Curious on everyones thoughts here on the seeming impending death of incandescent light bulbs in the US. With the 2007 law passed that essentially bans incandescent bulbs by 2014, what are everyones thoughts on this? GE has already closed their last major incandescent plant in the US:
I know many of us use dimmers. I’m in the position of still building out my network. I like having dimmers in all my rooms, but I have been toying with the idea of only buying on/off switches from now on. I’d hate to buy dimmers for every room, and have them not work anymore after the switch to CFL/LED.
I know there are dimmable CFLs, however does anyone know how these react with the GE dimmers that lack the neutral wire connection? The only thing I hate is that the dimmable CFLs are much more expensive than the regular CFLs.
Hi,
Juste be very careful with dimmable CFLs. Many of these are “dimmable except with eletronic variators” (which essentially are home automation dimmers in z-wave or X10).
At least this is the case in Europe (where bulbs are also being banned year by year, it has already started with 120W bulbs).
There are very few dimmable lights compatible with home automation devices to my knowledge. I struggled for example to find (good) led spots compatible with my X10/Z-wave dimmers. Only one line of product has passed the test: the “Master Led” series from Philips (altough i kinda doubt they are available in 110V).
Another point, whichever technology you use, is that most home auto dimmers have a “minimum power” rating (basically, they don’t work if the bulb doesn’t consume enough). I have had the issue precisely with the power leds: only one bulbs draws 7W, but my dimmer is rated for 20W minimum…
Also: how do you like the color temperature? Not all 3000 K rated bulbs are created equal.
LEDs vary widely (wildly!) in their color output making them almost unusable in my residential application, even when I’ve been willing to overlook the exorbitant price.
That’s only equiv to a 40 watt bulb. Not very bright and 18.47 Each…OUCHHHH
Nothing will dim to the same range that of an incandescant at this time. Generally it’s about 15- 60% brightness to full with LED and less with CFL.
I wonder when Ge will come out with a made for CFL dimmer. I have used Lutrons made for CFL with a 2 wire dimming ballast( no special wireing needed and they work wonderful. A bit pricey though.
I also bought one of these to try out. I like it a lot better than the equivalent bulb sold by Lowe’s and made by Feit (the Feit bulb is a lot duller and not dimmable).
The bad news is this bulb does not work correctly on an Intermatic HA20C Z-wave dimming toggle switch. The bulb flickers and never turns completely off. It does dim on this switch, but never turns completely off. Oh well, maybe someday we will have a truly energy efficient bulb that works well with a dimmable Z-wave switch.
OK, tested the dimming down to 5% and there was no flicker what so ever. With the ACT ZDW120’s these work perfectly. The color is pretty white and it would have been nice if it was a bit more yellow. I can hear my wife complain already!!! LMAO. The good news for me is the hallway lights each had 2-60W bulbs with 4 lights. Thats 480W reduced to 72Watts!!!
One thing I did is modify the ramp rates so its on instantly and off. Works like a champ!
[quote=“wseverino, post:12, topic:166578”]OK, tested the dimming down to 5% and there was no flicker what so ever. With the ACT ZDW120’s these work perfectly. The color is pretty white and it would have been nice if it was a bit more yellow. I can hear my wife complain already!!! LMAO. The good news for me is the hallway lights each had 2-60W bulbs with 4 lights. Thats 480W reduced to 72Watts!!!
One thing I did is modify the ramp rates so its on instantly and off. Works like a champ![/quote]
I wish they made a toggle version of this switch. How do you modify the ramp rates?
Hey Severino,
Just a note. Although you have got the dimmer to work with the LED lamp you should be aware that certain dimmer types can create premature falure of Lamp/ ballast or transformer.
I have seen where inexperienced electricains fail to use a Lutron magnetic low voltage dimmer on a 12v MR-16 lamp fixture. The result was all fixtures burned out the 12v transformer. Yes it worked but it only lasted a couple of years. That is why companies make specific dimmers. Sometimes you get flicker, sometimes you get noise, sometimes you get overheated and burn out or melting.
Good point Z… For all low voltage lighting, you need to verify whether your fixture has a magnetic or electronic transformer and buy the respective dimmer. Note, you can have either a mag or elec xfmr on a mr16 fixture, although most these days use mag. You can occasionally control a magnetic LV fixture with an incandescent dimmer, but it shortens the life of the dimmer… We’ve done this in the past with specific dimmers when we’ve had mixed loads.
As for the death of incandescents in this country, I am fairly certain that Lutron won’t let this happen without having a dimmable cfl/led that will work with their incandescent dimmers/modules first. As much as Lutron has cost us in the zwave world, this is one of the few recognizable benefits.
I, for one, love incandescents, especially the GE Reveal.
Reports of the death of incandescents have been greatly exaggerated.
I tested both the Philips LED and the EcoSmart LED today. They both draw enough current when off to turn on a current-sensing lamp module - in other words they don’t work with Leviton lamp modules. As stated on the box, the Philips doesn’t dim. The EcoSmart does dim, but it buzzed like crazy at all levels of dimming with both Leviton lamp modules and with Intermatic wall dimmers. The light output of both was pretty meager - after all they only claim to be similar to a 40 watt bulb. The color temperature was too cool for my taste, but the spectrum was better than some of the earlier LEDs I’ve tested. And the price, at $18-$30 is still extremely high. Good luck ever making them pay for themselves.
Looks like I’ll be sticking with my incandescents and halogens for the foreseeable.
Last night I bought 4 of the new EcoSmart LED A19’s from Home Depot. Each uses 9Watts and provide 429 lumens each. The stadard 40Watt incandescents produce 500 lumens so in a single bulb lamp at full power there is a noticeable but small difference (mostly color). Good news is that they are dimmable, at least wtih my Lutron IR dimmers. Will be testing with the GE zwave dimmer this weekend.
In essence, the new bulbs are an LED SPOT with a frosted globe to diffuse the light. In a downlight situation like a standard table lamp, the light coming down is reflected downward only by the lampshade because the LED’s are in a single plane pointing UP. The 2/3rds spherical frosted globe can not redirect light around the base plane of the LED’s giving the bulb a ‘softer’ downlight appearance. In horizontal mode, there is a shadowing effect towards the socket which is more pronounced than for standard bulbs.
Light from the new bulbs is 3000K so it appears much whiter than normal incandescents, even whiter than ‘soft whites’ and more like CFL’s. Pricey - YES but if the life claims come even close to the 50,000 rated hours, they could outlive me.
(They do come with a 5 year guarantee so file your receipts)
Just thought I would revive this thread since I was in Home Depot this weekend and am seeing more and more dimmable LEDs, even direct replacements for recessed lights.
I currently use GE reveal incandescent on Leviton Vizia Incandescent Dimmers where light needs to be more atheistically pleasing e.g. dining room, living room, reading areas. I use CFLs in utilitarian areas e.g. hallway, front porch, laundry.
But if I could replace these lights with dimmable LEDs that come close to quality I would strongly consider the move as my bulbs die.
I’m not too concerned on minimum wattage since all of my dimming fixtures have at least two bulbs plugged in, but I wonder if it will shorten the life of my dimmer?
Also, I wrote an entry a while ago on Energy Federation. Quality lamp source.
.//A.
[quote=“tt55du, post:19, topic:166578”]Just thought I would revive this thread since I was in Home Depot this weekend and am seeing more and more dimmable LEDs, even direct replacements for recessed lights.
I currently use GE reveal incandescent on Leviton Vizia Incandescent Dimmers where light needs to be more atheistically pleasing e.g. dining room, living room, reading areas. I use CFLs in utilitarian areas e.g. hallway, front porch, laundry.
But if I could replace these lights with dimmable LEDs that come close to quality I would strongly consider the move as my bulbs die.
I’m not too concerned on minimum wattage since all of my dimming fixtures have at least two bulbs plugged in, but I wonder if it will shorten the life of my dimmer?