubber safety coating on the class bulb with a kind of tacky feeling, like a rubber jar opener or something.  Should be less likely to break and less dangerous if it does.  The instructions don't recommend running it with a broken glass casing.

* There is no mercury or lead in it.

* And, it is DIMMABLE with a STANDARD dimmer.  This is very cool.  I had uninstalled 3 dimmers in my house when I went to using CFL's.  Maybe, eventually, I'll be able to put them back.  This also means you could put it on a photocell, or motion detector.

So, even though I've only had the product a few hours, at this point, I highly recommend it.  Hopefully, the prices will keep coming down.

Sincerely,

Ron



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Ron Frazier
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