Ceiling light replacement

[brothers]

In the room we call office, the light fixture in the ceiling failed yesterday and today we went to Home Depot to see what they had to replace it. We wanted something bright. We found one even better than we'd hoped. It's an LED. No bulbs, dimmable, good for up to 50,000 hours of continuous use, and 20 watts = 100 watts of incandescent light. Generates no heat. This thing is bright! Ultra simple to install in the ceiling without having to modify anything. $40. Mrs. Brothers now says she wants one just like it but smaller in the utility room. I can definitely do that. Now I'm checking out some of the other ceiling fixtures in the house.

[pausted]

Gary, you're giving me the motivation to get started with some lighting updating at our house. Our home was built in the early 80's when fluorescent tubes seemed to be the norm in a lot of applications....kitchen, bathrooms, etc. I hate the friggen things! I'm forever changing tubes, ballasts, etc. I'm gonna go shopping to see what might be available as replacements. Thanks for the nudge.

[ShadowsDad]

Gary, check out the Sylvania LEDs for other places. They make them up to 75 watt, but pretty much all we can find are the 60 watt. Don't even think of the soft white, you want the daylight for max' brightness. They are something like $3 per. I call them lollipop bulbs because of the shape. Let me see if I can find a link.

OK, the link is for the soft white version. You want the daylight version. Trust me on this.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-Slim ... /204730356

BTW, while the LEDs may be good for 50,000 hours, I find the circuitry that drives them to be worth much less. Maybe that has changed; hopefully it has. But for $3, it'll last far longer than a ridiculous CFL. We've had terrible service from those. The problem with CFLs is the turning on and off. They can't handle that and burn out prematurely.

[jww]

The fact that the Sylvania's are dimmable is a big plus --- we tried some of the new-fangled "low-wattage" bulbs a few years back, and they weren't dimmable, which in a couple of rooms in your home where we have dimming switches, they were made useless by these bulbs. These new Sylvania bulbs look to have solved that. The flat bulb is quirky but kinda cool. How even is the light it throws? Does being flat affect that at all?

Interestingly enough, Home Depot don't have these on their Canadian website under Sylvania -- but rather the same item under Philips ..... found out why off of wikipedia:

Companies acquired by Philips through the years include Amperex, Magnavox, Signetics, Mullard, VLSI, Agilent Healthcare Solutions Group, Marconi Medical Systems, ADAC Laboratories, ATL Ultrasound, portions of Westinghouse and the consumer electronics operations of Philco and Sylvania. Philips abandoned the Sylvania trademark which is now owned by Havells Sylvania except in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and the USA where it is owned by the Osram unit of Siemens.

I didn't realize this --- wonder how some items Sylvania are sold here.

[Squire]

What I wonder is how many of those different brands are actually the same bulb under a different label.

[ShadowsDad]

I see no problems with light dispersion Wendell. That was my question when I bought the first one. Since then we've bought a lot of them. But I can't stress too strongly to steer clear of the soft white version. They don't appear as bright despite being the same wattage, and are quite orange in hue; at least to our eyes.

We like them so much I'm considering rewiring a kitchen light over the sink to do away with the 2' fluorescent tubes and putting 6 or so of these bulbs in their place.

I'd like to see them in even higher lumen versions, but it's probably a heat problem that prevents it. LEDs hate heat.