LED lighting for gameroom

[Roy Fash]

With all the advances in LED lighting out there, I'd like to ask if anyone
in the group has heard of decent LED replacements that could be used in
place of existing track light bulbs. On my track light system in my game
room, I currently use medium base flood bulbs, small package not the big
ones.

Similarly, what about a LED lighting bulb to replace a standard medium base
incandescent 60W bulb? If this was made, wouldn't it use less power than a
CFL and also contain no mercury?

Roy

[Steve Charland]

Yes, good questions Roy. I've been doing this very same research. I
plan to have all of my lighting converted to LED. So far, I've found
it to be a very expensive proposition. I have 5" cans throughout my
game room and they require PAR30 short neck bulbs. The cheapest LED
I've found to date has bee around $25.00 per bulb. The consume 7 to 10
watts per bulb and put out around 400 lumen's in warm white (they say
its equivalent to a 75 watt halogen bulb).
Do an eBay search for LED bulbs, there will be a lot of them for
sale. You can then ask all kinds of questions of the sellers to find
what you need, they have been very helpful. Just be aware that there
are cheap LED knock offs out there. IMHO, LED is the way to go instead
of florescent for lighting. Cree, seems to be the leader in the home
LED market at the moment. I've been using their LED's for some time
now in my pinball machines because of the brightness.
There are also many manufacturers of LED bulbs if you do a Google
search, it's amazing what's being made now. The cheaper ones appear to
come from China, I don't know anything about them or the quality.

-S (CARGPB1)

[Roy Fash]

Steve,

Hmm. The packaging on my 45W flood bulbs says 320 lumens. Based on that, I
would think that 400 lumens would be significantly less than a 75 watt bulb?
What does the packaging say on your existing bulbs?

I looked up the Cree LED PAR style bulbs as you suggested.

LED Warm White PAR30 Light Bulb uses 8 watts and provides 280 lumens. Bulb
is about 3.74" wide. Not suitable for use with a dimmer switch. Cost is
$45 + $12 shipping. This size bulb might just fit in my track light cans,
I'll have to check. For comparison purposes, my existing R20 45 watt bulbs
produce 350 lumens and are about 2.5" wide. My conclusion though is that
the Cree LED Warm White PAR30 bulbs are not close to being economical
replacements yet.

LED Warm White PAR38 Light Bulb uses 13 watts and provides 610 lumens. Bulb
is about 4.8" wide. That size is too wide for use in the cans on my track
light, but not too wide for use in some other cans I have.

Roy

"Steve Charland" <ccha...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:188ff8a4-2ba1-424f...@p10g2000prm.googlegroups.com...

[Steve Charland]

Hi Roy, as I said before, the cheapest I've found have been on eBay
(so far). Once, I tried a GE LED PAR30SN (320 Lumens) to see if there
was a difference from my 75 watt Halogen flood lights. The difference
in brightness wasn't enough to notice, however, it seemed more of a
spot light to me than a flood at 60 degree. Also, they do make LED
bulbs that can be dimmed, they seem to be double the price of a
standard LED bulb. If you try to dim a LED bulb that isn't meant to be
dimmed, it will flash for a while then die.
For giggles, here's a eBay link to a $40.00 PAR30 to look at.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200161643203 (you
may have to cut and paste). The specs are much different than what you
posted. LEDs can be found cheaper but they don't seem to list the LED
manufacturer and it does look to me that Cree is the brightest. As far
as cost, it depends on how much you use the bulb. If you don't use it
much, then yes, they are very expensive.
For fun, here's another interesting LED site/store worth
bookmarking (lots of different/fun stuff to keep me interested). I
have others I can email you if you'd like.
http://www.ledliquidatorsinc.com/cat-par.php
-S (CARGPB1)

[BCSPINBALL]

Roy,

I did my basement with 3" cans that had MR16 and GU10 bulbs. Bought
the 3" LowVoltage cans online that had transformers built into them
and bought the GU10 Cans at Home Depot.

The LEDs used were 3W Luxeon bulbs that output about 20W equivalent
light of a halegon bulb. Warm white and i use an electronic dimmer
switch on these. the bulbs cost about $18 each and worked well.

Bruce