Remote control light bulb

My remote control light bulb arrived today.  A Par 30 bulb with a small infrared remote control included, all for about $70.  I put the bulb in a can light to see what it looked like, the light is pretty good.  Still a little harsh, but better than I was expecting.  This bulb is from LED homeplace http://www.ledhomeplace.com/led-par-lights.html . The remote has different percentages of dimming available, plus it can turn the light on and off, even cause it to flash.  The dimming function is very good.  There is no buzz or noise during dimming.  I am going to find somewhere to install the bulb and try it out in an area that gets high use.  I’ll update you when I figure that out.  Some photos below.

Company with good customer service

My replacement bulb arrived today, I am happy with the new bulb.  I tried it out in my girlfriends dining room light(not my girlfriend anymore as she is now my fiancee).  We replaced a 13 watt cfl bulb with the bulb from priorityled which I had sent back to them due to the kelvin rating.  The company promptly replaced the bulb with a new one, actually sent it by DHL.  I still think the color or light we are getting out of this bulb is a little off, so we switched back to the CFL.  I am going to try and find a place to use this bulb, I am thinking of using it in a lamp with a colored glass shade.  13 to 7 watts is not much of a change, but a little is good.  I will update you when I find something.

An interesting thing I found on the internet, actually my fiancee found it:

http://www.seesmartled.com/parlight.asp

I think a lot of the LED lights are more in the 3000K range and often I have been seeing 2700 to 3200K as the bulb rating.

Rainy Days and Light Bulbs

Sometimes in Seattle we have rainy days and sometimes we have really rainy days, today is one of the latter.  I thought I would update where things are on the first LED bulb I bought

and where I got it.  Below are some photos of this light:

So this was supposed to be comparable to a 90 watt bulb.  The light that comes out is very blue.  The bulb is really cool looking, but I think the LEDs (114 of them) are not very high quality or the light color that comes from them is not a warm white.  They were advertised at 3000 kelvin, which the company says is comparable to warm white.  I bought this bulb on Amazon and left fairly negative feedback.  To this companies credit, almost immediately after leaving the feedback, I received a phone call from the president of the company saying that this should not have been my experience.  He asked that I send the light back to him and they will send me another.  I think that is great customer service, so I am going to give them another try and send the light back.

The website for this company is www.priorityled.com

This company also supplies PAR bulbs, 30 and 38, also advertised at 3000K.  I was thinking about ordering one of these to try from this company, but due to the color of the other bulb, I went a different route.  I haven’t received that bulb yet, still waiting for it.

Also, one update on the track lighting, the light output of the four bulbs I bought is not comparable to the halogen bulbs they replaced.  The bulb website for those is:

http://www.eaglelight.com/product/MR16-GU53W3-CREE-DIM/Dimmable_LED_MR16_35_watt_replacement_bulbconsumes_only_3_watts_of_energy.html

So, as of now, I am waiting on the dimmable PAR 30 bulb, sending the priorityled bulb above back for a replacement and testing the track lights.

More on dimmable CFL bulbs and some photos of LED Track Lights

So I thought maybe a green company would know something about dimming a CFL and would test the bulbs and dimmers.  I received the following response to my question:

“I’m sorry to hear that the dimmers you bought do not work with the GE bulbs. We sell a wide variety of products and it is not feasible to test all of them. So, we do not guarantee that any of these products work with each other.”

I will keep checking with other companies, it seems Lutron is the only one who is saying there is a problem.  I guess I should also mention that what I was trying to do was install the CFL bulbs in 6 in cans in the ceiling.  The bulbs I bought were GE R30 dimmable bulbs and the were connected to a Lutron Maestro dimmer switch.  In reading a little more, the bulb may work if there is only one bulb on the dimmer switch (like anyone actually does that).  I guess the dimmer switch thinks there is a short in the line because of the electronics in the bulbs and by having several bulbs it is all too much for what is going on.  Anyway, I think I am going to give up on dimmable CFL bulbs and continue down the LED road, while watching what happens in the world of CFL.

Back to the LED track lights  On the left, the bulb style that I replaced.  These are the two pin bulbs.  The new bulbs are shown to the right.  So now we will see how these go for a while.  Right now, they are on at full power and with the normal background noise in the room (computer, etc.) I don’t really hear them.  So far so good.

Hello

I am embarking on the adventure of changing my lifestyle to a sustainable lifestyle.  I have an idea what that means, but I am going to learn what I can and talk about what I learn on this blog.  This kind of started after a few recent experiences I had with some of the green lifestyle changes everyone is being encouraged to go through.

A little background about me, I am a marine engineer and I have remodeled a couple of houses, so I have a fairly good understanding of electrical things, building practices and how things work.  I have been shopping at organic grocery stores for the past year.  My girlfriend works for a sustainability company, which we may get into later, if she lets me.

So to start, my experiences so far this year have been the following:

1.  Bought an led light bulb from a company on the internet, it was through amazon about $40.  I didn’t do much research.  The bulb showed up (it was a Christmas gift for my girlfriend).  She opened it on Christmas and we put it in a lamp, a horrible bright blue light came out of the bulb, it went back in the box.  I am not sure where it is now, on a shelf somewhere.

2.  My girlfriend has a nice place and she has switched most of her light bulbs over to compact florescent lights (CFL).  They are much better than they used to be, but sometimes too bright.  I immediately thought dimmers.  Off we went to our local home center, where I bought 6 new dimmable CFL bulbs and a single pole single throw dimmer switch.  Total cost about $100.00.  I installed the dimmer and the bulbs, turned on the power and nothing.   I had no light whatsoever.  Now you would think maybe I didn’t get the right stuff, but actually I asked the guy in the electrical department which bulb and which dimmer just because I figured they might have an idea since they sell the stuff.  Well, GE dimmable CFL bulbs and Lutron Maestro electronic dimmer switch which is what the home center sell actually don’t work together.  It took a call to Lutron’s customer service to find out that there is no standard for dimmable florescent lights, in other words, Lutron makes dimmers and GE makes bulbs, but the dimmers and bulbs don’t work together.  Lutron did say that they had one model of dimmer switch that works with one model of bulb.  I couldn’t find either of them on the internet or at the home center, so that idea was a bust.  I ended up taking the bulbs back out and putting the old switches back in and was able to return everything.  So total cost was $0 and about 4 hours of running around and changing the switches.

3.  Today, I also received 4 new 3 watt LED MR16 track light bulbs from http://www.eaglelight.com/ .  These are the 12 volt ones that work on the track lights that have the small power supply or the little rectangular box that twists onto the track. They are supposed to replace the 35 watt bulb.   On this one, I did a little bit of research and found a company that advertises the Kelvin rating of the bulbs.  Now in researching the Kelvin ratings, it appears that this number is a little bit arbitrary as there is no national standard.  Undeterred, I bought these 4 bulbs at a total of about $180 including shipping.  I have installed them at my house in the track lights, they are not as bright and the color is a little blue, but I am going to use them for a while and see what happens.  These lights are on a dimmer switch and one of the things I noticed is that when they are dimmed down, they start to flicker.  Also, there is a slight buzzing noise coming from the bulbs.

I will be continuing this with everything I think is a switch in my lifestyle to sustainability.  I hope you enjoy and comment on things as this goes forward.