Being LED In The Right Direction

Last week, I had an unexpected education in the world of lighting.  We bought a new chandelier for our dining room, and it had the Compact Fluorescent (CFL) bulbs.  The problems with CFL (or any fluorescent for that matter) are, one, they have mercury in them and so are toxic, and must be disposed of responsibly, and two, they flicker and are a source of eye irritation and headaches to say the least.  So, being a savvy consumer, I know that LED bulbs (Light-Emitting Diodes) consume a fraction the power of old-fashioned incandescent bulbs, produce less heat, and are environmentally more acceptable, not to mention they last a very long time (supposedly - more below).  So, LED bulbs it was (5 for the fixture), and boy, it would be nice to have a dimmer switch, so I bought a LeGrand dimmer switch from Lowes that says it works with CFL and LED bulbs.

Since we are in the middle of remodeling our bathrooms, we had investigated light fixtures, and found our first lesson:

Ensuring Long Bulb Life

While at a Lowes, we asked a helpful gentleman (who turned out to be a US service veteran, thanks for your service!) about bulbs, and why it seemed that some fixtures bulbs burned out quick, while others they lasted years.  He said his dad, who was an electrician, taught him some important knowledge.  You know that metal tab in the back of the socket?  That is an electrical lead.  It is spring-loaded so that it pushes against the bulb lead and makes good contact.  However, we are taught to screw things in tight, which pushes the spring-loaded metal back.  Then, electricity runs through it, which warms it up, so the metal gets used to the new position, and eventually doesn't make good contact with the bulb lead.  When the leads don't make good contact, it can "stress" the bulb with an inconstant supply of electricity - and LED bulbs are electronic components as opposed to simple wires, so they are much more susceptible to issues arising from poor electrical quality.

To solve this problem, every time you change a bulb, I learned, you should use something non-conductive like a sharpened pencil, and pull the tab up.  When you put the bulb in, don't tighten it, just screw it in until it lights up.  I found that this fixed a "broken" light socket in our kitchen fixture, and it has improved the quality of light produced by the bulbs that did work.

Matching a Switch to a Bulb

In purchasing a dimmer switch for my new chandelier, I was aware that the dimmer had to work for LED bulbs.  However, I was not aware that different bulbs work differently with different switch models (let alone manufacturers).  We did have one bulb that didn't light properly, so it turned out to be a really good learning experience that instead of just returning it to Lowes, I called GE (the bulb manufacturer).  The first thing they asked me was to go to their web page that listed a long list of their bulb products, and for each group of products, a list of switch models that they tested.  The results of the tests were color coded: Green if it worked perfectly, Yellow if there was buzzing or flickering at lower voltages on the dimmer, and Red if it simply didn't work or damaged the bulb.  I told her it was just one bulb, but she insisted, because long-term, a badly-made switch can damage bulbs, and end up being expensive to replace bulb after bulb (these were expensive bulbs to begin with).

Next, I took each of the dimmer switch models that were shown Green for the type of bulb I had, and searched Lowes.com - they didn't have a single one.  I searched HomeDepot.com - and they had in stock a few of the recommended models.  So, on to Home Depot.

While there, we found Ecosmart brand LED bulbs, same form factor and same description, for a lot less.  So, we bought a set to try them out.  At $6.50 per bulb, the GE were pricey compared to $2.67 per bulb Ecosmart.

What we found, as usual, is that if you spend more money, you usually get a better product.  The GE bulbs produced a much more natural light (even though both used the same terminology and description and similar specs), and performed much better with the switch recommended by GE.  Weird that Home Depot doesn't sell the GE bulbs, and Lowes doesn't sell a switch that is recommended by GE.  Both bulb brands were warranted for 5 years, and given a 13 year life estimate; but the GE bulbs went down to completely dark at the bottom end of the dimmer switch, and did NOT buzz or flicker (like they did with the LeGrand switch from Lowes).  Frankly, when you take the cost of the bulb over 13 years, the difference is negligible, and I would rather have something I am happy with.

LED Light Fixtures

At the hardware store, we saw some really beautiful and cool light fixtures that are LED.  They are in really neat shapes, with the light coming down through curved acrylic bars or some other exciting shapes and material.  However, we asked some questions and noticed some massive shortcomings.  One thing we are constantly aware of these days is the serviceability and lifetime of a product.  Another is the packaging.  All products, I wish the packaging were completely recyclable and reduced to minimal packaging.  This is the major shortcoming in federal lawmaking.  However, for these LED fixtures, we noticed that they are made with special bulbs built into them.  And, the bulbs are not replaceable.  This is a big no-no nowadays!  It is bad enough (way bad) that printers are cheap, and after a few years stop working, and are so expensive to fix that nobody fixes them and just buy new, and throw "away" the old ones.  But what happens after the 5 year warranty, when (not if) the proprietary built-in bulb goes out?  You are going to replace the whole fixture?  That is just insane.  As cool as they look, I would only buy them if they had replaceable bulbs.

Conclusion

So, gone are the old days where you get any switch you like, any bulb you like, and just put them in.  And, it does make sense if you think about it.

A dimmer switch is really a small circuit board, and so the quality of the electronics and design and lab testing are really much more important than a simple on-off switch or even an old style dimmer switch that used an electronic pot to vary the output voltage.  Also, the LED bulbs are small circuit boards with diodes on them, and again the electronics, design and testing are important.  The quality of the products take a lot of R&D to perfect, and since we are talking electricity flow, that has to be conditioned and smooth as well.  So, it is important that a dimmer switch be made of sufficient quality to feed good "clean" electricity to the bulb, and the bulb be designed properly to respond to the varying voltages supplied by a dimmer switch.

So, we found that the Lutron switch worked much better than the LeGrand (for about the same price), and the GE bulbs were far superior in light quality to the Ecosmart.