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LED bulbs suck


James Morse

1997 XLT 4.0L 4x4 1999 Mazda B3000 2wd
Joined
Aug 31, 2021
Messages
1,891
City
Roanoke VA
Vehicle Year
1997 and 1999
Engine
4.0 V6
Transmission
Automatic
Tire Size
31x10.5-15 K02's on the Ranger, 235/75R15 on Mazda
My credo
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
So I stupidly didn't buy a whole cartload of old bulbs. Now all you can get is LED. Here's the thing. If you have a dimmer, you could turn down the old bulbs so they are a nice warm yellowish/candle color. The new bulbs, the dim, sort of, but it seems to flicker and it doesn't change the color. They are still that bluish daylight color - which is great if what you want is flood the room with light but if you just want a little light, not very good. Am I missing something? Are there ones that actually work?
LED bulbs aren't even glass they are plastic so I really wonder how much does that help the environment.
They should have left the old bulbs for home use.
Old saying "you never will get rich turning off lights".
Anyway if anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it.
 
There are 'warm' bulbs that have a color much closer to the incandescents.. dunno about dimming though
 
they make dimmable LED's, that's what I have in my bathroom (helps at O dark thirty when nature calls), here's an AMAZON SEARCH. I've had good luck with the Phillips bulbs in general as well, I liked their old flat bulb shaped ones but they stopped making them for some reason...

As for color, they have different K ratings, I don't remember what it means but I think the higher the number the bluer the light so something in the 3000-4000 range will be more "warm" than the 5000 range
 
So I stupidly didn't buy a whole cartload of old bulbs. Now all you can get is LED. Here's the thing. If you have a dimmer, you could turn down the old bulbs so they are a nice warm yellowish/candle color. The new bulbs, the dim, sort of, but it seems to flicker and it doesn't change the color. They are still that bluish daylight color - which is great if what you want is flood the room with light but if you just want a little light, not very good. Am I missing something? Are there ones that actually work?
LED bulbs aren't even glass they are plastic so I really wonder how much does that help the environment.
They should have left the old bulbs for home use.
Old saying "you never will get rich turning off lights".
Anyway if anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it.
You’re talking about 2 different things. Color of light and brightness. You can get led’s with warmer, yellower color, although I haven’t really seen too many that truly match the yellow of incandescent bulbs. The color is measured in degrees kelvin. Higher cri (color rendering index), such as 4500, 5200, etc. are whiter and even approach a blue tint. Lower cri, like 3,000 or 2700 are a warmer, yellower color.

Brightness is a different story. You can have led’s that are less bright than incandescent. That’s the number of lumens of light they put out. But, many people perceive them as being brighter because the color is more white.

To properly dim led’s, you need a“pulse width modulated” power supply. (PWM). The PWM driver supplies the same voltage all the time. But it pulses the voltage - turns it on and off real fast. So, fewer pluses per second is perceived as dimmer by our eyes. Faster pulses, is brighter. If the pulses get slow enough, you will see the flicker. An old time rheostat, like our older vehicles have, raises and lowers the voltage. LED’s don’t like that. They turn on above a certain voltage, usually around 2.2volts. Above that, they are just “on”. Below that, they just turn off.

so, in short, if you want to dim led’s, you need a PWM driver. If you want yellowed color, you need led’s with a diffetent
 
For the most part, I love LEDs, they require less power and put out less heat than incandescent bulbs and they don’t have a mercury containing tube that takes 5 minutes to warm up enough to put out full power but is a hazmat problem to dispose of (CFL “curly-cue” bulbs). The LEDs, if they are quality, have a stupid long lifespan too.

Cheap LEDs though, are typically junk. I bought some cheap ones for my truck and the first two I used literally melted down. I have a picture somewhere. Cheap ones for home use I’ve seen flickers and short lifespan. I’ve tried to stick to Sylvania, Feit, GE, etc. FYI, ”warm” or “soft” white is usually the yellow tint bulbs, “daylight” is a whiter light color.
 
Color of light and brightness.
Yes I understand. Here's the weird thing, the ones that caused my post are bluish which is great when you want total bright illumination but on a regular dimmer switch when I turned it down the did get dimmer but kind of flickered and no change of color.
To my way of thinking the old incandescents do actually change from a yellow to orange when you turn them way down. Example, candelabra bulbs at night sometimes I turn them way down they are definitely less yellow-white and change to orange.
I'm probably missing something in my understanding. Bottom line is everything is going to be LED so some things are going to be a re-think / re-do for lighting. Like, they have those strip LED's those might be nice in the kitchen, and you can change to all kind of different colors. Like the strips they sell for your vehicle where you can program them. All that.
Are candelabra base bulbs all going to be LED too? Fluorescents I assume, no change... I hope.

My mind is somewhat disjointed, the dog has cancer on top of her head, had one operation already, won't heal up and cancer is back, had total body CAT scan yesterday and now I have the option for another operation (first just got some of it and to find out wtf is it) which may or may not get all of it so then you have potentially follow up chemo / radiation. That operation would be super invasive and surgical oncologist, they try to get it all but there's no guarantee of that. She's 12+ years old and I never had a GSD live past or to 13 yrs so it's going to be something sooner or later. Plus they said there's some kind of growth on her spleen probably not cancer but might have to take spleen out. So there's the option put her down. She's on pain meds but I saw all the CAT pictures I mentioned and the cancer is pressing down in her sinus and they said, that would be painful. It's invasive aggressive cancer. But she's happy, or puts on a good simulation of it anyway, so how do you know what to do and I think the answer is when it feels like you are keeping them alive for your sake not for theirs and you can see they are losing all the joy and activity then I think that's the time. Anyway it's been tearing me apart and all the stuff is super expensive but really if there were some magic bullet and assurances I don't care what it costs so unfortunately it's not a decision of money which just goes to show money causes problems because if I had no money I would just say, can't afford it so it's not happening but I don't have that luxury. If only there were some assurance, if we do such and such, cancer's gone, should live a long time - no - wouldn't happen - because she's old already. She's ok with the vet but this cancer place (it's VT Animal Cancer place, they have a whole building in the hospital complex here) seems like she hates it and I just can't see the balance of like trauma for her going there again and again and a really invasive operation. I don't know what to do and the surgeon is supposed to call by the end of the week and I have do decide, operation, no operation. Etc. Vicky says the dog still has a lot of life in her, when I told her I was considering putting her down as in "it's time". It's undecided and nobody can make the decision for me of "what's the right thing to do". I'm just ranting because it's so stressful and it's eating my lunch. I've gone through this before and had to put them down a couple times but it doesn't get easier especially when it's not clear cut. I took care of one (always GSD's) she couldn't even walk at all and I was doing bedding every freaking day for quite a while but she was happy and alert but then she started bleeding a lot out her back end and then you know, it's time, that's the end, they're gone, and you put them down because it's the only merciful thing to do.
Edit: But remember too, it is possible they get all the cancer out, and it all heals up, and she lives another year or so. That's a lot. In theory a good surgical oncologist goes around the margin of it and then the pathologist looks at it, and of course the acid test is, does it come back. Then you're looking at chemo / rad. You see why it's a hard decision.
 
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that sucks about your dog. my dog got sick and would have needed crazy surgery too, if we could find a vet around here which would do the surgery. and he was in pain the whole time so we had to put him down. he was around 12, too. it really sucked
 
Very sorry to hear about the doggo James. I know the feeling, it's not enjoyable.
 
Incandescent bulbs change temperature when you dim them. Less voltage = less current= less power consumed= less heat generated = lower temperature = yellower, warmer color. LEDs are a totally different technology. They act differently and have little to no color change as they are dimmed. Again. If you have them in an old style rheostat (resistor type) dimmer. They will not act right. They really won’t dim. They just get less and less voltage until you hit the threshold voltage where they no longer conduct and just turn off.

So sorry about your dog. My dogs have always been 100% family members. When they have health issues or die, it tears me apart horribly. I’ve had to make “the decision” 3 times. It never gets easier. Dogs are brave and will put on a smile for you. But if there’s continuous pain, you need to consider what quality of life they really have. Only you can make the best decision for your loved one.
 
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LEDs have their place but not in places that require dimming or for use as headlights in housings not designed for them. Even some of the headlights designed to be LED produce a lot of glare and are annoying.

Dome lights, marker lights, and reverse lights, go to town but not headlights or dash panels.

The fog and off road models seem to be pretty decent too.
 
Load up at the wrecking yard
I bought a couple dozen a few years ago and am yet to put a single one in, they just last and last and last ;)
 

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