LED Floodlight bulbs

jeepinmatt

jeepinmatt

#1 WEBWHEELER
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Mar 24, 2005
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Stanley, NC
Looking for recommendations on LED Floodlight bulbs. Mine are about 20ft up and no level ground under them, so I don't wanna have to mess with them again for a long time. And my wife likes to leave them on all the time, so long life and low power consumption are a plus.
 
Home Depot carries Cree and has a really nice selection. I been kinda looking at something to replace my 300watt CFL lights in my shop area.
 
I bought 2 pair at Costo a couple years ago, nice and bright, and have worked so far, though I think I had water in a socket on one a few weeks ago, it flickered a bit then came on. has been fine since ( blowing rain not long before I turned them on, I wasn't surprised).

have then in front and rear of the house, one set over small pool, other set lighting front walk and driveway, I'm happy with them so far.

had CFL floods previous, they were ok, but took a little to warm up and work well in the cold.
 
I ended up buying the Cree 90w equivalents from Home Depot. I'm very pleased. I bought 4 from HD and once I installed the front 4 and approved of them, I bought 4 more off eBay for the back of the house. Funny thing with the bulb "equivalent" ratings... The Phillips and GE were like 120watt or 150watt equivalent at about 15watts power consumption, while the Cree were 90watt equiv at 18watt actual. But the Phillips/GE were ~1000 lumens whereas the Cree were 1300 lumens. Sounds like misleading advertising by the others, since lumens is the actual light output.

Overall, I'm very pleased with them. They have a better pattern than the 150watt incandescents that I replaced, and honestly they seem brighter. The color is almost identical to regular incandescent bulbs, maybe just a hair whiter. You can't tell they are LED except for the instant on attribute they have.
 
jeepinmatt said:
I ended up buying the Cree 90w equivalents from Home Depot. I'm very pleased. I bought 4 from HD and once I installed the front 4 and approved of them, I bought 4 more off eBay for the back of the house. Funny thing with the bulb "equivalent" ratings... The Phillips and GE were like 120watt or 150watt equivalent at about 15watts power consumption, while the Cree were 90watt equiv at 18watt actual. But the Phillips/GE were ~1000 lumens whereas the Cree were 1300 lumens. Sounds like misleading advertising by the others, since lumens is the actual light output.

Overall, I'm very pleased with them. They have a better pattern than the 150watt incandescents that I replaced, and honestly they seem brighter. The color is almost identical to regular incandescent bulbs, maybe just a hair whiter. You can't tell they are LED except for the instant on attribute they have.
Click to expand...

Lumens is light output, but it's light output at a certain point of measurement. Because it's a fixed measurement point, you're measuring light at that point and not the total light output. This means that a higher lumen LED might just be more narrowly focused than a lower lumen LED (for the same amount of total light output) and therefore measure more lumens at the single-point measuring spot.

So the specs don't tell it all, you're right. But it's not necessarily misleading advertising, but rather how those standard specs are actually measured and what the specs are actually saying.
 
More lumens and more power consumption was enough to convince me that the other guys were just marketing with hollow "equivalent" ratings that were not quantifiable.
 
Singles are $25/ea:
Cree 90W Equivalent Bright White (3000K) PAR38 47˚Flood Dimmable LED Light Bulb-BPAR38-1503047T-12DE26-1U100 - The Home Depot
3 pack is about $23.33/ea:
Cree 90W Equivalent Bright White (3000K) PAR38 47˚Flood Dimmable LED Light Bulb (3-Pack)-BPAR38-1503047T-12DE26-1U100 - The Home Depot

The ones I got on ebay were about $21/ea, free shipping, no tax, and they appear on my doorstep :D Here's where I got them, but there are probably cheaper options, it changes daily:
4 IN/OUTDOOR CREE FLOOD 18W 90W BRIGHT WHITE PAR38 Dimmable LED Light Bulb (NEW)

I searched "cree 90w par38" and found em as cheap as ~$16/each. MAKE SURE YOU GET 47 DEGREE FLOOD! There is also a 27 degree spotlight version, and the part number is the same except for a "27" or "47".

I bought the first batch from Home Depot so I could easily take em back if I didn't like em, but at $16/ea, I wouldn't do that again.
 
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