Replacing Lightbulbs

[bearriver]

Thanks. Her name was Charming. It was kindof a joke. She just recently had a one bad day at the vet. Cardiomyopathy.

[FtW]

LEDs aren't quite there yet for hydroponics, great for veg, not so much for flower. Tried 20 x 600w LED panels to replace 20 x 1000w HPS lighting & although things looked great through veg the end result was disappointing with the LEDs used all the way through.

[BaxtersDad]

I'll go led when they are cheaper. At $30 a bulb I can't justify the expense. Rather pay 80c for and old one. Haha

I am getting 100 watt equivalent bulbs at Home Depot for $6.99 a bulb and a two pack of 60 watt equivalent bulbs for $4.99. With lower energy cost and longer life, this is a no brainer!

Back to Cranky's original topic, as the psychiatrists say, first the light bulb has got to want to change!

[HDNB]

LEDs aren't quite there yet for hydroponics, great for veg, not so much for flower. Tried 20 x 600w LED panels to replace 20 x 1000w HPS lighting & although things looked great through veg the end result was disappointing with the LEDs used all the way through.

you got to do the math more like bearriver ^^up there, 12000w equivelent in led won't be the same growing power at 20K metal halide.
it's all about the lumens and color temperature rendering.

i like LED just to stay alive and sane. never mind growing anything....around here, this time of year sunrise is 9 am and sunset is 400.

[Tater]

I switch to cfcs found using the cfcs that it counts on kind as to the type lite they produce 2700k are like yellow sun lite the 5000k are white lite.

[HDNB]

most people prefer the 2700-3000k bulbs, it's what we are used to with incandescent, and gives a heathier tanned look when you see yourself in a mirror.
5-6000k bulbs are actually closer to "daylight" full spectrum light..but in a house they give a cold sterile look and blanche your skin's appearance.

the lighting designer's preference is in the 3000k range, for a warm appearance and more robust rendition of colors... they just seem richer.

thats what i know about LED's...one of you green house guys know what plants like better? i'd guess the 5000k?

[Prairiepiss]

Don't you know them CFLs are the devil. They are horrible for the environment and they will poison you. They gots the mercurys in them.

Sorry I hear that every time they are mentioned around here. Lol

I told someone the other day they needed to switch to LEDs. We are installing an off grid solar system on their house. When I said you need to get rid of the incondecent bulbs and switch to LEDs. I thought she was going to cry. Oh now we can't do that. I won't let those in my house. They are so bad. I had to explain to her she was thinking about CFLs. It took a while to get her to understand. But I still don't think she really does. She will find out the hard way you can't use regular old bulbs on an off grid system.

I personally can't stand yellow lights. I like bright blueish white light.

[Tater]

most people prefer the 2700-3000k bulbs, it's what we are used to with incandescent, and gives a heathier tanned look when you see yourself in a mirror.
5-6000k bulbs are actually closer to "daylight" full spectrum light..but in a house they give a cold sterile look and blanche your skin's appearance.

the lighting designer's preference is in the 3000k range, for a warm appearance and more robust rendition of colors... they just seem richer.

thats what i know about LED's...one of you green house guys know what plants like better? i'd guess the 5000k?

We will talk about house lights.They can go to a 420 site to discuss the other

[Prairiepiss]

I only wish I could run lights in my greenhouse when I get it finished.

No Tater I can't get info on a 420 site. Lol mine will be aquaponics for food. But I can't afford the extra energy it takes to light it. So I will have to rely on the old sun for my lighting needs. Unless they come up with an LED based system that uses very little watts. Or I hit the lotto and buy a lot more batteries and solar panels. Lol

5000k is needed for reef aquariums also.

[Tater]

warehouse I help do refrigeration work on.Rents out a section where they use bright white florescent lites to sprout barley in trays .Letting sprout to get few inch long then using to feed cattle .Guys doing it told me that they and some others in japan were testing to grow beef with needing little to no pasture.Trays shelf's looked to be 12in wide and 20 ft long on rack like a Ferris wheel

[Prairiepiss]

Yea a fodder system. I had experimented a little with it. I was sprouting wheat. The system I did build. Got left in KC and didn't make it down here. I wish I had it now. So I have to start from scratch on a new system. I was using seed starter trays. The black trays about a foot wide and two foot longish. I need to get it going again to feed the goats and rabbits. But room and light is holding me back. When I get the greenhouse finished I will have a good place to start.

[Halfbaked]

LEDS would be good for you PP. They run on DC. Off grid, have a PV You don't have to convert them to 110 just a battery to charge.

[Prairiepiss]

Yes and no. DC is not convenient for my system. First it's 24 VDC. Yes I can get 24v LED lights. But the wire runs aren't feasible. My system is housed 75 foot away from the buildings. It's more efficient for me to run AC to the buildings. So I use AC LED bulbs as much as I can. I have a few that I keep on. Yard light type thing. They use so little power. That my inverter doesn't see it as a big enough draw to keep them on. I have to keep a few other things going to keep them on. Lol. Fence charger usually does the job. The fridge since it's cooler now doesn't kick on much. So if I don't have the fence charger on. My LED lights flicker on every like 5 seconds. When the inverter is searching for a load. Lol

[shadylane]

Just a thought.
If you had a 12dc battery in the house, it could power DC LEDS and the battery charger would supple enough load to keep the inverter happy.
It would be nice to always have a fully charged battery incase the inverter ever crapped out.

[Prairiepiss]

The inverter runs off 8 batteries. So if it craps out I still would have fully or close to charges batteries. I have backup inverters.

I tried to keep a little charger on the house batteries when we lived there. At that they time we used too much and the small charger couldn't keep up. And the big one would draw to much.

I've tried all kinds of things. Have a pretty good system going now. Even though we don't actually live there.

[cranky]

Now you guys are making me wonder if the LED work lights I was given would keep my pepper plants alive through the winter. I was just going to hang them in the garage to give me better light to check on ferments and such.

[cob]

I haven't yet found a CFL, or LED that puts out enough light to actually read by. the exception being a 32 watt CFL that last less than a year.

used up 3 so far. local hardware store has 150 incandescents for $1 I usually get a year out of those also.

I have no way to quantify the difference in power use between the two. but $45 for CFL vs. $3 for 3 years

cranky any one can print words on paper, or in this case in an e-mail, do you really believe them?

[Prairiepiss]

We have some LED directed beam type plugin lights. That's what we would use to read. The motorhome has some overhead plugins. And we can plug them in right above us and point it at whatever we are reading.

Another thing we found works really good for reading. Head lights. The LED flashlight thingys that you can strap to your head. We bought a bunch of the cheap ones from harbor freight. They have three LEDs on them. And pretty much point right where you are looking. The only draw back is for other people. If they holler at you and you look up at them. They get blinded. Lol

But the older I get. The more light I am needing to read things. Starting to suck bad.

[bearriver]

Lots of people legitimately grow legal and mundane plants indoors under lighting. There is an entire industry of products aimed at these people. For example, aquaponics is a rapidly growing hobby in the US. Garden fresh produce all year has its appeal, but I digress.

In horticulture class back in high school they had taught us 5000k is best suited for vegatative growth and 2000k for fruiting. There are spectrum charts with those details on the packages of aquarium and plant growing lamps.

5000k simulates the sun's spectrum during the early growing season and the 2000k simulates the sun during the late harvest spectrum. All plants that I am aware of have evolved to take advantage of this natural spectrum change, so aquaponics farmers and gardeners have learned to copy that with their lighting (supplementary or otherwise).

[HDNB]

I haven't yet found a CFL, or LED that puts out enough light to actually read by. the exception being a 32 watt CFL that last less than a year.

used up 3 so far. local hardware store has 150 incandescents for $1 I usually get a year out of those also.

I have no way to quantify the difference in power use between the two. but $45 for CFL vs. $3 for 3 years

cranky any one can print words on paper, or in this case in an e-mail, do you really believe them?

for about the same brightness, this is what the power consumption looks like:
CFL 32w x 2000hr/yr x 0.1$/kWh= 6.40/yr
Incandescent 150w x 2000hr/yr x 0.1$/kWh = 30.00/yr
LED 15w x 2000hr/yr x 0.1$/kWh = 3.00/yr

add in the cost of the bulb and the labour to change them and how much you like climbing a ladder for the whole cost of ownership.

most incandescent is 2000/life if you are lucky so thats a buck a year and at least one trip up the ladder every year every bulb.
CFL is 12000hrs, so thats about 2 bucks a year and trip up the ladder every five (you were paying way too much for a shitty bulb)
LED is 50000hrs at current prices, about 1.5/yr, and you never climb a ladder again...

try the 5000K ones COB, they will really help with reading. I use them in my truck (HID 5000K)...without i don't care to drive at night...with them i can drive all night with zero fatigue. really improves edge definition, and helps pick up movement. this is where i get my HID's from, if you scroll down his ad a bit, there is a good set of photos that show color rendition of different light temps. http://www.ebay.com/itm/261294929526?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

and the interwebies chart (after i typed alll that out dammit D'oh.)
http://www.designrecycleinc.com/led%20comp%20chart.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[cob]

HDNB; thanks for the info. I have a bulb stick that changes every standard or par screw in bulb I use.

all the local stores carry led 40-60 watt eq. but not larger. a quick net search puts led 150 watt eq. at between $30- $60 each.

the preferred course of action would be to unscrew the dead bulb, screw in a new bulb, and go on about my business.

at $30 minimum that new bulb will not be LED in the near future.

I have HID in my car and it is a big improvement even over halogen.

[shadylane]

LED lights that are bigger than 100w equivalent are expensive.
The 90-100w eqv are around $10 each, at that price I might start using them where the lights are on the most.

[HDNB]

at $30 minimum that new bulb will not be LED in the near future.

but.but ..but... the incandescent will cost you 60 bucks in power in the 2 years (one bulb change)

try one of these: 6.50 delivered to your door. (can't vouch for them but 6fitty isn't much of a gamble.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/E27-B22-3W-5W-7 ... pTOB2uvYxA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[cob]

being that i have never done an e-bay transaction that would complicate my preferred course of action.

the price of hydro is half (in some instances significantly less than half) than north of the border. 6.3 c. Kwh.

and given the nature of electronical s... i'll wait for the price to drop.

I need a unit that casts light down with the base down.

still appreciate the effort.

[cob]

I wonder what other simple fundamental things our children and grandchildren will not be able to do because of technology?

cranky; like not being able to look another person straight in the face without their thumbs moving ?

[HDNB]

I wonder what other simple fundamental things our children and grandchildren will not be able to do because of technology?

cranky; like not being able to look another person straight in the face without their thumbs moving ?

i got grown ass 50 yr old men at my work that cannot do that now.

[bearriver]

I notice very little eye contact from people in the city where we live. However, the country and it's people are much less likely to be that way from my experiences.

Watched a fun show where a Vegas Casino desk clerk would help a customer before bending over behind the register. When he stood back up, it was a completely different man. 90% of people didnt notice the switch. The %10 who did notice were probably country folk.

[DeepSouth]

I have 6 big gooseneck lights illuminating an outdoor sign. The lights come on and stay on automatically when it gets dark. I'm about to replace all the bulbs with LED bulbs. Definitely more expensive up front but the energy savings and not having to fool with and pay to rent a scissor lift to change light bulbs every year pays for itself.

[thecroweater]

You can not buy the old globes here in normal sizes, haven't been able to for 6 or 8 yrs (welcome to the new world order). Anyways the ones you can get are as dull as firefly and the almost as good haligen ones cost 30 times the price and last about six months if you're lucky, saving the environment my arse. As for young one loosing skills due to technology you betcha lefty they are. Don't worry about hunting or fixing a broke down car, we are building houses with no kitchen or laundry, I don't know what to say of such helpless creatures.

[raketemensch]

I notice very little eye contact from people in the city where we live. However, the country and it's people are much less likely to be that way from my experiences.

Watched a fun show where a Vegas Casino desk clerk would help a customer before bending over behind the register. When he stood back up, it was a completely different man. 90% of people didnt notice the switch. The %10 who did notice were probably country folk.

I'm in Oregon right now, from Connecticut. Last night I had a deeper conversation with the guy filling my propane tanks than I've had with close friends at home.

It's hard to get used to nice people...