# can't find LED bulb



## Ashful (May 13, 2015)

So, after watching much discussion here, I'm considering use of LED bulbs in some locations in which I've always used incandescents.  As a few may remember, I have a very high count (200+) of low-wattage (always less than 50 watts) bulbs in my house, so there is really very little savings to be had from LED's, but there are some locations where I can make them work... if I could only find the bulbs.

Any recommendations on the following?

PAR30LN
Color temp < 3000K (looking to replicate warm incandescent)
Lumens = 550 - 600 (50 W external flood replication)
Standard flood (eg. 90 degrees), not a "narrow flood"

I have been hunting, and cannot find such a bulb at any of the regular outlets.  I can buy full cases of them in incandescent or halogen, pretty cheap.


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## jharkin (May 14, 2015)

Odd shape and size bulbs are the hardest to find in LED.  I have yet to find a standard PAR30 outdoor flood that fits my fixtures so I have regular incans in the motion sensor flood and CFLs in the switched ones.  Neither gets used much.

Where I do use all LED are for all the desk lamps - lots of cheap options to replace a 60watt A bulb.  If you dont care about looks Phillips has a 8watt 60w equiv that sometimes goes on sale for less than $2 at HD







I used a couple of these in enclosed fixtures, but also have a lot of the regular philips A style LED and both philips and Cree bulbs in higher wattages. I also have LED indoor BR30 floods in my kitchen recessed lights.  These are 11w (65w BR30 equiv) and ran about $10. HD Ecosmart label, made by Cree I think.

I have tried to stay with all Philips, Cree and lighting Science.  the quality and color consistency seems better than the no name china brands.




For low wattage bulbs in exposed fixtures maybe you want to wait for those new filament look LED bulbs that are coming?


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## Ashful (May 14, 2015)

"If I don't care about looks"... LOL.

I'm meeting with some of the management from Cree this week, with whom I work frequently, yet I've never purchased one of their bulbs!


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## jharkin (May 14, 2015)

Ha yea...  Im thinking about bulbs hidden in fixtures.

Im guessing you have a lot of antique candle look fixtures?  If so thats a tricky one.


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## Ashful (May 14, 2015)

Yep, some of those, but actually higher count on recessed PAR38's, PAR20's, PAR14's, and bunches of those 50W low-voltage exposed bulb eyes.


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## woodgeek (May 14, 2015)

In an outdoor rated PAR30 long neck LED, amazon offers one model that looks ok:

http://www.amazon.com/Electric-12-w...ref=sr_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1431614383&sr=1-2

which sounds like what you want, but its $25.

Very well rated....which is useful for LEDs b/c a lot of Hecho in China ones die quickly...good ratings suggest these last and have a low defect rate.

At $0.15/kWh, saving 50W vs incandescent, needs to run 25/0.15*20 = 3,333 hours to break even on purchase price.

If you are uncertain on color/spread (i suspect its aok) I would buy one, try it out, and then buy more.


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## Corey (May 14, 2015)

woodgeek said:


> $0.15/kWh, saving 50W vs incandescent, needs to run 25/0.15*20 = 3,333 hours to break even on purchase price.


... except you're not really 'saving' 50 watts ...the LED bulb requires 12 watts to run, so the 'savings' over a 50W bulb is only 38W.  There is also likely to be some sales tax on the purchase price.   These together mean you could have a much longer payback time.


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## woodgeek (May 14, 2015)

Ok.  The lumen output Ashful quoted looked a little generous IMO for 50W...more like a 60W incand to me.  And in 3300 h of runtime, he will need to replace the incand a couple times, and while cheap, they are not free.  I think that covers the tax.

My only point with the math was that at 1 hour a day, the (simple) payback is ~9 years (ugh), while at 12 hours a day, it is more like 9 mos (yay).  Only he knows how much he runs it.

If the LEDs last a nominal 30k hours of lifetime, e.g. 12 hours a day for 8 years, each one would save >$200 in kWh, paying for themselves many times over.


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## begreen (May 14, 2015)

I've been trying out some Feit PAR30s in that temp range that I got at Home Depot for about a year now. So far they are doing well and we like the light. They are in the kitchen where the way they affect food color is important. They were about $20/pr IIRC and came in a two pack. This looks like it may be them:
http://www.amazon.com/Feit-Electric-LED-BR30-Recessed/dp/B00LTAOIA8/ref=pd_bxgy_60_img_z

Since then HomeDepot and Costco have increased their lines of LEDs including these very affordable Crees:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Cree-65W...F-12DE26-3U100/205814275?N=5yc1vZbm79Z1z132nb

I'd pick up a couple of each and try them out. I also see some PAR 20s and PAR 40s that are coming down in price too. Must be hard to hold inventory when the cost of these bulbs keeps dropping annually.


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## Grisu (May 14, 2015)

How about this one? http://viribright.us/products/sku/74347 (I have no further knowledge of company or their bulbs.)

We have some Phillips BR30 in our kitchen, love them. I am actually hoping that our CFLs are burning out that I can replace them with LEDs. So far, little luck. Instead, we had two lamps fail last year while the bulbs were still fine.


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## iamlucky13 (May 15, 2015)

I don't think I've ever seen a 90 degree PAR bulb. The whole point of a parabolic reflector is that it allows you to focus light evenly in a narrow pattern.

Are you sure a BR30 won't work for you? Bulged reflectors usually have a much wider beam. Or that a 40 degree PAR30 isn't broad enough?




Corey said:


> ... except you're not really 'saving' 50 watts ...the LED bulb requires 12 watts to run, so the 'savings' over a 50W bulb is only 38W. There is also likely to be some sales tax on the purchase price. These together mean you could have a much longer payback time.



Although you also have to factor in the purchase price of halogen bulbs. If he's looking at these for lights that spend a lot of time on, he could potentially go through 2-3 halogen bulbs over the next 5-10 years, while an LED stands a good chance of lasting beyond that time frame.


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## Corey (May 15, 2015)

iamlucky13 said:


> Although you also have to factor in the purchase price of halogen bulbs. If he's looking at these for lights that spend a lot of time on, he could potentially go through 2-3 halogen bulbs over the next 5-10 years, while an LED stands a good chance of lasting beyond that time frame.



This is true - and another factor to consider in the 'payback period' - though you still need to base the calculation on the actual wattage 'savings'.  

There is also a 'human factor' which has been reported with more efficient bulbs... people tend to let them burn more which can also offset a good portion of the savings.  With a 100W incandescent, people are generally pretty good about using it only when needed... maybe only a few hours a day.  With energy efficient bulbs, they're more likely to leave them on even when not needed...sometimes 24 hours a day.


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## BrotherBart (May 15, 2015)

I quickly forgot about the initial cost of LEDs when I look at the whole house power monitor every day. Sometimes denial is a good thing.


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## begreen (May 19, 2015)

Go to HD and pick up a few of the above mentioned bulbs and try them out. The light pattern and diffusion can be different so don't try to match specs alone. Our kitchen 65w equivalent LEDs that I am testing are a bit brighter than the current CFLs, but it turns out that is not objectionable. Prior to the CFLs we had 45w halogens in there. 

Some LED lamps are getting inexpensive enough to try a few out and see what you think. If you like them, get more. If not, put them in less important locations like a garage or basement.


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## Seasoned Oak (May 20, 2015)

I noticed the price of CFLs has gone way up recently. I used to buy the 100 watt EQ for  less than  $1 a bulb ,now they are almost $2. THe LEDs though keep coming down.


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## iamlucky13 (May 21, 2015)

I think some areas are increasing their standards for light bulb subsidies, which may leave CFL bulbs being sold full price.

And they may be starting to get declining economies of scale. There's very limited reasons to buy a CFL bulb anymore.


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## Seasoned Oak (May 22, 2015)

iamlucky13 said:


> . There's very limited reasons to buy a CFL bulb anymore.


They are still half price or less than the LEDs and they dont use much more power if any. Different brands of LEDs use different amounts of power. I replaced one CFL once that used 1 watt less than the LED of equivalent lumens i was replacing it with. I guess Some of the transformers are not as efficient.


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## begreen (May 22, 2015)

I have some CFLs that are 5+ yrs old and still going strong and enough spares that by the time they need replacing, LEDs will be cheap.


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## woodgeek (May 22, 2015)

Re the CFL vs LED debate....CFLs are mature, but LEDs still have room to improve eff wise.  OF course, also a good reason to wait.

For reflectors/directional, however the performance lead is now solidly with LEDs, reflector CFLs suck, and always have.


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## begreen (May 22, 2015)

I've got several PAR 30 and 40 CFLs that have been great for us. It took a while to get some good ones with decent color rendition but the last set I put in have been fine for several years now.


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## woodgeek (May 22, 2015)

I always found them to be very low lumens/W, very wide spread, and annoyingly long warmup.


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## begreen (May 22, 2015)

Ours are as bright or brighter than the halogens they replaced. The wide spread is desirable in the kitchen for shadowless illumination. The warmup might bother me if they were in a location where one was only using them for a minute. We have halogens or LED in that kind of location and have no problem with the 30 sec warmup for where the CFLs are located as they are left on for hours once switched on. They're not perfect but far ahead of what we had in this place 20 yrs ago when we moved in. (65-90w incandescents).

The kitchen has 7 bulbs that are on for at least 5hrs a day in the winter, often longer. We went from 455w incand. to 315w halogens, now to 105w CFLs. Looks like 13w LEDs will do the job well but at a very small 14w savings. I'm testing a couple Feit LEDs nearby and I do like the color rendering better than the CFLs and they are a little brighter.


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## Rearscreen (Jun 1, 2015)

Home Depot in CT had a state funded discount on the Philips flat bulbs. In the $3.50 range. I bought about 50 of them. They are great.


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## Grisu (Jun 2, 2015)

If someone wants to try a bunch of different LEDs, here is a decent sale: http://www.superiorlighting.com/LED_Bulbs_on_Sale_s/2628.htm


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## john193 (Jun 5, 2015)

If anyone is in southeastern PA, the HD in this area (serviced by PECO or PPL) you can get Cree BR30 in 2700 or 5000 for 4.97 and 5.97 respectively.


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## Ashful (Jun 5, 2015)

Interesting!  I've been checking the bulbs in every store I visit, and still have not found a 50W equivalent PAR30L in warm color.  Everything I find is 65 - 90 watts equivalent.

I did buy one bulb from Amazon, and it's still in the box... been busy with other things.  Might get to install it this weekend.


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