May 29
Tags: buying, guide, led, purchasing, reference
What I’ve noticed lately is there’s a lack of information that can be found on the web about LEDs. Now there’s a ton of information online about LEDs in general, don’t get me wrong. But when it comes to LED lights specifically and what to look for when wanting to purchase them, the information is very sparse, and if it even IS available, it’s usually in a very technical format where you practically need an engineering degree to decrypt what the figures mean.
Because of that, we’ve decided to create a guide of our own. It’s a guide that explains :
- What LEDs are
- How they work
- Why they are better than compact fluorescents
and most importantly,
- What features you should be looking for when purchasing LED light bulbs
If you like it, Digg it, facebook it, or please let us know in the comments below!!!
Thanks for posting this! Very helpful and informative! It’s hard to find everything in one place with so many companies selling these bulbs….hopefully they come down in price soon.
That HP-10 you have pictured has quite an ugly yellow halo at the edge of its beam, no? Yuk.
I also found this buying guide helpful. I was recently on OutdoorLightingandMore.com and they had such a large assortment of light fixtures. I had no idea what to choose but your guide helped me out a lot. Thanks! FYI, my recent purchases are great!
you’re welcome suzanne!
A great Guide!
Now that CFLs have become so cheap it is worrying that they, and the mercury they contain, are flooding in all around us.
LED bulbs need more media exposure to encourage more use, leading to the economy of scale that has made CFLs so readily available.
I completely agree J1mbo! A lot of people don’t know about the mercury contained in CFL’s and they’re just being thrown out into landfills when they should be specially disposed of…
Thank you for all of this useful information that I will be sure to pass along!
I agree that LED bulbs need more media exposure. Large companies continue to replace their lighting with new fluorescent fixtures mainly because they are unaware of the benefits of LEDs.
An additional argument against fluorescents is the strong sensitivity many people have to this lighting. Exposure to fluorescents causes migraines and mood changes in many people. Fluorescent lighting is the primary trigger for my epileptic seizures (and I’ve heard of others with this problem). As soon as I walk into any store or even a home with CFLs I begin to experience partial seizures. The “bulbs with newer ballasts don’t flicker and cause no health problems” argument is simply not valid as I know from first hand experience.
Jennifer: Very true and thanks for the comment. We’ve heard many of our customers complain about the exact same thing. On top of the mercury content that is a neurotoxin that fluorescents contain, LED are definitely the wave of the future and where things are going!
Very interesting guide. I found a lot of information here about this. The only pity is that this is all still so expensive.
A real good guide for the beginners!!!!
By the way, among those bigger manufacturers, Seoul Semiconductor belongs to South Korea.
Useful and comprehensive information but would be good to provide additional explanation on the various supply options as this area can be a minefield.
120/240 Vac, 12 dc only, 12v dc/ac (needs wirewound transformer), 12 dc/ac (OK with switched transformer), dimable, non dimmable etc etc etc.
Keep up the good work.
Up front and informative. I feeel a lot more confident about buying LEDs after reading this!
My son and I have read through this article and have found it most enlightening. We have purchased a few led light bulbs in the last month as a trial. The ones we received were small and in the fixtures they were put in, looked rather nice. But not knowing anything about LED light bulbs, how they are rated, what the out put is equal to, made me feel like a blind man without his guide dog.
I’m still reviewing and reading everything I can get my hands on about this new way of lighting. I’ve used LED’s in my maglight flashlight for some years and they are really great, eapecially since I worked mostly the night shift.
Thanks for the information.
Mike Heider
Timothy Heider
Enjoyed article. If you can direct me to or is there a conversion chart available somewhere as I have GU10+C Halogen bulbs and thinking of buying more but if I new what the replacement bulb in LED and can it be run on a 120v line then I certainly would like to try the LED.
I have just read with great interest your various articles on LEDs and I must say that your web site is extremely well laid out and very easy to use , most informative.
Thanks
B.Bagley
Infomative for along term investment,safety aspects and right application of usage.Thanks for taking initiative to inform the general public
While this piece is fairly informative it does a dis- service speaking
as anSSL industry insider/ Advocate / Rep there are many considerations that
should be discussed Ac leds don’t rely on Dc drivers and do in fact get to 70,000
hrs/ any Led mentioned is already outdated if they can’t commnicate - known
as smart lights- Also not mentioned Cri #s are a soon to be obsolete metric.
There is no mention of the “F RATING” ( the new consumers report style metric)
- I will say that for most this makes for a good primer- But it’s not like this
is a end all be all report. In 5 years OLeds will be market ready and that will be
supplanted by - Olet s– I’m positive I’m a Solid State Lighting Professional