LED lights for better fuel economy....

jdulle

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So if you are driving a lot at night, it might make sense. It would be small, the difference. But every little thing adds up. Just like with the insight, they did so many things to improve aero and lighten the car. The bottom third of the engine is magnesium. The valve cover gasket is plastic. The hood is carbon fiber. The rear drums are aluminum. I just replaced the license plate lights, and IIRC some running lights on the front of the car with LED. Partly I hate when you go to the auto parts store and they charge 4 or 5$ for 2 tiny bulbs, and the second one sits in the glove box and eventually gets broken. The LEDs will last the life of the car. I would get LRR tires when the ones on there wear out, and inflate to 40psi. They will save more fuel than the LEDs, but it will also be minor. Biggest savings are from driving slower, and the grill block. I have not done the grill block on my tdi because I don't drive it in the winter, but my insight has a full block and the civic has 3/4 blocked off in the winter.
 

eddieleephd

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Why is it unfortunate? You'd be the first one that cut their bill by 40% changing to LED's. I've done it, my friends have done it and the bill didn't change one bit, or if it did, not enough to notice. 40% is cutting your bill in half, the only way I can see it being done is if you left every light on in the house 24 hours a day.

Either way, glad it worked out for you. :cool:
Do you have kids? Yes the lights stay on 90% of the time no matter what you do!

I am a sustainability professional and it is not BS.
If you change from CFL's the difference will not be this dramatic.
However, CFL's use 70% less energy than incandescent's and LED's use 85% less than incandescent's.
The greatest difference in the long run between LED and CFL's are the lifetime of the bulb.
Another great thing about LED bulbs is spectrum availability. Use daylight spectrum and you will see true color!

My bulbs by the way are 4 years old or so.
I recommend getting them at the hardware store when the power company is doing their mandatory subsidization. I got my bulbs for around $3 each Regular $7-$9.

I am all for going to DC lighting throughout the house.
Both CFL's and LED's can operate on DC more efficiently than AC.
This would create an even greater reduction in energy consumption due to lack of conversion, or more correctly stated rectification.

So far as Automotive bulbs goes the design of the vehicle limits greatly the benefit to using LED.
For our VW's, LED headlights are not compatible with the bulb housing.
LED bulbs are only really viable in sockets inside the vehicle and exterior for markers, backup lights (which correct ones would be great), and the license plate lamp.

Power consumption will not be that greatly reduced and the main benefits would be greater illumination and a longer lifetime if you get good quality bulbs.

Just as with any other part on our cars, CHEAP is WORTHLESS!

Use Quality LED bulbs in the right spot and never replace them.
You can use LED with resistors built in if they are quality and they will not negatively affect the experience of driving, however, longer life is the sole benefit!

You will never save enough energy with automotive bulbs to pay for them, however, you may go through few enough bulbs to pay for them.
 

donDavide

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Do you have kids? Yes the lights stay on 90% of the time no matter what you do!

I am a sustainability professional and it is not BS.
If you change from CFL's the difference will not be this dramatic.
However, CFL's use 70% less energy than incandescent's and LED's use 85% less than incandescent's.
The greatest difference in the long run between LED and CFL's are the lifetime of the bulb.
Another great thing about LED bulbs is spectrum availability. Use daylight spectrum and you will see true color!

My bulbs by the way are 4 years old or so.
I recommend getting them at the hardware store when the power company is doing their mandatory subsidization. I got my bulbs for around $3 each Regular $7-$9.

I am all for going to DC lighting throughout the house.
Both CFL's and LED's can operate on DC more efficiently than AC.
This would create an even greater reduction in energy consumption due to lack of conversion, or more correctly stated rectification.

So far as Automotive bulbs goes the design of the vehicle limits greatly the benefit to using LED.
For our VW's, LED headlights are not compatible with the bulb housing.
LED bulbs are only really viable in sockets inside the vehicle and exterior for markers, backup lights (which correct ones would be great), and the license plate lamp.

Power consumption will not be that greatly reduced and the main benefits would be greater illumination and a longer lifetime if you get good quality bulbs.

Just as with any other part on our cars, CHEAP is WORTHLESS!

Use Quality LED bulbs in the right spot and never replace them.
You can use LED with resistors built in if they are quality and they will not negatively affect the experience of driving, however, longer life is the sole benefit!

You will never save enough energy with automotive bulbs to pay for them, however, you may go through few enough bulbs to pay for them.
Cheaper at costco, got 100s for 1.79, 60s for 1.65
 

turbovan+tdi

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VeeDubTDI

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Another great thing about LED bulbs is spectrum availability. Use daylight spectrum and you will see true color!
Don't conflate color temperature and color rendering index. To see true color, you need high CRI. Color temperature is just the tone of the light (warm/cool). Most of the "daylight" LEDs and CFLs you find in places like Home Depot and Lowe's are only ~80 CRI.

There are some daylight spectrum lamps that mimic actual daylight (about 5000K and 98 CRI), but they're pretty expensive and not available at your local hardware store.

You also don't want lights that are too blue/cool at night, as blue light slows natural melatonin production and screws up the body's circadian rhythm.

</offtopic>
 
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eddieleephd

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Don't conflate color temperature and color rendering index. To see true color, you need high CRI. Color temperature is just the tone of the light (warm/cool). Most of the "daylight" LEDs and CFLs you find in places like Home Depot and Lowe's are only ~80 CRI.

There are some daylight spectrum lamps that mimic actual daylight (about 5000K and 98 CRI), but they're pretty expensive and not available at your local hardware store.

You also don't want lights that are too blue/cool at night, as blue light slows natural melatonin production and screws up the body's circadian rhythm.

</offtopic>
You are correct, but please don't put anything in the bathroom or bedroom that isn't daylight spectrum, if LED go dimmable too.

Wherever the woman does her makeup is best to use daylight spectrum.

Temperature of the bulbs isn't nearly as important as spectrum.
Have you ever looked at something indoors and thought it had an awesome color, like at the store, then got outside and saw it in the daylight only to think this looks horrible?

Spectrum of the bulb distorts the color. Yellow reflects back yellow well but your greens and other colors will look funky and the yellow will even be different outside.
 

TomB

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LOL! Is this seriously a real post?

That usage is so minor... No real impact.

Yeah get rid of that alternator and run off battery. When do you charge the battery, it goes dead eventually?
 

VeeDubTDI

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You are correct, but please don't put anything in the bathroom or bedroom that isn't daylight spectrum, if LED go dimmable too.

Wherever the woman does her makeup is best to use daylight spectrum.

Temperature of the bulbs isn't nearly as important as spectrum.
Have you ever looked at something indoors and thought it had an awesome color, like at the store, then got outside and saw it in the daylight only to think this looks horrible?

Spectrum of the bulb distorts the color. Yellow reflects back yellow well but your greens and other colors will look funky and the yellow will even be different outside.
I have full spectrum 5000K 93 CRI fluorescent lamps in our bathrooms and kitchen under-cabinet lights, but I'd never do that in the bedroom. At some point I'll upgrade the bathroom to 98 CRI for even better color. ;)

Finding true full spectrum LED lamps is challenging. 90 CRI is what I consider to be the minimum acceptable level for areas that need good light, and 80 is meh. Unfortunately, 80 is mostly what you find on the market today. If you want 95-98 (I've never seen 100), you need to pay a lot of money from an online retailer of specialty lamps.

And for what it's worth, you can get lower color temperature lamps that have high color-rendering. I'm installing 2300K "amber glow" 90+ CRI LED bulbs in a restaurant right now to replace all of their MR-16 halogens. The warm color sets a nice mood for dinner. Another restaurant nearby is installing cheap daylight LEDs on their patio and they're borderline-offensive when you're trying to eat dinner.

Sorry for going way off topic for the thread - I'm a lighting geek and I can't help myself. :eek:
 
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U4ick

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texas
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Time for this thread to be moved over to the Better Homes and Garden forum :D
 

ZippyNH

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Just "self licensing"...
A person seeking validation for something they want too do...
And seeking the validation from strangers...
Go figure.
Nobody has said it smart...
But many mods are done for the sake of modding....And if the person can justify ...Even in just their own mind ....It makes it simpler for them to feel good about it.
 

VeeDubTDI

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If you want to do it for the sake of modding, have at it. Just be aware that it'll never pay you back (as is the case with most modifications). :)
 

Digital Corpus

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You are correct, but please don't put anything in the bathroom or bedroom that isn't daylight spectrum, if LED go dimmable too.

Wherever the woman does her makeup is best to use daylight spectrum.

Temperature of the bulbs isn't nearly as important as spectrum.
Have you ever looked at something indoors and thought it had an awesome color, like at the store, then got outside and saw it in the daylight only to think this looks horrible?

Spectrum of the bulb distorts the color. Yellow reflects back yellow well but your greens and other colors will look funky and the yellow will even be different outside.
CCT doesn't cause that, nor CRI, but spectral power distribution is what causes that. CRI is derived from SPD, but what you're referencing is largely due to you LED lights not emitting the appropriate levels of light in that portion of the spectrum. It's not uncommon for 2 types 90 CRI LEDs to still have 1 with the typical blue spike and another to have it diminished significantly. Even with current phosphors, there still is a well around 480-490 mm so cyan/teal comes out poorly.
 

PB_NB

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1999 New Beetle
I put some LEDs bulbs in the Element after the HIDs started to fade to the point where I couldn't see much. The LED bulbs cost me $135 CDN (~$25 USD :)) .
The Element has stock projectors so the focus on the HID's was decent with out blinding oncoming drivers. The LEDs are bright and 6000K color is nice as well.
After looking at the design, I think these will work well in the standard reflecting headlight housings. They have a small square where the light comes from which will keep the blinding scatter around the same as filament bulbs and way better than HIDs in reflecting housings.
For the price and light output, I am very happy with my LEDs.
 

VeeDubTDI

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Scatter is a function of where exactly in the focal point of the housing those small emitters line up. If it's too wide or not in exactly the right position, the scatter will be unacceptable. Projectors will reduce that problem a lot, but at the expense of light output. If the emitter isn't in exactly the right spot, you end up with what is called a bench focus problem, where the field of light isn't even (see graphic below).



So just be aware that not all LED retrofits are created equally.
 

SilverGhost

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I have still not found a single LED "halogen replacement" that good beam control. Several claim they do, but when I tried them out the scatter is horrid.

There was a discussion on here a few years ago about why you can't drop HID bulbs into halogen housings. Gist of the discussion is the element runs bright at different points along its length and different position than arc of Xenon bulb. In some instances the elements of a halogen bulb are even turned 90 degrees from the arc globe in a HID bulb.

Now for LEDs they are trying to mimic the bright spot location to make it work. But both HID and halogen have a bright spot with 360 exposure in one plane and only small blockage on other plane for electrodes. LEDs however block 100% behind them and are brightest in only a small arc, while they do try to distribute light over the whole 180 degrees.

New Passats have LED headlamp available. GTIs have LED fog lamps. Neither use the same reflector setup. In both cases the LEDs are vertical firing and very different shaped reflectors compared to halogen.

Jason
 

turbovan+tdi

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HID's bulbs do emit their light in a 360 arc, there is no reflector on the bulb. LED's are terrible in an HID or halogen bulb projector headlight, learned that one the hard way.
 

Oilerlord

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RE: 40% savings on power bill replacing 48 - 60w bulbs with LED's.

We can do the math on that one too.

Before 48x60W = 2880 W
After 48x10W = 480 W
Net savings = 2.4 kW

Giving benefit of the doubt, Let's assume that every one of those 48 lights "might" be turned on for 8 hours per day.

2.4 kW x 8 hours = 19.2 kWh saved per day. 30 days = 576 kWh saved using LED's.

In this very generous scenario, it's possible. In my experience, we replaced 82x60W bulbs with 12 watt LED's, and 18 75W outdoor floods with 15 watt LED's. On paper, that's a HUGE power saving overall however we are diligent about turning off lights, and seldom have even 10% those bulbs on at any given moment for 4-6 hours in an evening. Add to that our new 10kW oven/microwave/warming tray, heating pumps, two refrigerators, freezer, wine cooler, 3-ton A/C in summer, and our furnace fan that runs most of the time in winter, and of course, my EV, we honestly haven't noticed ANY savings on our power bill.

Essentially, if lighting is one of the biggest loads on his panel every month - it's possible. That's a big IF however, so I do understand Turbo's skepticism.
 
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turbovan+tdi

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SilverGhost

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HID's bulbs do emit their light in a 360 arc, there is no reflector on the bulb. LED's are terrible in an HID or halogen bulb projector headlight, learned that one the hard way.
I know, and that is what I said.

To clarify - if we get all fancy and specify x,y,z axis then on two (lets say x,y) HID emits uninterrupted 360 degrees. The other axis (z) will have a very minor interruption at 2 points where the electrodes shade the arc. In most HID bulbs these are positioned in such a way that there is no negative effect of the shadow.

Jason
 

baddowg

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tampa, fl
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On a side note, i replaced 48, 60 watt incandescent conventional light bulbs in my house at a cost of approximately $120. My electric bill dropped by 40%. Return on investment or should i say, they paid for themselves in 2 months. Plus i have not replaced a light bulb in over a year since the changeout.

I replaced the majority of the lights in my house to LED (lights we use the most) my electric bill dropped $20 a month consistently ( as per pervious monthly wattage use)
 

Andyinchville1

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HI Guys,

Been doing a lot of night driving and because of that my normal bulbs have been dying off slowly but surely...

With that I decided to run down to the local Advance Auto and buy replacement LEDs (Sylvania LEDs) for the bulbs that died out ( 1 rear tag light, a right rear tail light, A bumper side marker light....I even decided to go delux and replace my back up lights with LEDs even tho they still worked).

My findings were as follows...

I replaced the small tail light accidentally with a 1156 regular bulb and or LED but the replacements were too bright......so unless I changed all 4 tail light bulbs for the same, the rear running lights (tail lights) would look funny.... I went back with the regular sized incandescent small bulbs (only because I did not have enough LEDs to replace all at once and did not want a few light positions being asymmetrically bright)

With that, I decided to just try replacing the Turn signals with LEDs.

The signals did not hyper flash but I could see that the LEDs were ironically slightly dimmer than the factory bulbs (the LEDs did have a faster full on and shut off while the incandescent had a slight ramp up to full brightness and ramp down when turning off....win for sharper on / off has to go to LED BUT in this case NOT for brightness).

I decided to compare a LED back up light against a factory back up light.

I replaced the passenger side back up light with the LED and left the "normal" bulb on the drivers side and asked my girlfriend on her opinion on which light she liked better (she had no idea which bulb was which).

Upon seeing the lights she commented that she liked the color of the Passenger side bulb better (the LED in this case) BUT she said for crazy brightness she'd have to go with the bulb on the drivers side (the factory bulb!).....Ugh... so much for Sylvania LEDs !

I am returning the LEDs to Advance auto and I did order some back up lights from the
deautokey (they are a sponsor on this site).

Hopefully their $54 back up LEDs will be blindingly bright!.......I can hardly wait to see how they compare (I needed better back up lights because the windows are dark tinted on the wagon).

Oh I almost forgot, the license plate LED from Advance seemed plenty bright so Im keeping it and will replace the other plate light with the same LED when it burns out..

I wonder how many more MPGs Ill get with the replacements !?! HA
 

Dieselmonkey02

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Maybe tear the antenna off and put a wind powered generator in its place? Lots of room for solar panels on the roof too. ( sorry couldn't resist )
 

Digital Corpus

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Blindingly bright. Yes. Let's.

For the past 9 years I've been driving home at night; anywhere between 2300 & 0200. With manufacturers switching overnight to LEDs, I've not really minded. The low-frequency PWM control is annoying as hell, but worse yet are OE's like Toyota who use clear, undiffused lenses with 60° angle, 5 mm high power LEDs. These are literally blindingly bright. So much that when I'm within the 6 car lengths and in the FOV of the LED's beam, I cannot see the car to its left or right, let along the traffic in front of it. It's worse yet when you're in rush hour traffics, which for here lasts about 10 hrs of a 24 hr day.

A bulb, LED or incandescent, only needs 300-500 lumens. I do realize you mean "blindingly bright" as a jest, such lights are quite literally a hazard and impair visions making it unecessarily difficult to discern traffics conditions. Head over to superbrightleds.com. Decent prices for a standard bulb.
 

VeeDubTDI

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Part of the problem with modern car headlights (LEDs specifically) is that manufacturers are opting to go with higher color temperature lights for "increased visibility" for the driver. Unfortunately, higher color temperature lights also result in increased glare. Toyota is guilty of this with the Corolla and Ford with the Explorer.

Personally, I would prefer a warmer/lower color temperature - perhaps something in the 3000K range. There would be less Rayleigh scattering, the lights would perform better in poor weather conditions, and the dazzling of oncoming traffic would be reduced.

This is the same argument that we're seeing with LED street lights, with many municipalities installing 6000K LEDs for their high efficiency. Unfortunately, that much blue light at night causes sleep disruption for people and animals and contributes to significantly increased amounts of light pollution when compared to lower color temperature fixtures. The American Medical Association and the International Darksky Association both make very compelling arguments against high CCT LEDs.
 

turbocharged798

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Our local town has been installing those silly LED street lights that are much less bright than the HPS/mercurys they replaced and are much more blinding. Very annoying.

The kicker is that is that HPS is equal or better efficiency to LEDs.
 

VeeDubTDI

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Our local town has been installing those silly LED street lights that are much less bright than the HPS/mercurys they replaced and are much more blinding. Very annoying.

The kicker is that is that HPS is equal or better efficiency to LEDs.
HPS is only better at raw lamp output in large lamps. 400 watt HPS lamps ring in at about 125 lumens per watt. That doesn't take into account efficiency losses from the ballast (another 50 watts or so) or efficiency losses in the fixture optics (another 10% or more depending on fixture design).

Low pressure sodium is more efficient, but it's expensive to maintain and a lot of people complain about its lack of color rendering.

The ideal solution for street lights is narrow band amber (similar to LPS) or selective filtered amber LEDs (filters to remove blue light below a certain part of the spectrum). Also, specking the lights such that areas aren't being over-lit and the light only goes where you want it rather than into the sky or bedroom windows.
 
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