Sustainability vs Survivalist

Folks using gaming rigs are the minority. And then its not like they are running games 24/7, rather a few hours at most even for the addicts. Everyone is moving to laptops, surfaces, Ipads, fanless comps. Monitors today use more power than most computers outside of gaming rigs.

New fixtures 10X luminescent/WATT of florescent...



Either you slipped a digit(it happens, been there done that, or)

Dude at least make your exaggerated fibs believable instead of moron land.

Cree LED's(leaders in the world in LED technology due to their use of silicon carbide...) aren't even coming close to 2X better than florescent. On average they are at best MATCHING florescent.

Cree just came out with a 4' replacement for T8 4' tube.
2100lumens/21W or 100Lumens/W @3500K

Lets ignore the ancient T12 spec'd florescent.

"normal" T8 Florescent @3500K will generally be around 2800 lumens for 32Watts. Or a mere 12.5% less efficient. I have seen as low as 2400/32W and as high as 3000Lumens/32W

Now look at modern Florescent: T5
T5 from GE 26W producing 2640 lumens, Or 105Lumens/Watt.

In short MODERN Florescent 4' Industrial lights produce MORE lumens/WATT than the best LED equivalent.

Lumens/Watt.

Cree does have one R&D sample for industrial applications which is supposedly nearly 1.5X the best of florescent for lumens/watt. We shall see.

Where LED's mop up the floor on fluorescent is reliability(supposedly, but no one knows, and the LED's I own, sure as hell are not reliable yet.) The simple fact you can turn LED on/off without hurting them(much supposedly). No blasted ballasts. Ergo, why LED are much cheaper as turning them off in office buildings is now doable financially. Therefore saving 8 hours of run time everyday. Not true of 24/7 facilities, but still...

LED also is great for outdoor or high humidity environs unlike florescent. Bathrooms for instance. Cya, metal halide outdoor fixtures. Adios. Sodium vapor will still rule the roost as currently sodium vapor is still 2X better than anything LED oriented.

Fireflair wrote:Didn't know that about home power panels. I can't say I'm surprised by the information though.

It is estimated that phantom loads in the median household cost a few hundred dollars a year. I'll take the savings any way I can. And most homes don't use LED bulbs, heck, most don't even have florescent bulbs yet. But both are excellent upgrades that will save a bunch of money in the long term.

I work as an industrial electrical engineer, and one of my on going projects is replacing all the florescent bulbs. I've got some phenomenal high-bay light fixtures that used a tenth of the power that florescent bulbs do. And in the environment I am in, reducing lighting costs is a real money saver. Between reduced maintenance, better lighting, and less operating costs, it's a real win.

As for PCs, I happen to have metered mine. And as the other PCs in the house are my hand me downs, I imagine that they're in line with my current unit. My PC is a gaming machine, with multiple video cards, high end CPU, and a 1200 watt power supply. I shut mine down at night to reduce power usage. But I still see a power draw that is far more significant then any incandescent light bulb.

It runs at about 500 watts, routinely. Peaks at around 700 watts. And costs me about ten dollars a month to run. The other PCs are similar. All the computers in the house (6 of them), have LED monitors now. Getting rid of the CRT monitors was a great move.

I just got done replacing all of my T8 stuff with T5 in our engineering office. Will pay back in 1.5 years as I did all the work myself. I briefly looked at the 4' Cree replacement bulbs, but Damn, they want $40 for them and availability is a bitch.

Vastly cheaper to go with T5, over LED.

Oh, I agree that gamers make up a very small percentage of the computer user population. Probably <300 million world wide. I think it is more the aggregate usage of PC's in the house, having 6 of them, that adds to my electric bill. That and the fact that it's impossible to get the kids and wife to turn theirs off when they walk away from it for school, sleep or daily errands. So five of the machines typically run 24 hours a day, no matter how much I get after the wife and kids about it. My computer, unless I'm downloading or running a specific program, isn't on but for about 6 hours a day.

I haven't crunched all the numbers for brightness/watt/amp draw, as the project was begun before I hired on. What I do know is that we're using fewer fixtures of high bay LED's in place of the 8', 8 lamp florescent light fixtures. Roughly 1 LED high bay to 2 florescent fixtures. And on the production floor we have a perceived effect of greater lighting.

We don't have guys going up in man lifts, stopping production in the facility to change out bulbs. Rough life span is about 9,000 hours. I see twice that on the LEDs.

I know that the high bay lights we use are 100 lumens/watt. So your T5's have 5 more lumens/watt with about half the lifetime. I also know that the company suggests the current pull on these high bays is 1.5A. I'm sure some one can crunch the numbers on what florescent use...

Regardless, either one is a good change to make, as that was the point of the post. I use mainly CFL's in my home. In the bathroom and kitchen I have LED strips. My retirement home will probably be much along the same lines.

@Imaginos:

I think I'd heard about that farmer in a case study I had in college. Idaho, I think. But as I recall it, the numbers didn't work out for being cost effective. To install the needed coils and wire would cost far more then he might have saved on his annual electric bill. And he ended up getting caught to boot! You know those big companies, they watch every watt like a hawk.

More seriously, as I understand the transmission lines, they have been steadily monitored for so long that the companies have a very good idea of expected loading. Their monitoring software notices trends and eventually prods the company to investigate.

Very useful book just discovered by moi. kindle book. Locusts on the Horizon, by Plan B Writer's Alliance. $6.99 . This is proving a font of calm good sense and practical information rather than hair on fire stuff.

8 foot tubes

Ai carumba, no wonder you claimed $$$ savings. Didn't think there were still manufacturing facilities with these fixtures. Certainly are not where I live. Said facility would have saved a crap load of cash switching out those obsolete fixtures 20+ years ago. Not to mention the "new" 20 year old standard T8 bulbs last 3X as long as the ancient T12 8' tubes.

Yup, LED's able to jam pack them into a single fixture. Especially true in high bay manufacturing facilities where the light can spread from the single point source. Everyone is going to absolutely fall in love with CREE's/Panasonics's 25,000 lumen single fixtures. Not to mention they have CRI of 85-90+ compared to old school florescents CRI of only 50/60 or so. T8/T5 CRI is approx 65-80 or so depending on bulbs/ballasts bought. So the actual lumens for LED's produced will be more gentle on the human eyeballs and anyone who needs to know "real" color will be very appreciative.

T5's are rated for 36,000 hours. I have found the old ratings on T8 bulbs darned accurate. LED's claim around 25,000-50,000 hours depending on brand etc. Most flat out claim 50k hours. SNORT! I have had many fail after a measly couple hundred hours and they certainly CANNOT take ANY shock loading(fixtures near/under stairs for instance). But the 10X cost difference is simply not worth it. Give it 2-5 years and no one will be installing florescent without another breakthrough in efficiency.

PS. Don't mean to preach but as an ex-electrician/"industrial engineer", if you are going to be a good electrician, actually knowing lumens/CRI/watt is a rather basic knowledge base. As an Industrial electrician you will be called upon to power up/light displays, etc along with the mundane Industrial callings. This is rather critical. Why? How your company will SELL its products and how the display looks is rather important and higher mucky mucks will really appreciate correct lighting, not just "FLOOD" as the only option. I suggest knowing directional(anti glare) lighting/soft box effects as another knowledge base to add to your back pocket. Generally, you can get a free lighting seminar at your local light fixture retailer who generally sells to contractors, interior designers. Out here I can get such classes at both North Coast Electric and Seattle Lighting. Where you are? Who knows. Free class is HIGHLY recommended.

PPS: I worked as an "Industrial electrical engineer", AKA glorified electrician, while I went to college and have stayed abreast of the subject since then for a couple years before moving on. Worked at the company as both glorified electrician and mechanical engineer. Last 15 years as a mechanical engineer with only a passing touch on lighting concerns along with power efficiency though.

I work just south of Cincinnati, OH. And being an electrical engineer does mean glorified electrician! The only reason I get to stick engineer in the title, besides the job title having it, is that I have my degree and I do design the replacement systems we put in. My current main project is replacing a bunch of DC motors with magnetic controllers with AC motors and drives, controlled by PLCs. We've still got SLC100 and 500's in the facility. Just a few 5000's. Upgrading across the board is also giving me an excuse to rewire the joint.

You don't want to know how bad the facility is. Nothing is to code, AC on top of DC with control runs intermixed, including CAT5 and 6.

I spend half my time explaining ladder logic to the electrician's who maintain the facility, and helping them out of jams when they can't pin point which sensor is causing the problem.

In this particular application there is no concern with glare, etc. They just want light on the factory floor. No one comes in to see the pipe being made. No demos or displays to worry about either. I don't have a lot of practical experience with lighting, so we'll see how the LED project pans out.

If some one reminds me of this thread in a few years, I'll let you know how many of the high bay fixtures have had to be replaced. We've got three cranes running on a single set of rails in one building we're replacing the lights in, so lots of vibration. Air noise is very high as is humidity. I'm hopeful that we'll see good quality from these lights.

Yeah, 8 foot bulbs. All over the place. Not just the production floor, but in the shops and working spaces. We've got T8's in most of the offices, 4 foot. No plans, at this time, to replace them with LEDs. I've heard some complaints from people about LED's in offices. That there are frequent headaches. Have you heard about that?

Fireflair wrote:Yeah, 8 foot bulbs. All over the place. Not just the production floor, but in the shops and working spaces. We've got T8's in most of the offices, 4 foot. No plans, at this time, to replace them with LEDs. I've heard some complaints from people about LED's in offices. That there are frequent headaches. Have you heard about that?

Sorry, about the electrician comment! Some people who claim to be "Industrial electrical engineers", really are electrical technicians, but due to euphemism creep to glorify jobs such as "janitor" into sanitation engineer, yup it is one of those titles that can be both real and a euphemism.

Headaches:

Old 8' tubes had a very nice "soft" atmosphere. Bad true color CRI, but "soft" as the light is dispersed. Made for bare bulb factories/office space without the need for any anti glare baffling, opaque screens etc.

Headaches due to LED? Sorta. Yes/No. Depends several factors. Hear me out.

Gets back to glare problems as one now takes same number of lumens in a nice broad 4' x 4 bulb fixuture(my building) and concentrates them into a TIGHT point source. To combat this problem, one has to buy more expensive light fixtures that disperse the light. Some do, some are bare silicon. Another problem is that initial LED bulbs quite often have a very poor CRI spectrum, even though the outside of the package says otherwise. By this I mean that they have specific color frequencies. Narrow frequencies. Therefore the light is harsh. Sure, they "cover" the color spectrum, but for "most" of the spectrum it is empty.

Lets put this in a computer language scenario. A single range for the Red channel is 0-255 shades in an 8 bit channel. The old florescent would cover a bell curve in intensity of this channel from 0-255. LED's on the other hand will have say, 3 very intense spikes of this channel. Say a giant spike at 5, 125, and 200 and little or nothing else between 0-255. Just pulling numbers out of my A$$ as examples as I have not "calibrated it", but you get the point.

For this reason, CREE is way ahead of Panasonic. To get a semblance of a full color spectrum, Panasonic and others have to use phosphors, screens, etc to try and take their major "SPIKES" and spread them out. CREE originally had the exact same problem. I wasn't impressed with anyone's initial LED offerings. In fact, I originally had one of their CREE industrial 5000 lumens lights. Problem was it gave extremely narrow color spectrum. I threw it out. Then everything changed. CREE came up with some miracle in their silicon carbide processing and now have a mostly full to effectively completely full CRI. Still must be careful what you buy from them as it is still possible to get the old garbage. In fact, there is no reason to ever buy a halogen bulb ever again due to CREE's break throughs. They just came out with an MR16 replacement. Halogen is now officially dead other than $$$/bulb considerations. In my personal home, I have NO florescent as I do not want mercury and cadmium in my home.

Anyways, long way of saying, I fully believe the people who say the new bulbs are giving them headaches. Between the concentration of all those lumens into a single "point source" compared to a broad diffused surface and the possible limited color spectrum of the installed bulbs, I would believe them. My eyes are very sensitive. I get headaches even with soft light. I have weak eyes. So, yea, I notice, and put diffusers on the LED lights along with indirect lighting methods.

As far as I am concerned, if the LED bulb is not from CREE, it is not a viable bulb currently. Gotta be careful of which CREE bulb as well. They are NOT equal. Some are good, many are bad, some are ok. Maybe Sylvannia/Panny/GE came up with something new in the last few months I do not know about, but so far their current offerings are uninspired shall we say.

Some LED from CREE are great. Everything and Everyone else? Go elsewhere as far as I am concerned. Back to Florescent.

PS. I went to school at Cedarville University, just north of you by an hour to the East of Dayton.

Lots of fascinating information here, thanks for that.

Just for interest here we have -
Electricians who work on power installations (domestic or industrial). They are what we call trade qualified, by serving a 4 year apprenticeship at work while attending part time technical college. They are licenced to work with mains power, and may have additional certificates permitting specialised work.

Electrical Engineers who are professionals and University qualified. They do a full time theory course usually for 4 years. This does not qualify them automatically to work directly on real world electricity power systems. They do have design and project manager training and can design systems. They then can do a hands on course to get licensed to work directly on systems.

Nowadays the distinction is often blurred with some trade qualified electricians doing part time University courses to become professionally qualified engineers as well. Plus as stated the engineers can do a hands on course to get trade qualifications too.

Where it then gets further complicated is when either strand does other courses like radar, auto, electronics, instrument fitting, and so forth.

What I do find strange is that there is no particular qualification for working on electrical appliances when they are unplugged.

I was just commenting to some one about that last bit there. Appliances and general handyman repair work. So few people seem to be capable of that these days. With fewer every time I turn around.

Simple things, like replacing a cord, or a timer. Changing out a limit switch or replacing a fuse. This is stuff that I do all the time for myself and friends. But also is something I thought most people should be able to handle on their own. Alas, so is not the case.

I've got more then twenty years as an electrician. I hold an engineering degree in nuclear power. Only a few years as a salary/supervisor at this facility, as an engineer. I get in trouble all the time for being too hands on with projects. Upper management would rather engineers not lay hands on anything. At our facility I am one of the few who knows anything about fiber optics, not that we use it much. I've done a couple of certification courses through 3M, and through the company that manufactures the testing gear I use.

The electricians that work for me are going through training courses on Allen-Bradley PLCs, ladder logic and database building. There's a real problem with the union at the facility, they've held on to oldsters (no offense) who are great in their specialties (really specialized, like one guy only does motors, but he knows them better then he knows his own kids) but don't know a thing about newer tech. And refuse to learn it. The younger guys are willing to learn but have no practical experience. Makes life difficult at times.

I was really surprised to see 8' tubes here. I spent my first twenty years in the Navy, and the biggest bulbs we had were 20W 3', on my ship. When I separated I heard all about people with 'engineering' titles who had no degrees or experience. Honestly my job is a glorified electrician. Most of what I do for the facility is re-engineer existing systems with up to date components and materials. To reduce costs, down time, or improve functionality.

AKA

Paying the bills.