LED Light Bulbs

Low energy lamps(Compact fluorescents) are universally disliked for four reasons reasons, firstly they are slow to reach full brightness. Secondly they are bright when new but soon the light output drops and they never seem as bright as the lamps they replace. Thirdly they are big and lastly they will quicky fail if switched on frequently.

Leds on the other hand start instantly, the light output hardly changes over life, they are are a similar size tot he lamps they replace (Higher wattages remain a challange) and frequent switching make no decernable difference to lamp life. In addittion LEDs use about half the eneregy of "Low Energy Lamps" and 1/10th of conventional incandescent and halogen lamps. I commend LEDs to you.

There are three main advantages:-

1. LEDs use less than 1/10 of the energy of traditional halogen and incandescent lamps.

2. Leds have a very long life span.

3. They come in a choice of colours, whereas traditional lamps are simply a hot filiament which produces light in the range of between 2700K and 3000K.

LEDs compared do have some downsides compared to traditional lamps but most of them can be overcome. Some patience may be required as it can be a black art.

1. The worse aspect of LEDs is that replacement lamps are tricky to dim and will often require a change of dimmer switch. People usually blame the lamps when they flicker but the flickering is caused by the dimmer not the lamp.

2. LEDs require good thermal control, so higher wattages tend to become much larger than the lamps they replace and some simply cannot be made at this stage. Ironically LEDs cannot be made small enough to match the size of some small halogen lamps. The majority of lamp types can be replicated with LEDs at the same size and shape, some are so good you would never be able to tell them apart from the lights that they replace.