Locky's English Playground: 15 Sept 2011

LED light bulbs arrived @ Locky's home

Unpacked from box

Have been busying with all sorts of work, so I missed one entry yesterday. To make it up, here's a good recommendation for all of you who are interested in switching to LED lights.

First of all, we have to learn something about light bulbs. The old, cost-ineffective, energy-inefficient, un-ecofriendly ones we used in the old days are called incandescent light bulbs, commonly known to have tungsten as the filament and halogen gas (iodine or bromine) as the gas filling.

Compact fluorescent lamp
Image from Wikipedia

Fluorescent tube with "beat effect"
Image from Wikipedia

As time goes by, more and more people have switched to fluorescent lamps and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) (around 15% luminous efficiency), which is more energy saving than the incandescent light bulbs (around 3% luminous efficiency), but the mercury gas that is used inside the CFLs are dangerous if handled wrongly, and it promotes the use of mercury with every lamp you buy, plus, CFLs create "beat effect" which makes the light appear to be like water waves or ripples. After considering these points, I decided that I would not do any more damage to the environment. The only solution? Light-emitting diodes (LEDs)!!!!

The luminous efficiency of LEDs is roughly 10%- 12%, which is lower than the CFLs, so generally, more light bulbs are needed, and for people in Hong Kong, with each LED light bulbs selling at $170 each, more light bulbs mean much more money! But I have a source!

Taobao has given me a great chance to scoop great LEDs at low price this time round! And the LED provider Natsen has an organised factory and offers wide range of LED products, so after checking its website, I decided to go for the products!

On average, each LED light bulb costs around HK$30 including the delivery cost, which is only slightly more expensive than the local Philips CFLs, the products arrived safely packed and all are in good working conditions.

LEDs installed @ Locky's home

I have included 3 links here and below for your reference:
http://item.tmall.com/item.htm?id=12515840278&prc=2
http://item.tmall.com/item.htm?id=12270500159&prc=1
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=12403942359

Here are some tips for you before you buy:

LEDs are said to have a lifespan of 50,000 hours (5.7 years), 50 times longer than CFLs, so don't buy too many spare ones.
E27 (Edison) screw is more common for LEDs and there are more choices of LEDs with E27 than E14
E14 is smaller in size and is mainly candlelight shape, thus it is not my consideration
Do NOT get the light bulbs with the wrong screw!!!
The LED light bulb's bright part is not too hot even when it has been switched on for a long time, but the lower part (the heat sink) can be very hot! Be careful!
For more advantages and disadvantages of LEDs, please click on the link.

Do let me know if you have decided to try them out!

Vocabulary:
fluorescent lamps
compact fluorescent lamps (CLFs)

Thursday 15 September 2011

Living: Lamps & LED @ Taobao