I have recently switched over to LED lights. I changed 149 light bulbs about a month ago.
There are issues for HT and audio with these bulbs. Getting the right dimmers is essential.
First of all you need to be careful which bulbs you buy. Most available currently are not very good. The best reviewed are Fiet and TCP. I bought a couple of BR 40 Feit bulbs at Costco. These were pretty good, perhaps just a little orange, but good enough. The next issue is that no big box store would cooperate in getting the bulbs and above all number of bulbs required. So I dealt with Dakota Supply out of Grand Forks, who have a City Desk and Warehouse in Bemidji. They do not normally sell to consumers like myself, only trade. They extended to me excellent service. There were problems in that some short neck BR 30 were not dimmable as per the order and the wrong dimmers were ordered. This was corrected. I ordered all the bulbs from the TCP contractor grade.
Now LED bulbs come as dimmable, dimmable only with LED dimmer and non dimmable. Now LED bulbs do not dim at all well with incandescent dimmers. They don't dim much and flicker. So you need to change your dimmers.
Now LED bulbs and dimmers are known for many RF issues.
Lutron only recommend their Maestro LED dimmer in homes with high end audio and HT systems. I can confirm that.
The correct dimmers where installed this week.
I'm really pleased with the lights on the whole. The new dimmers work very well and there are no RF problems from the dimmers. They dim perfectly, there is no flickering and the lights do not change color as they dim and stay nice and white.
With the first Maestros of 9 years ago, I had massive RF problems. I worked closely with an engineer at Lutron to redesign the Maestro dimmer. It was impossible to totally eliminate the problem, and there was always a very slight buzz with your ear in a speaker, with any dimmer operating anywhere in the house.
These new Maestro LED dimmers do not have any RF problems, none. Now when I put my ear to a speaker I hear silence. I suspect that this is because the power handled by the dimmers in reduced by more than 80%
There have been the problems. I have had to fix six of the BR 40 lights now, as they would not make contact with the electrode in the can. Most people would conclude that they are faulty, whereas in fact they are slightly out of spec. It is the bulbs, as bulbs that work, work in any can. A bulb that does not work, will not work in any can, without my modification.
Fortunately the contact electrode takes solder. So I put a blob of solder on the six bulbs that did not work and this solved the problem
The new dimmable short neck BR 30 bulbs are a tiny bit longer than the ones they replaced. This did require modification of the cans.
These lights do give off significant RF interference right in the FM radio broadcast band. It is right across it. This is a problem world wide. So switching on the 8 BR 40 17 watt bulbs in the studio causes unacceptable static on FM. The FM Yagi Uda array is on the roof above the studio. The Quad FM downstairs also has static when the studio BR 40s are on. It is less as the bulbs are dimmed. The roof Yagi Uda array FM antenna is on the roof above the studio. This problem does cause noise. Further it causes trouble with the FM tuner downstairs supplied by the same antenna.
This interference is less with the new dimmers, in fact less than with no dimmer at all and much less then with the old dimmer, but still a problem.
Fortunately I have enough other lights in the studio, I do not have to have these lights on when listening to FM radio.
I have designed a circuit that if placed in every can would take care of the problem I think. I likely will do tests on this after I get the components.
Strangely, the 4 short neck bulbs in the studio, do not cause this problem at all. For this reason I think it might be worth changing out these BR 40 bulbs for ones of lower wattage.
Apart from these problems this project has been a huge success.
I much prefer the light from these TCP bulbs to incandescent. They give a light as close to daylight as makes no difference. With the new dimmers they dim all the way to practically no light. Many LED bulbs do not dim well and go red at low light I understand.
Vision is better with these bulbs, I think this is because there is no 60 cycle flicker. So fine print is crystal sharp, just like under day light.
Turntable enthusiasts need to note that you can not use a strobe to set turntable speed with these bulbs. So I kept my 15 watt halogen bulbs in the puck lights in my turntable cases.
The FM interference is a big problem. I understand from the UK is pretty much blots out DAB radio.
I further understand that the operating frequency was chosen with the FCC. I think this is further evidence the FCC want analog terrestrial broadcasting gone. By the way these bulbs totally blot out AM.
I replaced these bulbs as the old ones were stating to fail and incandescent replacements either not available, or if you can get them twice the price of a LED. If one bulb fails on a dimmer string you have to replace the lot.
Substantial energy saving. Looking at my metering on line it looks as if this change will save 4,300 KHH/ year.
When on the generator, and funnily enough we had a long power cut today, it frees up a lot of power for cooking for instance and AC in the summer.
I won't have to change any light bulbs, these should last at least 25 years. I think those on dimmers much longer. 12 dimmers were replaced by the way
These bulbs only get slightly warm and are robust, and make excellent trouble lights.
The cost of this was not insignificant, about 4.5K when all said and done. I consider this a good investment though.
Out electric cooperative have warned us to reduce power load, as the EPA do look set to reduce the hours and or time our three coal fired generators operate.
Last year I did a massive insulation project and designed a sophisticated control system for the ripple electric heat. I have spent nearly 10K on energy conservation in the last 2 years. I think I have cut energy consumption here by about 50% with these measures.
