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It seems everywhere one turns these days some one is talking about converting from incandescent to LED lighting.  I just do not like the look it provides in buildings or engines or passenger cars or room lighting.  I thought I would join the bandwagon last winter so I upgraded the 2 feet by 4 feet fixtures from florescent to LED.  I was very pleased that I found flat panel replacements that came with  a remote at would change the light intensity 100 to 75 to 50 to 25 percent and also adjust the color from 3500 to 5000 kelvin in four increments.  seemed like a dream come true getting a dimmer and color adjust in one package.  Even though the cost over $150 each, the features being so easy to access made the costs seem reasonable.  I should have had suspicions when one failed right out of the box.  Now, one just quit working and replacing them is no fun!

I went this route because of all the clamor about the wonderful reliability that LED's would offer.  Yeah, right!

I also wish I could take the LED's out of the wonderful buildings I have purchased from Menards and Woodland scenics.  I really prefer the warm glow that the grain of wheat bulbs provide in the majority of my buildings.  But try to get to all those LED's that are installed.  Not to mention the LED lights that went out in my Menards American Power and Light building.  It is a good looking building but not so much without any lighting.

As for trains, how odd is it to watch a steam engine come down the tracks with a super bright LED head lamp blinding you!  Or the unbelievably bright LED headlamp in the 3rd Rail union Pacific SD diesel.  This one leaves my eyes unable to refocus for several seconds after the light shines in my eyes as it comes around a curve.  (Just so you know, I really enjoy watching a beautiful engine and train come around a curve toward me.)

So you may be wondering why I am posting this tonight.  Well, I have three Lionel Southern heavyweight cars from around 2006 or so and they have that warm glow as they go around the tracks but i only have three.  So I add the Southern RPO car that came out last year to the consist an although the car is a different color of green, I figure it will make the consist look more realistic.  I am pulling it with a little MTH Railing 0-6-0 which is Southern green and the warm glow of the engine headlight and cab interior light and that from the three Southern passenger cars is what one might imagine seeing go through the country side in years gone by.  And then you notice the HORRIBLE screaming white light emanating from the RPO car and the whole moment is lost.

I have used some of the orange paint suggest here on the forum and although it helps, it is no where close to the same effect.

So, does anyone else feel this way or is it just me?

Happy railroading,

Don

 

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It's all about color temperature. I use 2700K LEDs for anywhere that color rendition matters, like my layout. They give me the warmer incandescent type, and "nostalgic",  feel.

In my workshop, and my layout utility lights, I use the higher degree K lights (above 3000K)  to give me a bright, almost blue, light for working on the layout.

Pay attention to this and it is easy to get the desired effect you want for different areas of the layout or home.

TJ

I'm very nit-picky about lighting in my house - less so with my trains.  I have yet to find an LED bulb ("warm-white", "2700K" or otherwise) for the lamps and light fixtures that comes anywhere near the quality of light from a standard incandescent soft-white GE bulb of yore.

For trains, the power savings is definitely a bonus - however I wish the manufacturers would avoid the cool-white LEDs.  They do not look good at all IMO, especially when mixed with incandescent bulbs.

I haven't tried the orange paint idea, but another thing to look into is Rosco lighting gels.  One sheet and you could probably cover every bulb in your layout.  Look at the CTO (Color Temperature Orange) ones. They come in increments of light transmission to convert different white points (Kelvin) to another.  https://us.rosco.com/en/products/catalog/roscolux  

Honestly, I replaced all of the 2x4 fluorescent fixtures in my train room and the difference is incredible and I would never go back.  The room is so much brighter, the lights won't cause fading as they do not emit ultraviolet rays, and I don't have to screw around with bad bulbs or starters.  I am sure the fixtures will wear out over time, but they are so much better than the old ones.  After my positive experience with the train room, I swapped out all of the incandescent bulbs in the house with the LED bulbs and couldn't be happier.  

Here is a look at the train room before swapping fixtures

Notice how the room has a yellowish look to it.

Here is the same wall after going to LED fixtures.

It is like night and day in the room.  

As for the trains, well they are prewar, so I am not converting any of those to LED.  

I replaced the light fixtures in both the train room and the workshop with track lighting using LEDs.  These are 4100 degree lights that give off a sunlight effect.  I love them.

Wherever possible, I plan to use accessories and lights with LEDs rather than bulbs.  Cost, long-life, and reduced electrical drain are the reasons.  I have calculated the amps that will be required for all the lighted buildings on the layout.  With bulbs, I would need more electrical power. 

So to answer your question, yes.  You might be the only one who hates LED lighting.    

Best,

George 

LEDs require a lot less power. I think that is one of the major incentives in society. And other benefits are the long life (admittedly there are companies producing faulty products), and choice of color temperature. I prefer 3500K in most of the house, and 5000K in the garage and ham radio and workbench area. A magnifier with a ring of LEDs around the lens is a real boon to the workbench. I might use 2700K in O Gauge cars and accessories.

@DGJONES posted:
I also wish I could take the LED's out of the wonderful buildings I have purchased from Menards and Woodland scenics.  I really prefer the warm glow that the grain of wheat bulbs provide in the majority of my buildings.  But try to get to all those LED's that are installed.  Not to mention the LED lights that went out in my Menards American Power and Light building.  It is a good looking building but not so much without any lighting. 

You're blaming the type of lighting for specific color choices made in manufacturing specific products. As for the LED's that went out in your building, that's not the fault of the technology, but rather the implementation of the technology.  I'd bet money that the problem is not the LED's, but rather the shoddy wiring.  That would happen just as often with incandescent bulbs.

I use LED's from yellow to bright white for upgrades, depending on the specific requirement and time period.  For most steam, I use some really great 2700K LED's that look a lot more like the headlight that a steamer would have than the wimpy little incandescent bulb.

@DGJONES posted:

As for trains, how odd is it to watch a steam engine come down the tracks with a super bright LED head lamp blinding you!  Or the unbelievably bright LED headlamp in the 3rd Rail union Pacific SD diesel.  This one leaves my eyes unable to refocus for several seconds after the light shines in my eyes as it comes around a curve.  (Just so you know, I really enjoy watching a beautiful engine and train come around a curve toward me.)

Again, you're blaming the LED technology for the manufacturer's choices of the product.

If you like watching a beautiful locomotive and train come around a curve toward you, surely you've noticed how bright the headlights are, right?  I love the look in subdued lighting of the headlight shining off the rails as the train come toward me, that looks exactly like what you'd see with a real prototype in the same circumstances.

The bottom line is I can make the LED lighting looks like the incandescent lighting, even the same brightness.  However, I choose not to as sometimes the brighter headlight is soooo much better looking.

If you get to talking about passenger car lighting, it's no contest!  Again, I can make the color temperature anything you like, simply by selecting the proper LED for the job.  However, the difference in the quality of the lighting will be very apparent!

  • Even lighting throughout the car as you would see in the real prototype.
  • Power consumption of 5%-10% of the same car with incandescent lighting.  This really matters with long passenger trains!
  • Variable intensity to match my preference in lighting, most incandescent lighting in passenger cars is WAY too bright for me.
  • Flicker-free operation, nothing annoys me more than to see a passenger train coming that looks like it's got strobe lights in every car!

Used properly LED lighting is far superior to incandescent lighting in almost every way.

Here's the color chart I speak of when talking about LED colors.

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Last edited by gunrunnerjohn

When converting house lighting to LED I made sure to use 2700K lights. I don't like bright white lighting and 2700K is nice and warm.

Having stood in the light cast by the prototype on a dark night I can attest that those super-bright LED model locomotive headlights look quite prototypical.  My only gripe is that they seem to always be aimed wrong and thus don't light up the track ahead of the train.

NWL: WOW!  I might just be forced to eat my own words afterall?  I certainly can see the difference.  I love your wall of trains!  Looks a lot like Chester Holley's WOT where he had much of his tinplate collection on display in the hall of his home that came in off the side entrance on Himes Avenue in Tampa, FL.

I'd like to see OGR consider printing a special stand alone publication (NOT part of an issue of O Gauge Railroading is understood) from members of the great OGR family after OGR receives photographs of WOT collections that have been placed on display in homes, office, anywhere, with a cut off date to be determined by the OGR staff of course!

If you believe this is a sound idea, please raise your hand.  Not to worry, you won't be called to the head of the class!

 

Last edited by Trinity River Bottoms Boomer

One thing I have learned about LED lighting.  While the LED lights may last a life time, the problem many times is the electronics that make them work specifically the boards that they are wired into.  LEDs may last many years or decades but I have found that the boards malfunction WAY before the lights go out.  If your LEDs don't work, it is not likely an LED problem.  So much for the marketing used to sell them based on how long the LED will last rather it should be based on how long the electronics will last ... different story

@johnstrains posted:

I run mostly Lionel PW passenger trains and my problem was that many would barely register the interior lighting without cranking up the transformer. Then you end up with a speeding train ready to fly off the tracks. Converting some of them to LEDs improves this issue. And LEDs also help to reduce classic PW lighting flickering.

For me it depends...on whether the existing incandescent lights do the job - some of the older PW engines draw a lot current, demanding a higher setting on the ZW, which in turn keeps the headlight brighter. If the lighting is non-existent or not up to snuff, LEDs get installed, albeit they must be the warmer versions. Never had much luck colorizing the cool white LEDs, so I just buy warm versions.

I love the flicker free aspect of an LED which, of course, requires a diode and a decent size capacitor to make that work. I love the evenness of interior lighting using an LED strip in a passenger car - but that very evenness has brought me to see the need for variations at each window - real trains just aren't evenly lighted. I love the low power consumption, I love the longevity - which only occurs when you use a diode and adjust the resistor to draw 20ma or less (rule of thumb applied.)

I would like to see an incandescent flickering firebox in order to compare it to the LED's flickering light box - does anyone make them?

And finally, by using the cheap, cheap regulators available today, along with the correct current limiting resistors, I can get my engines and cars to illuminate almost fully when the ZW handle is only slightly advanced, and then remain constant throughout the middle and upper ranges of the throttle. I have even powered a couple of them directly off the regulator with no current limiting resistor by carefully measuring current at initial setup and limiting to 20ma or less - a bit of a touchy procedure as most multiturn pots get pretty touchy down in that range! The advantage to that method is that you have full brilliance lighting even at the lowest voltage coming out of a ZW

In short, I like 'em!

I don't care about being prototypical at all, I love LEDs.  I hate the grain bulbs in headlights of my older locomotives, so dim and they don't light anything up when running in the dark.  The LED headlights are awesome, they really light things up.  I also hate the yellowish lighting, I much prefer the bight white for headlights and in passenger cars.

I use LEDs in some fixtures in my house and sheds; the quality of the lighting is sometime deplorable.  I don't care whether the packaging says it is in the same range as an incandescent, my eyes can see the difference.  Many times, it doesn't matter.  Sometimes it does.

It matters in miniature lighting.  I have yet to find a good LED headlight on a locomotive.  Too bright, too white.

It matters in holiday lighting.  I absolutely refuse to use LEDs for Christmas, for example.  They are cold and ugly.  None can match the warm cheer of C-6s, C-7s, C-9s, or even the plug in miniatures.

I am willing to pay for the extra juice to have good looking lighting where it counts.

And, whether it be the LEDs themselves of the circuitry that powers them, I really object to a bulb that is supposed to last "22 Years!" dying in fewer weeks, especially given the hyper-inflated prices.  I am not willing to pay for that.

I have a Lionmaster T1 and the LED headlights have a definite greenish color to them.  Very odd.  I'll be experimenting with the orange paint or finding different LEDs.  And the red marker lights on the tender are unrealistically laser-bright.

This is disapointing considering the cost of a steamer. Selecting the right LEDs is a matter of due diligence in component selection, not necessarily cost.  The customer shouldn't have to modify the headlight LEDs to make them look good.

Dale

For layout lighting I went from 2700K halogens to 3100K LEDs and then finally to 5000K LEDs, all in PAR20 form for my track lighting. I highly recommend trying a few different brands and reading the packaging carefully. They call 3100K Bright White and 5000K Daylight but it's mostly marketing from what I can see. The other factor is CRI, the higher the better (and more $$). The Home Depot stuff is good enough I think and that's what I run. Here are some compare-o shots via iPhone. You can see even with a quick pic the diff in color temp in the first shot. You can see the 'stripe' right in the center of my yard in the second shot with one or two 5000s in place among the 3100s. I was really interested in getting a more blue sky and was pleased that is seemed to render greens a little nicer too.

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Good shot, Norm, it clearly shows the difference you can get in lighting.

As for me, my layout is small and in a single room, so I have a LED overhead mount. The 'cans' are small but they cover a lot of area. I only have one small spot that isn't covered from this mount:

I love the lighting effects I get from it, as it looks just about right for mid day in the summer time, when my layout takes place. I also gives very strong shadows, just as the sun does. I've never liked 'track' or diffused lighting that many in the hobby like, as they often kill shadows you'd see in real life.

As for interior structure lights, I model the 1940s and pure white LEDs don't look right for that timeframe. I use Woodland Scenics ones with the yellow tint to light the insides of my structures. To my eye, they look great for either incandescent lights with shades or lantern lighting.

Last edited by p51
@rplst8 posted:
 I have yet to find an LED bulb ("warm-white", "2700K" or otherwise) for the lamps and light fixtures that comes anywhere near the quality of light from a standard incandescent soft-white GE bulb of yore.

For trains, the power savings is definitely a bonus - however I wish the manufacturers would avoid the cool-white LEDs.  They do not look good at all IMO, especially when mixed with incandescent bulbs.

My feelings as well. There has been a lot written about how manufacturers have spent untold millions trying to obtain an incandescent look with LEDs. They've made progress, but they're not there yet. I've had a number of instances around the house where I went from LED back to incandescent for the warmer look. Some folks can't tell the difference, probably, but it's something that's very noticable to me. I can't stand walking into a motel room and seeing that they've installed harsh white bulbs in the light fixtures. Talk about uninviting. I probably need to carry my own lightbulbs when I travel. 

Many is the time when I've looked at modern harsh, blinding white headlights on newer locomotives and wished for a warmer, more inviting tint. I've even taken a yellow, water soluble marker and tinted up the lens on some engines in an effort to warm up headlights. They're a bit less obnoxious now (using a warmer white LED, I guess) than they were when LEDs first started being used in engines. Those harsh blue white lights were awful. 

The challenge with LED's and color temperature in most residential and model settings is they are typically standard white LEDs coated with phosphorus to give them the "warm" look.  In commercial applications LED lighting consists of red, green, and blue LEDs and the color temperature is controlled by the LED driver and can be adjusted to any color with the right control system.   However those drivers are a little to large to put inside an individual car.

As was mentioned above, painting the LED yellow may help with giving more of that warm feeling we are used to in a typical incandescent lamp.  I personally like the LEDs since I can run prototype length mainline passenger trains.  Also depending the period you are modeling, fluorescent light lighting was used in streamlined cars and they tended to run 3500 degrees to 4500 degrees.  Headlights are of course a different situation. 

@palallin posted:
I have yet to find a good LED headlight on a locomotive.  Too bright, too white.

You haven't seen the ones I use.  For steam I typically use an LED that splits the difference between yellow and warm white, looks great and still throws a decent beam down the tracks.  I receive lots of positive comments on them, no negative comments as of now.

@GG1 4877 posted:

As was mentioned above, painting the LED yellow may help with giving more of that warm feeling we are used to in a typical incandescent lamp.  I personally like the LEDs since I can run prototype length mainline passenger trains.  Also depending the period you are modeling, fluorescent light lighting was used in streamlined cars and they tended to run 3500 degrees to 4500 degrees.  Headlights are of course a different situation. 

You can buy component or strip LEDs with color temperatures all over the color scale, no need to be painting LEDs.  I have thousands of LED's of different sized and colors, it's rare I can't find a suitable size and color for a specific use.

  If you can't find suitable LED's for virtually any lighting job around the layout, you aren't really trying IMO.

For starters:

43??P direct fit lamps that don't have the LED bullseye

12/19?P with G3.5 globe

19 frosted G3.5 globe

55 lamp for the smoking caboose

51 lamp in the 193 Water Tower

363 for the 455 Oil Derick 

 Yes I am aware of auto illumination Town & country hobbies and similar offerings but nothing comes close to the real charm of incandescent bulbs for me so if you've got something that's easy straightforward and a direct fit I'm all ears

Last edited by bmoran4

There are no incandescent lamps in our home or our motor home. We converted to all LEDs years ago.

The key is color temperature. If you want the warm look of old incandescent lamps, you need 2,700 degree K color temperature.

Here’s The Lovely and Gracious Linda’s curio cabinet where she keeps her cut glass trinkets. The LED lamp is a tubular bulb with a long “filament” of LED material that generates light at 2,700 K. It looks exactly like an old incandescent, but never gets hot. This lamp has been on for months...we use it as a night light in the dining room. Uses 10% of the power that the old incandescent bulb did.

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If your old enough to remember the first fluorescent lights were the same as the early LEDs. White! Our lighting grips called them "dead peoples light" because they had no color. Like Rich, we had all incandescent lights when we moved into our house and the electric bill to prove it. We have the highest electric rate in the country here. We tried a few LEDs but didn't like the look at all. Finally when they came out with warmer LEDs we switched. We went from about $550 to about $300 a month. There were ten 100 watt can bulbs in our kitchen alone. My early small LEDs for the layout were white and I simple added a warm gel to the windows. Don

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Last edited by Rich Melvin

All incandescent bulbs (lamps) have the same color temperature. Like Henry Ford said ; you can have any color you want as long as it is black. LEDs give you a choice. I've settled on 3000K for my train room and house. It's more uplifting on dreary days and not as harsh as florescent. I imagine there is a lot of trial and error selecting suitable LEDs for model trains and accessories. But lighting your train room isn't that complicated. If you like yellow, then get 2700K LED bulbs.

Don you have seen the Phillips LEDs that we have. They can be adjusted easily and development has continued. Price is horrible but we have been pleased with the results. Problem is that we are building instead of running trains and have not worked out the lighting.

Dave at Evan Designs has been a tremendous help for small lighting. We light the interior of all of our buildings and have few that are commercially produced. Structures that we have built probably have 750-1,000 LEDs. They were not out when you visited. Now they are and all work as we have recently gone thru each one after removing them from storage. Surprisingly, 95%+ worked when attached to power. Most that did not were ones done early on when we were learning what to do.

Miller fluorescents do a good job in situations where you want the brighter white fluorescent look.

John Will knows his stuff and appears to have an incredible Inventory of LED products and knows how to be cost effective. I would ask him to assist.

Hope that you are doing well.

Bill

@GG1 4877 posted:

The challenge with LED's and color temperature in most residential and model settings is they are typically standard white LEDs coated with phosphorus to give them the "warm" look.  In commercial applications LED lighting consists of red, green, and blue LEDs and the color temperature is controlled by the LED driver and can be adjusted to any color with the right control system.   However those drivers are a little to large to put inside an individual car.

I have a few of the RGB color mixing bulbs in my house.  Over $100 when I bought them.  Still, no where near incandescent warmth, or dispersion for that matter. 

Last edited by rplst8

...and when the whole house is LED-equipped, you notice a significant difference in your electric bill.

I often hear this repeated by many LED proponents but I fail to see how it makes a big difference.

At 15c/kWh it costs about $10 to run a 100 watt bulb day and night for an entire month.  Couple that with the fact that most bulbs sold are 60W or less, they rarely run for more than a few hours per day, (more in winter, but less in summer) and should be needed only in the room you are in, I can’t see how it would cost much more than $3-5/mo for a few bulbs to be on at a time.  

Add that to the fact that during the months where the indoor temp is lower than the outdoor temp, the incandescent bulbs are lowering your heat bill.

So one of three things is possible, either the electric company is ripping people off, people have no windows and leave the lights on in their house all day long, or they don’t turn off the lights when they leave a room.  Another possibility is that the people that notice the most difference live in southern states, use A/C year round, and use a lot of lights, as it costs about 1.5 times the energy to run a light bulb in A/C.

Refrigerators, dryers, A/C, and other electronics use far, far more energy than incandescent light bulbs.

If we wanted to reduce our energy use by a significant amount, they should design refrigeration that vents the heat outside in summer and uses outside air in an air-to-air intercooler in the winter.

Last edited by rplst8
@rplst8 posted:

At 15c/kWh it costs about $10 to run a 100 watt bulb day and night for an entire month.  Couple that with the fact that most bulbs sold are 60W or less, they rarely run for more than a few hours per day, (more in winter, but less in summer) and should be needed only in the room you are in, I can’t see how it would cost much more than $3-5/mo for a few bulbs to be on at a time. 

Yes, they "should" only be needed in the room that you're in, however reality is some people (who shall remain nameless in my house) don't understand the two positions of a light switch!  It's not unusual for me to see lights in many rooms that don't need to be on.  With LED's, I don't have to be nearly as much of a PITA running around turning them all off.

@rplst8 posted:

Add that to the fact that during the months where the indoor temp is lower than the outdoor temp, the incandescent bulbs are lowering your heat bill.

So one of three things is possible, either the electric company is ripping people off, people have no windows and leave the lights on in their house all day long, or they don’t turn off the lights when they leave a room.  Another possibility is that the people that notice the most difference live in southern states, use A/C year round, and use a lot of lights, as it costs about 1.5 times the energy to run a light bulb in A/C.

And all summer long you're paying that efficiency back by running the A/C more to get rid of that incandescent heat, so that's not a gain.  Add to the fact that my heating costs using natural gas in PA are far lower than my A/C costs using expensive PECO electricity, I lose out.

@rplst8 posted:
Refrigerators, dryers, A/C, and other electronics use far, far more energy than incandescent light bulbs.

 However, driers don't run nearly as much as light bulbs.  Also, my drier is gas heated, much cheaper.

My TV's are all LED models that use 50-60 watts when they're on, so that's not an issue.  Even my computer and monitors use less than 100 watts.  However, a single 60W bulb left on for 12 hours a day will cost me around $3.24/mo.   Change that to an 8 watt LED, and it costs me 42 cents for that same month.

@rplst8 posted:

If we wanted to reduce our energy use by a significant amount, they should design refrigeration that vents the heat outside in summer and uses outside air in an air-to-air intercooler in the winter.

 I suspect there's a good reason that hasn't happened.  The costs would be astronomical!  The return on investment for the difference in price of the fridge would probably be around one hundred years.  Of course, I won't be here, and the fridge wouldn't last that long, two major problems with that idea.

In addition, the fridge doesn't use as much as you think, this is one of many recent quotes on what a modern fridge costs to run.

ENERGY STAR Refrigerator (side by side) 21 cu. ft.     51 kWh per month     $ 6.63 per month

In my case, probably more like $8/mo, that assumes 13 cents/KW.  So, it's not much more than a couple of incandescent bulbs.

Last edited by gunrunnerjohn

Yes, they "should" only be needed in the room that you're in, however reality is some people (who shall remain nameless in my house) don't understand the two positions of a light switch!  It's not unusual for me to see lights in many rooms that don't need to be on.  With LED's, I don't have to be nearly as much of a PITA running around turning them all off.

For me the only other person here is my wife and she is thankfully pretty light switch conscious, but it’s a fair point... maybe LEDs are the path of least resistance.  No pun intended.

In addition, the fridge doesn't use as much as you think, this is one of many recent quotes on what a modern fridge costs to run.

ENERGY STAR Refrigerator (side by side) 21 cu. ft.     51 kWh per month     $ 6.63 per month

In my case, probably more like $8/mo, that assumes 13 cents/KW.  So, it's not much more than a couple of incandescent bulbs.

Hmm.  Maybe it’s time for a new fridge.

@bmoran4 posted:

For starters:

43??P direct fit lamps that don't have the LED bullseye

12/19?P with G3.5 globe

19 frosted G3.5 globe

55 lamp for the smoking caboose

51 lamp in the 193 Water Tower

363 for the 455 Oil Derick 

 Yes I am aware of auto illumination Town & country hobbies and similar offerings but nothing comes close to the real charm of incandescent bulbs for me so if you've got something that's easy straightforward and a direct fit I'm all ears

Don't forget the L452W bulb for the Lionel No. 64 lamp post. Good luck finding an LED replacement for that one!

But when it comes to the 193 water tower - I actually did a really nice job replacing the 51 bulb with an LED. I purchased a 5mm red "breathing" LED. It fit nice and tight into the hollow bottom of the No. 252-11 red lense cap. I'd say it looks brighter, better and now has a more prototypical breathing action

 

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@Rich Melvin posted:

The key is color temperature. If you want the warm look of old incandescent lamps, you need 2,700 degree K color temperature.

As I referred to previously, LEDs still can't compare to incandescent bulbs for warmth. For those who can't see the difference, that's fine, but it's very evident to me. Below are an incandescent bulb and a 2,700 degree K LED, side-by-side (same wattage). The LED bulb is the top one (obviously, to me at least), very noticeably whiter than the warmer incandescent bulb below it.

Just my opinion, of course.

 

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Last edited by breezinup

I'd say it's not a 2700K bulb.  Here's an actual 2700K led next to a 60ma 6V incandescent (MTH PS/2 bulb at 6V).  If anything, the incandescent looks a little more white than the LED.  FWIW, I'm running the LED on 2 milliamps as it totally overpowers the incandescent at it's rated 20ma current.  Even at 20ma, it's using 1/6 the energy of the incandescent, but boy is it pumping out the light.

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@breezinup posted:

As I referred to previously, LEDs still can't compare to incandescent bulbs for warmth...Below are an incandescent bulb and a 2,700 degree K LED, side-by-side (same wattage)

Color temperature is color temperature. It does not matter what is generating the light. A 2,700 K LED and an incandescent bulb rated at 2,700K will emit the exact same color of light.

In your example you aren't necessarily comparing apples to apples. The incandescent lamp may be rated at something other than 2,700K. Incandescent bulbs are available in color temperatures ranging from 2,700K up to 3,400K. The only incandescent lamps I've ever seen with specific color temperate ratings were those rated at 3,200K for indoor "tungsten" setting photography. Lamps sold for home use had no specific color temperature spec and could be all over the map between 2,700K and 3,400K.

 

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(snip)ENERGY STAR Refrigerator (side by side) 21 cu. ft.     51 kWh per month     $ 6.63 per month

In my case, probably more like $8/mo, that assumes 13 cents/KW.  So, it's not much more than a couple of incandescent bulbs.

When I bought my current house 26 years ago, it came with a green avocado frost-free refrigerator, 1965 vintage. To make a long story short, I started to analyze the electric bill and figured out that the refrigerator was costing $1 a day to run. I decided to buy a new refrigerator. Everyone thought I was crazy to fuss about $1 a day.

The "new" refrigerator draws 140 watts when it is running. It runs about half the time, which works out to about 42 cents a day at today's rates.

Over the years, I have changed all the appliances, A/C, heating, gone to LED or compact fluorescent lamps, new TVs and computer monitors (not all at once!) My electric bill now, in dollars, is within a few percent of what it was in 1994.

Energy savings can be real. 

 

Yep, I suspect I'm saving a ton of money every month with all LED lighting.  When I bought this house, my trainroom had ten 75W hi-hats, now it has ten 9W hi-hats.  I'm down here a lot lately, so at a savings of around 10 cents an hour, probably at least $1.00/day, I have paid for the $60 in LED bulbs in the first couple of months, and now I'm $365/yr richer by doing nothing.

I have a couple of the Kill A Watt meters, I've checked power consumption on things at times, very surprising.  My first flat-screen TV was a 50" plasma.  Great picture, but it consumed about 450 watts when running!  Currently I have a 65" Samsung LED model, it's consuming 65 watts when running.

@bmoran4 posted:

There is more to it than just Color Temperature - there is also Color Rendering Index which measures how faithful the light source is able to reflect colors and related to how even the light is through the color spectrum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

From that reference it appears that LED's do pretty well.  In any case, the LED I showed "renders" better on my eyeballs than any incandescent bulb. 

John, Yikes, I love our 65 inch plasma. Have not seen anything that looks as good and natural. Can't get rid of it. We only use it for movies so I guess it's not using that much power. Our other two TVs are Led. No air or heating in the house as we get trade winds to cool us down. Big cost are the pool pumps that I will trade out if they stop.

 Rich did you ever use the LED bi-color panels ? You can power them with batteries. I would set them little on the warm side. Just like the look. Don

Last edited by scale rail

If that is true, why do you need to specify both color temperature and tint when adjusting white balance in photography?

I think the answer is that it's not entirely the truth.  Tungsten filaments act like black body radiators, and there is a specific spectrum associated with it at a given temperature.  LEDs are not black body radiators and have weird peaks at different frequencies.

Last edited by rplst8
@rplst8 posted:

I think the answer is that it's not entirely the truth.  Tungsten filaments act like black body radiators, and there is a specific spectrum associated with it at a given temperature.  LEDs are not black body radiators and have weird peaks at different frequencies.

The Color Range Index addresses exactly this.

@bmoran4 posted:

There is more to it than just Color Temperature - there is also Color Rendering Index which measures how faithful the light source is able to reflect colors and related to how even the light is through the color spectrum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

From that reference it appears that LED's do pretty well.  

As @gunrunnerjohn noted, good LED assemblies can get very close to an incandescent (some of the inexpensive ones are lacking in this).

Tint?

I’ve been working professionally in both video and still photography for over 40 years. I worked in film until the digital revolution took place. All digital since then. In all that time, in both the analog and digital worlds, I have never seen an adjustment for “tint” in the context of setting white balance. You might be able to set a “tint” to artificially tint a photo away from a neutral white balance, but that is not part of the white balance process.

If an illumination device - ANY illumination device - is rated to produce light at a given color temperature, that’s exactly what it does. There is no difference in the color of the light emitted by a 2,700K LED or a 2,700K incandescent light bulb.

Change is challenging .  For reading and aging eyes, the bright white of LED bulbs make reading much less of a strain.  The power savings have been mentioned and they are real, socially valuable and environmentally sound.  As for trains, doesn't seem to matter to me one way or the other, except for illuminated rolling stock and passenger cars, where melted roofs due to command control voltages were real with incandescent bulbs.

Last edited by Landsteiner

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