banzai
Well-Known Member
18 months ago I wouldn't have seriously considered this change as the technology wasn't quite up to my likingDefinitely interested in how these turn out. I've replaced all the globes in my house with LED globes and have been waiting for the right price and technology to swap out the bike too. Currently running Narva arctic ice globes in the bike with no issues, if they go, I'll try these.
At home I replaced all of the halogen down lights with LEDs last year and a couple of months ago I replaced all of the round flouro tubes with LEDs. There are only two lights left at home that aren't LED and that is only because I can't get LEDs for one of them and the other is a low wattage floor lamp that rarely gets used. I doubt I'll ever need to change a light at home ever again. It will take 3 or 4 years to recover the purchase prices from electricity savings but add the reduced maintenance costs and LEDs really do make a lot of sense. While it may not make sense to replace old light with LED just because you can, it makes a lot more sense if you replace blown bulbs with LED.
I've been keeping an eye on LEDs for a while, watching the performance increase as the prices drop, sorta like Moore's Law applied to lighting. I believe the performance is now better than incandescents and at least as good as HID with considerably lower operating costs than either.
At work all of the emergency and exit lighting has been changed to LED and flouro tubes are being replaced with LED equivalents when they fail. In the TV studios at work I am currently pricing up replacements for all of our old incandescent lights. Even in our small studio where we can cut the old 30-odd kW load back to less than 10kw and make an even greater reduction in air-con load the savings are soon amortised. In a grid of maybe 50 tungsten lights the globes or strips, that cost $20 or $30 each, need to be replaced, on average, twice a year. There is the required labour to change them plus the risk to program quality when they do fail. Add all of that up and the conversion to LED starts to make a lot of sense thanks to lower running costs and added reliability.