ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area exploding bulbs

Led ratings for lumens are about a tenth of the amperes consumed by an 'equivalent] tungsten bulb: whatever that means! Temperature is not equal to energy: the led needs a heat sink on the diode to keep it cool, [ because it is so small, it has a small radiating area], otherwise its life is shortened. The actual heat quantity emitted will be far lower than a conventional equivalent bulb, since more energy is converted to light.

Alan:
Thanks for that. I've seen LED bulbs with large heat sinks, but I personally have no experience with them. Where I was/am going with this 'heat' thing is to compare the radiated heat of a PAR/HAL and/or HR lamp to the equivilent lumen output LED.

Made in China.

I am going to try to sell them on changing over to LED bulbs. I think they will find the investment worthwhile. That being said, in this world of LED manufacturers where is the quality?

I just installed 40 par30 LEDs from TCP in a new house. I only install quality products and want to know what will be best for them. TCP, Verbatim, Sylvania, etc?

The reason for the heatsink is all physics. You have a fixed unit quantity of heat... say 10 watts. Apply that heat to a small 10 gram mass... it'll be HOT. Apply those 10 watts to a 10kg mass... you might or might not feel a difference.

The heat sinks are large mostly because there is no accompanying fan, so they have a very high surface area to encourage convection currents over the fins.