What's happened to light bulbs?

[slope]

Firstly apologies - my forum search style is bad

I'm behind times and then some it seems. Went to buy a replacement bulb and aaaargh I don't understand anymore.

All my fittings are proper bayonet types - all are 240v. Still use old filament bulbs for the kitchen/dinner table cos the colour is RIGHT. Other lamps around the place were those squirly expensive things which emit cold naff light and end up being covered in dark handkerchieves etc

BUT NOW it's all different and I need a bank loan/starve for a week or light candles

So what is the equivalent of a 40W and 60W bayonet soft warm colour thing?

Help

[Diver300]

The LED ones come in a variety of colour temperatures. There are plenty that look like incandescent bulbs, and bayonet ones are available.

[Mrs Pingu]

Have a look online somewhere like https://www.ledbulbs.co.uk. They will let you search by cap type and then you'll need to choose whether you want CFL, LED or something else. If you go to the buying guide page it will tell you all about lumens, wattage & colour temperature etc.
Other online lightbulb retailers are available....

[slope]

Have a look online somewhere like https://www.ledbulbs.co.uk. They will let you search by cap type and then you'll need to choose whether you want CFL, LED or something else. If you go to the buying guide page it will tell you all about lumens, wattage & colour temperature etc.
Other online lightbulb retailers are available....

Brilliant - thank you. I just panicked in Tesco the other day - thinking life's increasingly going to get like this

[Mrs Pingu]

Also, if you want to search the forum go to Google instead and, in the search box enter:
Yoursearchterm site:yacf.co.uk

[zendog]

Lots on ebay still.

example  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GLS-Pearl-Light-Bulb-40W-60W-100W-Bayonet-Cap-B22-240V-Heavy-Duty-Long-Life-Lamp-/121458997373?var=&hash=item1c4785387d:m:mfWK47oU5ukwEzCiQ14tYrQ

[hellymedic]

Standard bayonet caps are 22mm.

You will need 4-7W LED to be  equivalent to your 40W bulb.

Some of my lamps that were claimed to last for 30,000 hours have blown faster than  their tungsten equivalents, at vast expense.
There are still some bulbs here   that pre-date my taking up residence 1n 1999.

[Pickled Onion]

Bulbs on ebay can be hit-or-miss, I've had some excellent ones but also some which failed fairly quickly. Wherever you buy from, keep the receipt & a note of which bulb it is, and get a replacement if it fails within a year or two.

Decent LEDs are now really good - better light than tungsten, much better than CFL, and will save a reasonable amount of electricity. Philips ones seem pretty good (unlike their CFL offerings).

For most domestic settings choose a warm white. Don't expect the Watt-equivalent ratings to be reliable. If the bulb is visible in the fitting, the "filament" style ones look good, you can even get interesting shape bulbs. If you have a dimmer, check the bulb is compatible.

To get the benefit, put the LEDs in the lights you use the most, and move the existing tungsten bulbs to places where they're not on very much. It will take a lifetime or two to save the cost of an LED in electricity savings for the light in the cupboard under the stairs.

[caerau]

The thing to do


well this is my technique at least...


is to just take the old one to the supermarket with me so that I can pick one that fits properly.


Usual rule is that if you cheap then it's shit basically (that's my experience).  They far outlast filament bulbs so the price differential is somewhat offset - plus they burn vastly less leccy so reduce that bill.

[Kim]

For most domestic settings choose a warm white. Don't expect the Watt-equivalent ratings to be reliable. If the bulb is visible in the fitting, the "filament" style ones look good

For values of good that involve horrible glare if you attempt to illuminate a room with them, which seems to be the latest trend in hipster cafes and the like.  I think they're quite pretty, but best used sparingly.

Anecdotally they seem to be particularly plagued with 100Hz flicker.  Presumably due to half-arsed driver circuitry, consistent with driving a long string of LEDs in series and cramming the electronics into the small physical volume available in the cap.

Combined, these features make them barakta's latest arch-nemesis.  They make her ill within minutes.

[slope]

[

Anecdotally they seem to be particularly plagued with 100Hz flicker.

Oh dear, that would be totally unacceptable - and really do my head in

[rafletcher]

Decent LEDs are now really good - better light than tungsten, much better than CFL, and will save a reasonable amount of electricity. Philips ones seem pretty good (unlike their CFL offerings).

Agree re the latest LED replacements for ye olde style bulbs. We've some at work (replaced CFL's) and they look surprisingly good, plus there's no warm-up time a la CFL. 

I'd differ on Philips CFL's though. We've had the "Tornado" ones for several years now, and - warm-up time aside - they've been good.  We've had a few failures though - mainly because we use lamps to light our rooms, as opposed to dangly ceiling fittings (our ceilings are only 7'). In the lamps the bulbs are "upside down", and debris - usually dead insects - gather at the base on the cap. This seems to cause local overheating and then failure.

[ian]

Usual rule is that if you cheap then it's shit basically (that's my experience).  They far outlast filament bulbs so the price differential is somewhat offset - plus they burn vastly less leccy so reduce that bill.

This. We have LEDs throughout the Asbestos Palace and they're fine, but we paid more. The cheap Chinese crap on eBay, if you're lucky they won't burn your house down, but after a week or two you'll start confessing to crimes you haven't committed. Anything to make it stop.

[Ian H]

The new thing is light fittings with integral LEDs.  With some slight trepidation we have put one in a bathroom.  £60 from John Lewis buys you a base-plate with a circuit board and a translucent white plastic cover.  There's something weird about an 'empty' light fitting shining brightly.

[Diver300]

Anecdotally they seem to be particularly plagued with 100Hz flicker.  Presumably due to half-arsed driver circuitry, consistent with driving a long string of LEDs in series and cramming the electronics into the small physical volume available in the cap.

I have had to deflicker (open up, add a suitable capacitor, glue back together) a dozen LED bulbs.

What was depressing interesting was that both designs that the 12 were made to already had capacitors, but too small to significantly reduce the flicker.

[Kim]

What's depressing is that so many people seem unable to perceive the flicker at all, so you come across like one of those people who are 'allergic to WiFi'^[1] when you complain about it.

Shooting video of it on a smartphone seems to be a good (if unscientific) way to demonstrate the problem, as you usually get some sort of rolling shutter artefact.


_{[1] I wonder how often that's actually a symptom of bad lighting?}

[LANDSURFER]

We buy standard, traditional light bulbs in 40, 60 and 100 watt versions from "Barney's Rubble" in Goldthorpe.
They are legally sold as they are "heavy duty" type for industrial use ..... and all available in soft tones 

[SteveC]

...so many people seem unable to perceive the flicker at all...

A couple of years ago, the light cluster above my desk at work was playing up so we got a special lighting chap in to check them.
He told me that he could recognise LEDs by the different flicker rate, so I've always assumed some people must be able to.
I can't but I know how annoying a flashing light can be so you both have my sympathies.

[Diver300]

What's depressing is that so many people seem unable to perceive the flicker at all, so you come across like one of those people who are 'allergic to WiFi'^[1] when you complain about it.

Shooting video of it on a smartphone seems to be a good (if unscientific) way to demonstrate the problem, as you usually get some sort of rolling shutter artefact.


_{[1] I wonder how often that's actually a symptom of bad lighting?}

Even worse, when some light, usual in power indicator or similar is powered at 50 Hz, and still some people can't see that it flickers.

The centre vision, no movement frequency limit for human vision is of the order of 50 Hz, and that is sometimes taken as the frequency needed to avoid visible flicker. With movement, such as moving the eyes, high contrast ratios, and edge of vision, the detectable frequency can easily exceed 2 kHz.

Don't get me started on 100 Hz car lights, run from a 12 V battery.........

[Samuel D]

Several years ago I bought a batch of General Electric CFLs (large, globe-style models). I got them because they had the best spectral power distribution of the CFLs I could find at the time. I think they were something like 18 euros each – very expensive. None blew over eight years. None flickered noticeably. None buzzed or hummed.

Now I’ve moved flat and need to get lower power bulbs for some fittings (halogen bulbs still make more sense for bathrooms, toilets, etc.).

To my surprise, the period between my moving flats seemed to encapsulate the whole life-cycle of CFLs, which now appear to be obsolete.

Are LEDs really up to this job in terms of colour quality? CCFLs were much better than LEDs for display backlights for many years.

Don't get me started on 100 Hz car lights, run from a 12 V battery.........

The flicker of many modern cars’ lamps drives me nuts. I see great arcs of red dots when I scan the scene in a traffic jam. How the heck was this allowed? Among many other problems with car lighting, which has become a serious problem for me in the last few years …

[Brucey]

FWIW you can usually see if you have flicker by waving your fingers between you and your light; at a certain speed your fingers will strobe if the flicker is bad.

  Most domestic tungsten lights flicker too, just nothing like as badly as some other lights do.

BTW one of the main differentiators between different LED lights is efficiency.

 At the budget end of the spectrum you can buy cheap LED bulbs in the pound shop with about 70-90 lumens per Watt.  These seem OK for the money (and are slightly more efficient than CFLs are usually); reasonable colour temperature, a bit flickery perhaps. They are still about six times more efficient than typical BC tungsten bulbs (around 10 lumens per Watt, although there are slightly more efficient types too). 

Spend more and you get more light,  up to about 200 lumens per Watt at present in commercial LED bulbs.  In the laboratory, 200 lumens per Watt was ground-breaking just a few years ago; now they are doing about 300 lumens per Watt in the lab, maybe more.

So, does it make sense to spend more on expensive bulbs? 

Suppose it is (say) a choice between a cheap 5W LED bulb or a more expensive 3W  LED bulb to make the same amount of light.  Over the life of the bulb (say 20000 hours...? -they claim 30000 for most LEDs)  the 5W bulb will use 100 units of electricity and the 3W bulb will use 60 units of electricity.  At today's prices (say 25p/unit?) that is £25 vs £15.  So yes, it is worth spending up to about £10 more on the more expensive bulb in this case!   [Note that this also assumes that the cheaper bulb will last as long, which is a fairly big assumption...].

Prof David Mackay (RIP) reckoned it wasn't even worth 'using up' old tungsten bulbs, they are so inefficient.  In 20000 hours of tungsten bulb use, equivalent to either of the bulbs above, you will use about £150 in electricity and you will have used up the life in about 20 conventional BC bulbs.  You could replace 20 bulbs with cheap LEDs (and pay the electricity bill for them) about four times over for the same money.

Another way of looking at it is that a 60W BC tungsten bulb will last about 1000Hrs and will use 60 units (about £15 worth) of electricity over its life. If you have 20 such bulbs already (that you plan to 'use up') and each one only does about 50 to 100hrs a year, you will still be using some of them in ten or  twenty years time...  If you replace all those with (even) cheap LED bulbs, the payback time is about 2-3 years or something like that.  The higher the usage rate, the shorter the payback time.  After 'payback' you are getting your light for a tiny fraction of the cost...

So tungsten lights are arguably best now thought of as a fairly expensive way of heating the room in a feeble fashion, with an additional benefit of some light coming out....

cheers

[Kim]

Even worse, when some light, usual in power indicator or similar is powered at 50 Hz, and still some people can't see that it flickers.

The centre vision, no movement frequency limit for human vision is of the order of 50 Hz, and that is sometimes taken as the frequency needed to avoid visible flicker. With movement, such as moving the eyes, high contrast ratios, and edge of vision, the detectable frequency can easily exceed 2 kHz.

100Hz doesn't bother me in my central vision, though I'd rather not use it for room lighting.  I can percieve flicker at hundreds of Hz in my peripheral vision if I'm looking for it.

We've tested it, and impressively Barakta can perceive flicker in a bog standard red indicator LED at up to about 6kHz.  She has the additional problem of not moving her eyes horizontally, so she moves her head instead, which means no saccade blanking - she sees a blurry image during the movement, which becomes a confusing mess of multiple stroboscopic images under flickering light.  It's not surprising she has no tolerance for it.

[slope]

I'd like my domestic light to be qualitifiably (is there a word?) warm and friendly. I don't live in a warehouse.

Unfortunately I'm on the suffering end of perceiving flickering lights (and all sorts of other stuff that the majority don't bat an eyelid to)

Any recommendations from similar others as to which MODERN bayonet bulbs aren't going to be a waste of money and do my head in?

Encouraging to see the many responses to this subject - and many thanks everybody 

[barakta]

I've made friends with a nerdy person who is also sensitive to lighting. He sent me https://www.derlichtpeter.de/testergebnisse/ which lists various products by various standards and colour codes them.

You'll need to let Google translate it from the original German but may give you some ideas on what to avoid even if the "better" metrics may still have problems for some of it.

There is other sources of info but I can't find the link which said cost is not a 100% guarantee of non flicker.

A good link is http://www.archlighting.com/technology/leds-fighting-flicker_o which explains how the flicker happens.

[Kim]

Warm and friendly is hard to quantify, beyond the obvious flicker, colour temperature and colour-rendering index.

I reckon one of the more subtle effects with LED lighting, particularly when dimmable, is that the colour temperature is independent of brightness.  We're used to natural light sources that approximate a black body - with the colour temperature increasing hand in hand with brightness.  LED or fluorescent sources that look fine with the brightness turned up to 11 can feel distinctly unnatural when dimmed down and the colour temperature doesn't change.