Go Green: The LED way
Shubham Devikar
Author
April 17, 2014
LED light bulbs are the newest kind of light source for our home. They have been around us for so long but their use as a light source has been realized just recently.
LED light bulbs have some significant advantages over some more popular light sources like CFLs and Incandescent bulbs. Some of these are:
-Shubham Devikar
LED light bulbs have some significant advantages over some more popular light sources like CFLs and Incandescent bulbs. Some of these are:
- · Lifespan:
- I'm not going to go into numbers here because bulbs or lights rarely last as long as the manufacturer’s stated life. But look around! There are small LED lights everywhere; they are on your PC, on your TV's front panel. You may have noticed that they seldom go bad. That's concrete evidence that LED has a much better lifespan.
- Also, LEDs can be turned on and off without any effect on lifespan. Whereas the on/ off cycle decreases the lifespan of a CFL bulb.
- · Power Consumption:
- They take half the power of a comparable CFL bulb and mere 10% of what an incandescent bulb takes. CFL bulbs were already efficient. LED bulbs take efficiency to a whole new level. A 6-watt LED bulb is equivalent to a 15-watt CFL in light output.
- · Environment Friendly:
- CFLs contain mercury. Mercury is very toxic and can adversely affect our health and environment. They are not RoHS compliant as they contain 1-5mg of mercury. CFL bulbs require more careful handling and disposal. LED bulbs on the other hand are totally safe for the environment and due to their lower power consumption,they save a lot of energy.
- · Heat Emission:
- Another advantage of having impressively high efficiency of LED bulbs is the lower heat dissipation. On an average, LEDs dissipate 10% of the total heat emitted by a CFL bulb.
- Is it all roses then? Has the world become so perfect already? You may ask.
- Your doubt is well placed dear reader. All the advantages of LEDs do come at a price. And I literally mean that. One LED bulb may set you back by roughly 400 bucks. Is it worth it? Yes, although the initial price is definitely much higher but they will cost a lot less in the long run. Also, you will have the satisfaction of going green, which is priceless!
- That's great! But can they replace tubelights?
- In my opinion, LEDs are not meant to replace tubelights. Tubelights are distributed source of light whereas bulbs are point source. Naturally, the light from a tube will light the room more evenly. So, the 'kind of lighting conditions' they provide are different from each other. They are meant to exist side by side until the time we have tubelight shaped LED lights.
-Shubham Devikar