So, why are LEDs better?
I thought of taking a less opinionated approach or view on LEDs but decided against it.
Because LEDs are better than other light sources in most applications.
While LEDs are more efficient, there are a lot more things to consider when buying a light bulb.
And just how much energy it uses though that is a very big one
Now let's work through the major options here
and see how they rate but before we get into it
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Now with that out of the way, let's talk about incandescent bulbs.
These are the basic light bulbs that Edison is so famous for making.
Basically, it's just a piece of metal in their tungsten that gets so hot. It emits light, it's burning.
But it's contained within a gas mixture to extend the life of that glowing piece of metal.
Now these things about 95% of the power in an incandescent is emitted as heat not light.
That's why they're so inefficient that they're actually illegal in the EU, in European Union and Australia.
And we also have halogens which are basically a subset of incandescent.
They operate at an even higher temperature and they're extremely delicate because they're so hot.
And that's why on this one, the bulb inside is separated.
So you don't accidentally touch it, burn the heck out of yourself.
And also just the stuff on your fingers, the sliminess that we all have, sweat I think is probably the right word to say.
When you touch it that will catch on fire and it will cause the bulb to burst.
So, halogens not my friend. These are very easy to use it's basically just treated as a resistor
and there's nothing too toxic in them.
But their lifespan is terrible literally orders of magnitude shorter than an LEDs.
But since they're the oldest bulbs around, they're considered the standard in light quality.
And due to the way they work like wine is actually surprisingly good.
One way this is measured is through color rendering index or CRI which is
and this is hugely simplifying things just measures how well that light
shows the true color of what it's illuminating.
Just like if you use a red light on a green apple, it'll look black.
That would be a good example of bad lighting.
So with that in mind, let's create a handy chart to go over the pros and cons of each of these light types.
So, for the incandescent. EFFICIENCY - they're absolutely terrible, the worst of all of these options.
COST - they're actually pretty cheap to make but they're getting more expensive
because they're becoming illegal and more niche and so the price is actually going up.
And in some cases I think this bulb was actually more expensive than some LEDs out there.
So EASE OF USE - they're very easy to use it's again just a resistor.
TOXICITY - nothing too bad, not great, got some tungsten there, got the glass but nothing actually toxic.
ON/OFF DURABILITY - not that's kind of a weird one but it's how frequently you can turn it on and off.
and if that'll cause any problems and these are not that great at turning on and off.
But it's not as bad as like a CFL fluorescent or one of these puppies which we'll talk about in a minute.
So, the problem these have is that as it heats up and cools down it just slowly breaks it.
And then finally SAFETY - these aren't really hard to break but they're typically small with thick enough glass
that they're a little harder to break but they're not super hard to break, so whatever.
So that is the rating of an incandescent.
Now I'm gonna turn this off and swap it out.
Actually, I'm gonna need to let it cool down for a bit because it is already so stinkin hot.
One type of light that's not often considers because it's pretty niche is the gas discharge light,
low or high pressure sodium vapor or in this case mercury vapor, high-intensity discharge or arc lights.
So, these are actually pretty efficient. I mean compared to incandescent very efficient.
But they give terrible light. So, that CRI they rate the from 0 to 100,
somehow these get a negative number, that doesn't make any sense to me.
And I don't know but these are the things that you see in like lamp posts and in high bay gymnasiums.
And it's one of those things where you have people run out like what I think we're in green jerseys,
what are they? you have no idea. So these are incredibly efficient but they take forever to turn on.
You have to have a ballast to even run these things which is why we're not showing it run right now is
because we don't have a ballast for a mercury vapour lamp.
And they are so bad, when you turn it off they actually tell you to wait a while.
to let it cool down before you turn it on again,
[talking to himself]
So, you're actually supposed to wait for them to cool down before you turn them back on
because if you turn it off and then turn it back on immediately, it damages it.
Got this at a thrift store, great place to get things.
And it's pretty fun to read this thing and not the French warning.
This lamp can cause serious skin burn and eye inflammation from shortwave ultraviolet radiation.
So, this actually has a coating on it, so that the stuff inside doesn't burn you
and it says turn off lamps at least once per week for at least 15 minutes, otherwise it causes problems.
And it also says that replace it before it goes out because if it gets to its end of life,
you could have that inner part rupture and then you have all sorts of problems.
But another one of the benefits of these is not only are they much more efficient than incandescent,
their average life is quite a bit better too.
Now, this is showing average life of 16,000 to 24,000.
Whereas, the halogen 1.9 less than a year off for 3 hours a day,
so what is that 900 hours, 365 times 3 hours a day.
So yeah, a little bit over a thousand hours versus 16,000 hours for that.
So, let's go over that same list with the mercury vapor just in general the gas discharge lights.
EFFICIENCY - they're not too bad
I mean they're actually up in the realm of the CFL LEDs way better than incandescent.
And I just want to say one of the reasons why I'm being pretty vague on some of these things
is because it all changes.
Like some this is slightly more efficient than that but it's still terrible.
And then your CFL is slightly more efficient than that.
And so that's why I'm being very general when it comes to that.
So again, EFFICIENCY - pretty good
COST - these are actually fairly expensive.
So, I was looking at Home Depot and there was one much, much smaller than this is, probably about this big
and it was sodium discharged and is about 20 bucks.
And it put out maybe double the amount of light of this LED, which this LED cost me less than 2 bucks.
So, price it really depends but not actually that cheap.
EASE OF USE - it depends on what you're getting.
So, this is actually the same technology that's used in some car headlights.
And those are a little bit more straightforward to use because the way it's hooked up just 12 volts.
but this one requires a ballast and that makes it a lot more complicated to use.
QUALITY OF LIGHT as mentioned, these are terrible, like the worst of the layer, its worst, yes.
So you definitely don't want these for anything even though I actually read somewhere that
movie studios used to take advantage of how terrible the light was to do special effects. But in general, terrible light.
LIFESPAN can be really good.
Again, depends on the application, depends on what you're doing. So, yeah not too shabby.
TOXICITY - This has some gross stuff in it, this has mercury in it.
It gives out UV huge chunk of glass, I don't even know what all that stuff is made of.
There's just tons of warnings on there. Not as bad as fluorescence, it's my understanding but still not great.
ON/OFF DURABILITY - I already talked about that horrible, worse than the categories, just terrible.
But then again if you're just trying to light up a street and whatever it's gonna be on all night for 12 hours,
then it's not such a big deal.
SAFETY - I bought that, took it home, took it to the office. Decided we should shoot it back home in my basement.
And in the time that it went from here to the office and back, I was pretty nervous about it.
So, it just feels kind of fragile but then again the same ones that you have in your headlamp in your car.
They're made of a harder material and it all comes down to what you have there.
And look at this wire and the way it kind of shakes a little bit when I shake it. I don't know, everything depends.
I picked it up again, terrible...
Okay, eventually that'll stop. But, next is fluorescent light.
Now admittedly, one of the biggest reasons I hate these is I cannot ever spell it right.
[rambling letters of the word flourescent]
It's just a real pain in the backside but besides this they're filled with mercury,
they're very long and very fragile.
And as much as you want a ..
you know do your stereotypical Star Wars Lightsaber, that ease of breaking it
and then having it be filled with mercury is really almost insulting.
Like what were they thinking? they knew that little kids would want to use these and bash them against each other.
Oh yeah and if you do that shards of glass, mercury, death yeah, not my favorite.
On top of this, they require expensive ballast. And the old magnetic ballasts are loud, inefficient
and contribute to the flickering which is really obnoxious especially in the cold.
I actually still have some fluorescents out in the garage.
And every winter here in Boise it takes about ten minutes for it to stop .. [sound]
very annoying, all that being said.
There's still better than incandescent. They're way more efficient with the newest styles of ballasts
putting them as efficient if not more efficient than current LEDs
You can also find ones, it's the rather high CRI meaning good quality light.
So, EFFICIENCY - the newer ones are exceptionally efficient with the proper ballast and bulb.
COST - they're moderately expensive but not insanely.
So, the quality of light goes from good to great with relatively inexpensive bulbs to see our eyes up to 95 out of 100.
Unlike that one which is literally getting 0 to .. again I don't understand how, negative numbers.
The LIFESPAN is pretty good not super great probably about a fifth of your average LED.
And the EASE OF USE is kind of a pain you need the ballast,
you need a special holder and then there's two different types.
So, this right here has the two pins and then you have other ones that have a single pin.
And then you have to make sure everything's good with how you're mounting it.
And people that deal with it all the time probably don't think it's that big of a deal
but the few times that I have to deal with it it really annoys me.
So, TOXICITY - they have nasty mercury in them.
And honestly the only reason I have this here with me today is because
when I replace this with an LED replacement last year or two,
I just keep on forgetting to take it to the hazardous waste place
that kind of randomly is in weird places. So, it's a real pain to get rid off.
ON/OFF DURABILITY - not great for turning on and off
You're familiar with the slow flicker when they're turning on.. [sounds]
like somebody's tapping on it with something.
So, not great with the coming on and off.
And then safety, already mentioned that. Really long, thin glass structures. Nope, not a fan.
Now, CFLs - these are basically a fluorescent that has had it's a ballast tucked into the base.
So, it can be easily swapped with a standard Edison base.
These share a lot in common with long tube fluorescents for obvious reasons with the main benefit
being that they're a lot easier to use.
And the main increased drawback is that they're not quite as efficient
because you've got a very small, less expensive ballast in there compared to a more electronic ballast
that powers these things. That they can spend a little bit more effort in making them more efficient.
So, CFL obviously they're better.
They share the same screw in bulbs so you can just pull out any incandescent or anything and put those things in.
There are also the form factor that we're used to they can go into lamps and things like that.
And they still have a lot of the benefits of the normal fluorescent.
Now this one's a little bit more yellow but they can also be very, very white as well.
You can get them across the color spectrum from the warm to the cool light.
So, let's go through that list again, COST - fairly inexpensive, the price has come down quite a bit.
And even just a couple of years ago, they were less expensive than LEDs.
And now the LEDs have dropped enough that.. yeah, it depends on the application.
QUALITY OF LIGHT - decent, though you can find ones specific for video work.
Ones that have a nice bright good coloring.
Honestly, the lights we have in here, they're CFLs really big, much, much different than this one, But they are CFLs.
LIFESPAN - they're better than incandescent but not as good as LEDs.
And it's one of those things where you're not sure if it's the light bulb that's gone out or the ballast itself.
So, that's something you have to take into account with LEDs as well. So, that's a challenge.
EASE OF USE - these are really easy to use. Again, you don't need the special things in the ceiling,
you don't need the special ballasts, all that sort of stuff trial, just drop-in replacement.
And then TOXICITY - they do definitely suffer the same problems as these fluorescents so a lot of mercury in it.
ON/OFF DURABILITY - these are basically like the other fluorescent so it seemed to be a little bit better
but still when you turn it on, you don't want it to turn on, off, on, off, on, off.
And then finally, SAFETY - because it's more contained, smaller, it's less prone to breaking.
Then, you've got this long thing that you're walking around it crashes into things so more inline with incandescent.
So finally, LEDs. LEDs are not perfect.
They're still more expensive even though they've dropped a lot over the years.
To use LEDs like this in the house they require specific electronics.
So, there's electronics down here that are driving the LEDs.
And we've actually gotten to the point where the overriding cost for these LEDs
is the driving electronics instead of the LED portion itself.
Also to reduce cost, sometimes those electronics are on the cheaper side.
Like I said, this one I got it for about 2 bucks a little bit less and you can tell it's cheaper.
I mean, the warm light, that's just an option. But this thing is only rated for 10,000 hours.
Whereas the LED lights that I have outside my house on the porch lamps basically with built-in LEDs.
Those are rated for 50,000 hours 5 times longer than this one.
Of course those ones we're also a lot more expensive than this one. So, you get a little bit of trade-off there.
But again 10,000 hours for this $2 cheap one
versus this one that said that it was only gonna be a little bit over 1,000 hours.
And this was about the same cost as that and it's way, way less efficient.
So, high-quality bulbs and drivers eliminate those issues of length and also efficiency.
And they're not a problem with the LED technology so much as with the driving technology.
So, these are typically around 10 to 20 times as many lumens per watt as an incandescent.
And they have good quality like can be easy to use, are extremely durable.
And they are less toxic than most standard electronics you have in your phone.
The best part is that LEDs can replace all of these other lighting technologies from that to that to that, they can replace all of it.
So, just the other day like last weekend, I was at a hockey game
which was really weird. I had no idea what's going on.
But after our team scored, the lights that lit up the entire arena all flashed in celebration.
Something that you could not do with a gas discharge light.
Also the screen hanging from the ceiling was a big color LED display just a lot of single RGB LEDs
and turned it into a really large television.
So, that shows that you can use them to light up the arena and also use them as a display.
So, their versatility is insane.
Yeah, again, LEDs are just better. So let's finish up the table
COST - fairly expensive still butdropping like a rock in price
QUALITY OF LIGHT - good quality, you can get really great quality if you buy the right ones.
LIFESPAN - again 10,000 50,000 even a 100,00 thousand hours you can totally get those,
it seems like the weak link is the electronics inside.
So, if you get one that is a good bulb and you pay a little bit more.
These things should last for decades with normal use.
EASE OF USE - easy to use you drop it in replace it.
And the thing is even these other LEDs, they're so easy in your digital project stuff like that.
You put in some sort of resistor, you give it a good voltage and you tweak around with it a little bit.
Super easy, don't have to worry about the heat.They're fantastic, way easy to use.
TOXICITY - not toxic at all
ON/OFF DURABILTY - LEDs are actually great at being turned on and off.
And it doesn't affect them in any way how frequently they're turned on and off.
And honestly, this is how they're dimmed.
Instead of giving them less power and stuff like that typically,
what you do is you just use a pulse width modulation
and you say I want it to be half as much light. So, you only give it power half the time.
And you cycle it so quickly that our eyes can't notice.
And it just seems slightly dimmer when in reality it's full brightness
and not bright at whatever ratio you want.
So, these are fantastic at being turned on and off very quickly and frequently.
Absolutely, no ill effects whatsoever.
And finally SAFETY - super tough, can be vibrated, struck
That's actually not a great example but these things, yes. It's just a piece of material.
So, they are very, very strong and you don't have to worry about them at all.
And that's it. That's why LEDs are better.
You may quibble on a couple of the points I bring up but I don't think there's any question about this.
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