Any reviews here on these BIG *** LIGHTS? (LED)
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67carl
Well-known member
Didn't see a cost listed but I would guess it is a Big *** Price Tag.
Mustang51js
Well-known member
There was another thread on these a while back and they were expensive, I wanna say over $500
motofool33
Well-known member
I sent for some info as in the future i will put some better lights in my garage. these probably are more expensive then what i want but cant hurt to ask.
Jagmandave
Well-known member
I'm surprised by the need for the aluminum housing to dissipate heat - I thought one of the big selling points of LED lights was their distinct lack of heat?
I think a lot of the heat generated in LED is not the LED itself, but the AC-DC conversion and step down from 120V to perhaps 12V or 5V ? If we had lower voltage DC outlets, I don't think there would be much heat generated.
Not so. Some of the heat comes from the power supply, but most of it comes from the LEDs. The switch mode power supplies used are typically better than 90% efficient. That means, at most, 10% of the heat is from the power supply.
Low voltage DC outlets would lose a tremendous amount of power in the resistance losses in the wiring. This is the reason that electricity is always distributed over long distances as high voltage AC.
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Those little diodes get hot. Well...relatively hot, anyway.
Imagine the head of a pin that's red hot. It'll burn you, but only in a tiny little spot. And it couldn't really make the room you're in get any warmer. But, still it's friggin' hot. And if it doesn't get cooled down, it will just burn up.
There are lots of methods used in lighting fixtures to pull the heat away from the diodes. Fins are kind of old school at this point. The good thing about aluminum though, is that it really conducts the heat away from the LEDs very well, it's relatively cheap, it's light and strong which is ideal for lighting fixtures.
More progressive manufacturers dont need fins anymore.
Not anymore. And LED's potential efficiency is still unknown, while fluorescent is pretty much maxxed out.
Good fluorescent lighting runs in the 80-90 lumens per watt range. LED, these days, is normally over 100 lumens per watt.
CD
rocknrolla
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I contacted them and the price for a 10,000 lumen light was $379.00. They recommended two for my 24 x 24 garage. Still looking at alternatives
600SL
Well-known member
That does not seem too bad. That would mean I would need 5 of them for my 30x48 garage at @ $1900.00. I paid $1100 for 17 T8 4 tube 8' fixtures. Which calculate out to ~ a 100 candle ft. solution. from that I can figure out the return on investment based on the power savings.
Problem I see is that if I'm going to replace 17 fixtures with 5, the light distribution will be non uniform.
ishiboo
Well-known member
Quite wrong... time to recall the law of conservation of energy back from high school!
100 watts consumed could be ANY amount dissipated as heat. Light is another form of energy. In a light, the the amount of heat + light generated add up to the watt rating. A 100W incandescent bulb will generate about 95W worth of heat. A 100W LED will only generate anywhere from perhaps as low as 5W to as high as 30W of heat, and produce a TON more light. Of course, whatever is not heat (for all practical purposes) is light output.
I'm well aware of conservation of energy. If you're going to correct someone you should at least be right. Unless that light is escaping out the window into space, it will eventually be absorbed by the building as heat. I stand by my statement.
ishiboo
Well-known member
That would be my concern as well. They do look very well built for the money, and one of the features offered is the different lenses for light distribution. But I think 5 alone without perfect reflection (white walls/ceiling/floor) would create shadows.
GCncsuHD
Well-known member
As Gerald mentioned, 100w in 100w out in some form, though not necessarily all as heat. Yes you are correct that even visible light can be absorbed by another material and converted to heat, but that is not absolute.
Incandescent bulbs use only about 5% at most of their input to create visible light, about 15% or so is heat output from the tungsten element putting out heat, and the rest is pretty much IR radiation which is what you feel heating up the surroundings.
Fluorescent produces very little IR radiation, so most of the heat you feel coming off them is either from the gases in the tube being heated or the ballasts.
LEDs produce a very narrow wavelength of light, and therefore almost no IR radiation, unless they are specifically made to output in the IR wavelengths. On an LED about 20% is visible light, and the rest is heat from the drivers and the leds themselves and such.
With that said, the IR is what will most directly be absorbed by another material and converted to heat.
Visible light will as well, but not as many materials absorb it and convert it into heat. It will be conserved, stored or converted in other ways such as plants absorbing for photosynthesis, photovoltaic cells in your calculator, etc.
But to answer the original question from Jagmandave, LEDs do produce heat, though much less for the similar amount of visible light produced. But they heat they do produce is produced by sensitive components such as the drivers and the LED themselves which cannot handle the heat very well so a heat sink is added to dissipate the heat as they get brighter and higher wattage. Even so, those heat sinks don't get nearly as hot as an incandescent light bulb.
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ishiboo
Well-known member
Of course light and heat are very similar forms of energy. But since the discussion you responded to was that the heat sinks were quite large despite them thinking LED was much more efficient, and you responded that they put out 100W of heat, I'm sure if you understand the physics involved you understand why that sounded quite confused. The heat sinks are not there because the fixture "puts out 100W of heat energy". What happens with the light once it's left the fixture is irrelevant to the heat sink design of the fixture. The fixture puts out primarily light.
I suppose you could say it puts out primarily mechanical energy, because you've put a solar panel below it running an electric motor?
G_P
Well-known member
I have a couple LED indoor spotlights. They have a finned aluminum housing and after about 15 minutes they get so hot you cannot even touch them. High wattage LED's generate a TON of heat and without a proper heatsink will burn up and die extremely quickly.
EDIT: I will add though, that these LED bulbs are from around 2009 or so. I would imagine the tech has advanced over the years and that modern ones run cooler.
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No, actually they are not very similar at all.
I simply made a factual statement, not necessarily in response or attempting to correct anyone. This was somewhat relevant at the time due to other threads at that time discussing air conditioning heat load due to lighting.
You could have simply stated that instead of taking your condescending tone and trying to 'school me' on physics.
Strawman argument.
True, but I suspect the typical garage will not contain many plants or photocells that will be turning the light into chemical or electrical energy. For all practical purposes, the light is quickly turned into heat.
Disclaimer for ishiboo
: The above comments only relevant for considering the impact on AC load.
hoston23
Well-known member
i just ordered 8 lights on my 60 free trial. 4 of them are 10,000 lumens and 4 are 14,000 lumens. my total if i end up buying them is only $3,400 for the 8 of them. and i have a feeling that i will end up purchasing them because they are supposed to last around 20 years if i leave them running 24/7. plus they have a 7 year complete warrenty
hoston23
Well-known member
we have a dairy. the intial price might be high but they money leds save will come out on top. ive done the math and they will pay for them selves in about 4 months on the dairy. as our electric bill is already about $7000-$10000 a month
wow... i'm totally ignorant about the dairy business, but is there that much of a need for lighting? can you ellaborate a bit so I can get educated?
hoston23
Well-known member
yes. in our shop were we do our own maintance and repairs im putting 3 of the 10k lights. and where the milkers are in the pit milking im going to put 3 of the 14k lights. i might order more to put in the holding pens so the milkers dont have have to carry flashlights to go round up the cows at night
Johnny7903
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Home depot has a 24" led for $199 that is spec'd at 12000 lumens. Probably can't run it over it with a truck though.
hoston23
Well-known member
that may be but does it have any kinda warrenty. the big *** lights comes with a rebate and you can call your electric company and they will give you money for using these
Next problem when they start to burn out, will the company still be around and will they still make parts for this light, technology is growing so fast I can't keep up with flash lights, Witch makes it hard to spend the money because in a few months something better is going to come out???
Just me
James
Bruce4310TX
Well-known member
I work in a big Aircraft Hanger we just replaced the old mercury lights with the transformers (the hum drove us nuts) they put in about 300 to 500 lights wow what a difference went from yellow lights to white. The said we could buy them for about $600 each. the company spent about 500k and pay back is about 16 months money well spent.
Mercury Vapor= bluish white light.
Metal Halide= white light.
High Pressure Sodium= amber colored light.
Low Pressure Sodium= yellow light. LPS is a monochrome light source, pretty hard to tell the difference between blood & diesel fuel, but good for foggy areas.
The light source used in your aircraft hanger would be most likely HPS by the described "yellow light" as LPS is not real common for indoor lighting or anything else in the US.
I just ordered 3 for my 3 bay home shop. Sent them my measurements and they said 3 was plenty to replace 3 existing fixtures. Looking forward to it and I would believe that the likelihood of this company being around 7 years is more likely than ever getting a warranty claim from some Chinese lights from the big boxes.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent a email to Big *** Lights. I'm building a 28x40x12 detached garage and like the look/specs of their LEDs. Got a phone call about 10 minutes after email. Kind lady told me I needed 4. She also said they have their lights on display at the store in Lexington, which is a couple hours away. I may need to go have a look. Didn't ask her what hours/days they are open. I'll post back on this thread if I go north anytime soon.
hoston23
Well-known member
i got all 8 of my lights in. one of them was bad out of the box. there sending me another unit asap. but i got 2 lights hung up in my shop. i have 4 for the shop and this is only 2. the third bay light is going to stay like that because its just for security. but the lights i replaced were the green looking also. so this picture can show the difference. remember this is just 2 10,000 lumen lights in a 40'x40'x14'. the third bay is an 20'x40'x14.
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falcon64
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Nice
jfon101231
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Any further updates on these? I have three 4' 2 T8 bulb fluorescent cheapy fixtures from Home Depot on one bay of the 24x24 attached garage now, and I think only 1 of them has both bulbs working. Its not heated either so sometimes they are slow/cranky, and tired of dealing with poor lighting when working on vehicles/plows. I have a beam that goes down the middle between bays so I'd probably need 2 and that probably prices these out for me. I agree that I'm sad to see their promo video shows useless (to me) stuff like whether it can hold up an F250. Think most people plan to hang them on the ceiling , so I'd much rather see task lighting and/or how it shows something on a work bench or avoids shadows on diagonal things better.
Not sure what other LED options like cybrdyke are suggesting?
FYI Home Depot has free shipping on the BAL through 1/1/15...
, so I'd much rather see task lighting and/or how it shows something on a work bench or avoids shadows on diagonal things better.Not sure what other LED options like cybrdyke are suggesting?
FYI Home Depot has free shipping on the BAL through 1/1/15...
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13000 lumens from one fixture doesn't get you much, except too much light in one area, especially if your ceilings are lower than 20'. You can do better by buying more of a less expensive fixture and spreading those lumens out over a greater area. I use the Daybrite FluxStream EZ fixture. (google it) It's tiny...less that 2.5 x 3 inches. It's 3800 lumens @ 42w, so it's fairly efficient. And I can get them for around $100 from a local electrical supplier by talking him down. And he did the layout for me for free. There are lots of other products out there like this that give you a much better overall lighting pattern.
CD
CD
LED lights generate heat but, use very little energy.