Anyone tried these units? [URL]http://www.hotbeam.com/cool.light/1lighting-14TRB.cfm[/URL]
High brightness and high heat means that it has a substantial power consumption otherwise it would not need a massive heat sink. So how does it follow that it will consume low amounts of energy. The energy consumption per lumen is probably far more than its halogen cousin. Then comes the price .... which defeats the entire excercise in total.
Better white then usual halogens, and the ones with the blue reflector to try to correct the colour usually are pretty expensive. Also, if you want coloured lighting for whatever reason then leds are way more efficiant then making orange light and filtering out everything that you dont want.
I have 60 degree downlights installed in 2700mm (9 foot (old tongue)) ceiling. When they are dimmed there are noticable pools / beams of light on the floor and other surfaces. 30 degree beam spread would be like a spot light in comparison, ie a lot worse... LED has come a long way. It still has a way to go, however, it does look like LED will be the way of the future ?
I'll comment on some of their claims, as provided by their website : LED brightness/output: warm white (120 lumens) Considering that a 50W halogen is 900 lumens, and a 50W IRC halogen is 1250 lumens... then you will need between 7.5 and 10 times more of these to illuminate a room to the same light levels as halogen. Lamp power consumption 4w 120 lm / 4W = 30 lumens per watt 1250lm / 50W = 25 lumens per watt for IRC Halogen But I doubt their claim somewhat, since they are probably 3 x 1W LEDs and they are only claiming 1W loss from the integrated 12V -> Constant Current converter? Remember that they also need a ELV Transformer (but so does 12V Halogen) Long operating Life ~35,000 hrs The blue LEDs will probably still be operating, but the yellow phosphor that creates the "white" light will be significantly depreciated at that stage. Also, the light output will be approximately half the initial levels (maybe even less). Further, one of their other products http://www.hotbeam.com/cool.light/1lighting-3GAL.cfm claims "equivalent output to a 20W Halogen". They claim the 3W unit is rated 63 or 73 lumens and the 5/7W is 230 lumens - considering that a 20W 12V halogen is 320 lumens and a 25W 12V IRC halogen is 500 lumens, they are not exactly telling the truth about that are they? So, the product is nothing special - in fact similar things have been available for many years (and are rarely if ever considered economically viable). And every time one of these suppliers make "dubious claims" about performance they lose huge credibility with the professional lighting industry. So, if it was MY money, I'd be buying such things from a more "well-known" lamp manufacturer Further, there is not much advantage of such a "retrofit" product, compared to a properly engineered LED solution. Why convert from 240V to 12V AC, and then convert again to Constant Current to suit the LED - this just adds cost and efficiency losses. Much better to use light fittings that are designed for LEDs, and use optimised driver circuits. If you want ENERGY EFFICIENCY, then Compact Fluorescents will currently give you far more "bang for youir bucks". The only consideration is that you cannot get the beam control with CFL unless you use a large reflector, since the reflector size needs to be at LEAST 7 times the diameter of the light source to have any hope of properly controlling the light distribution. LEDs do have their place - they are especially great in monochromatic situations like signalling (traffic lights), and in display lighting, etc. LEDs are also excellent when you need a small BRIGHT (intense) light source, since they are tiny. But that that tiny size causes all manner of problems with glare in general lighting applications, and the efficiency and colour stability of white lamps is far from optimal. And there is a significant issue with heat... LEDs do not perform well if they get hot (and you should feel how hot even a 1W LED gets when running without heatsink!) Cheers, John
Hey tobex, Cut him some slack, JohnC is a lighting guy. They don't have too much in the "interesting" category, to work with... {Hey, would someone let me know if I am showing my age by using punctuation in my posts ?}
