Myths: Turning off lights to save power.

[dieselspanner]

As Ade said, buying from China is a bit of a punt,

We have a 5 bed B&B with LED's everywhere it's practicable, all of which have come from the far east, some lots good, some bad, all burning far less power than we inherited with the chalet - there was 20 40 watt 'candle' type incandescents in the lounge, 16 of them mounted vertically in two 'wagon wheel' chandeliers, couldn't see a bloody thing, there's now 11 LED's......

I have read somewhere (maybe even  on here, given the nature of the site) of the advantages of down rating the 'doings' inside 220v LED's as the willy Chinese over drive them for max brightness at the expense of longevity, that and the world famous China free postage deals might be the way ahead.

For what my 6 eggs are worth..
Cheers Stef

[BruceM]

Heat kills LEDs and other semiconductors. Heat sinking (finned aluminum) is relatively expensive.  Likewise, the tiny switching supply is "value engineered" to within an inch of it's life.  An LED's life is proportional to temperature and current so you can certainly expect to see some lights with impressive output-  for a while.

If you're having trouble sleeping or getting to sleep at a decent hour, you might want to try blocking the UV/blue from your LED lighting with amber sunglasses-  or go back to incandescent for late evening lighting.

The EMI variation between LED lights is HUGE, depends on the cost pressure and skill of the designer. An old AM radio with loud static or hiss between stations is a decent way to choose the lesser of evils.

[AdeV]

If you're sensitive to EM fields, then AC LED bulbs are most definitely not going to be your friend: There's minimal space for shielding, let alone cooling etc.

However, you should be able to roll your own DC lighting with comparative ease: Most high brightness modern LEDs have a forward voltage of around 2.0-2.7v; if you can pick a 2.4v one, then you can drive exactly 5 lights in series off a 12v supply. Parallel up as required. The LEDs will still need heatsinks, but a block of aluminium and a dab of thermally conductive adhesive (available from your local internet electronics retailer) will see you right. It's up to you to hide the bare LEDs in your decor.

Those long LED strips are also ideal for running off DC volts.

DC, as you know, does not generate EMF unless it's being switched on/off rapidly, or you wrap it around something made of iron, in which case you've made yourself a dandy magnet.

[BruceM]

Yes, the home of the future will have separate regulated DC supply for lighting, then no need for switching supplies in every lamp base, just one well designed and filtered supply for all the home lighting.

The Pillips LED 60 watt equivalent bulbs of 5 years ago were internally operating on regulated 60VDC; it was quite easy to remove their supply and just run the series LEDs on 60V.  The plastic housing/diffuser got warm and I didn't care for the quality of the light spectrum or the heated plastic smell.

I use very little lighting in summer, and in winter, the extra room heating is helpful.  I replace 1.5 bulbs per year and my PV/battery system depth of discharge is only 10% so there's no advantage to me for trying to develop tolerable light spectrum LED lighting.  I spent about $150 on 60 and 100w bulbs back when they were still $0.25 each (before the ban) so have a grossly excessive lifetime supply.

The research of Beck and Marino (and others) show that everyone is actually EMF sensitive. Strong EMFs cause normal people to have elevated cortisol levels (a good general stress indicator), changes to other hormones such as increased insulin need, and changes in brainwaves. Those who eventually break down and become overtly electrically hypersensitive are a small percentage, and their lives are pretty much wrecked, since they can't function in "normal" levels of ELF magnetic fields, EMI radiating from home wiring and radio/microwaves.

The smart thing to do is to measure and reduce your home/office exposure levels; almost every case of electrical hypersensitivity has a history of grossly elevated exposure that the simplest of home EMF triage (unplug or move a few things) could have prevented.  A simple wiring error can cause magnetic fields to be 100x higher than normal.  One failing over-temperature fuse in an attic doorbell transformer can cause your entire home wiring to be pulsing broad spectrum EMI 100x stronger than all the AM radios in your region.  You can't tell by looking, you have to just measure, locate and fix.  Otherwise you just end up a statistic.  If you learn how to do simple home assessment and correction, you can save your friends and family from being a statistic, too.

One medical procedure or intervention for one family member will dwarf your lifetime LED light bulb savings. Even more important than lights are home grounding or EMI problems (which could be anywhere in the house since these are conducted via home wiring) that affect the bed area.









 

[guest23837]

For now turning off lights to save power isn't a myth, if it were we wouldn't be getting electricity bills. Perhaps Glort is being a little provocative? 

[buickanddeere]

 A lot of people seem oblivious that during the winter heating season. The heat from lights and appliances is not a loss.

[BruceM]

Most importantly, Phillips Lighting profits are way up, they no longer have to compete with cheap imported incandescent bulbs with very low profit margins.  They were the ones to write the light bulb ban laws all over the world.  Meanwhile fossil fuel use in every every country rises every year.

[LowGear]

When you have two light bulbs (like dialing the phone) and one is acting out then pull either one out and see if the bad boy is flickering?  No flicker - swap them out and do you have a flicker now?

No one has mentioned flash lights or it's UK brother hand torches.  LEDs have really disrupted the small bulb market as it has the others but without the insightful legislation. 

I looked around for phantom energy use and couldn't find an article on it.  Even a couple of watts a day can impact you as there are 365 days in most years.  Really.

And not turning tools or lights or energy users off when not in use is just plain crap. 

[BruceM]

The phantom energy use thing is a much bigger deal that it seems.  Someone here or the Microcogen site added up all the phantom loads on their inverter driven off grid home; they were required to use the new arc detecting breakers, GFCI outlets, and of course the inverter itself and a few other odds and ends.  The total phantom load was close to my total winter power use of about 15 ah at 120VDC.  (1.8 KWH/day)

Here's an interesting post by a guy who found that his GFCI and AFCI breakers were drawing a total of 60W 24/7.  That's 1.44KWH/day or 43.2 KWH/month.

http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/forum/jlc-online-expert-forums/the-electric-shop/49110-afci-gfci-power-consumption

If you took that 60W load times a 100K homes in a moderate sized city.  That adds up to 4.3 MWH per month.

The bogus "smart meters" are another phantom load.  Power companies claim it is 1-1.5W but I find this dubious as they are often part of a mesh network and thus some some are transmitting almost continuously. The power use for the electronics and frequent radio communications adds up when it's every home, 24/7.  This will dwarf the AFCI power consumption. While you don't get billed for this, you do pay for it.  Plus the expected service life is only 7 years, which if you look at them closely you'll see why.  Their conducted emissions (back onto all your home wiring)  exceed FCC standards but they are not regulated.

The arc detecting breakers and GFCI breakers could use dramatically less power- but again, they are trying to squeeze a power supply into a breaker- instead of a single supply for all the breakers.  Once again, like the smart meters, I would almost guarantee that these units would fail even the ludicrously poor FCC standards for conducted EMI.  So while consuming energy and trashing your home power quality, how many home fire fatalities are actually prevented???  The safety motivation for these is so poor that they are not required to be used in pre-existing homes.  In fact, NONE of the allegedly critical safety equipment developed in the last 80 years is required for ANY pre-existing home and is also not required when it is sold. Wow, must be real important?!

I am helping a working disabled woman with correcting home wiring and grounding errors in her home in urban California-  the house still has some original Knob and Tube wiring. She found a bare knob and tube wire (a neutral) touching a gas line in the crawl space- I was having her look for source of current on the gas lines in that area of the house as there were elevated magnetic fields above that area.  Passed inspection when she bought it.

[guest23837]

When you have two light bulbs (like dialing the phone) and one is acting out then pull either one out and see if the bad boy is flickering?  No flicker - swap them out and do you have a flicker now?

No one has mentioned flash lights or it's UK brother hand torches.  LEDs have really disrupted the small bulb market as it has the others but without the insightful legislation. 

I looked around for phantom energy use and couldn't find an article on it.  Even a couple of watts a day can impact you as there are 365 days in most years.  Really.

And not turning tools or lights or energy users off when not in use is just plain crap.

I have a twin cell bicycle lamp in the shed, cant get a battery for it

[AdeV]

Here's an interesting post by a guy who found that his GFCI and AFCI breakers were drawing a total of 60W 24/7.  That's 1.44KWH/day or 43.2 KWH/month.

I don't believe that is just from the breakers.  He says the max he measured was 17MA. How many effing breakers does he have to be pulling 60W in total??  Sorry, don't add up.

17mA @ 220v = 3.75W, 17 breakers will give you a mite over 60W total. 16 breakers is a lot, but not ridiculously so - I've got about 8 RCDs for my 3-bed house, although since the electric shower & immersion heater got taken out, 2 are no longer in use.

[mikenash]

(*) As soon as the hallway/stairwell is completed. Took the old wallpaper & wood down in 1998. Currently waiting to be re-instated. Maybe next year...

Goddamn I so relate to that decorating timeframe lol

[BruceM]

Sounds like some Australians are more safety obsessed or electro phobic than Americans. 

Admittedly, 230VAC does have a bigger bite, but the case can be made that Darwin should have his way for those intent on bathing with corded appliances or operating corded power tools in puddles. Electrocution by folly in the home (not construction worker or electrician or equipment operator) is extraordinarily rare (8 per year in 325 million). There are 4x more deaths per year by lighting than electrocution, even allowing for 8% suicide by electrocution. For us to all incur the cost and environmental impact of preventing such an unlikely situation is, well, foolish. It is the peddling of fear for profit.

The improved safety of GFCI, AFCI or RCD breakers is not a problem-  the profligate power use and conducted EMI is. 

If there was a new standard for 12 or 5VDC supply in the breaker box, and a limit for allowable power use, the power consumption could easily be reduced dramatically. Again, the problem is the replication of tiny switching supplies for every frigging breaker, and the EMI injection onto the home power from those poorly designed supplies.  Just as in LED lighting, a single well designed and filtered supply would dramatically improve things.

I've been using Microchip's 5v op amps and analog comparators in my designs of the last 10 years- insanely low power use of 0.010 ma/channel. With 4 on an IC plus a bit extra, a breaker should be drawing 0.1 ma or less of 5V,  or 5 uW each.  20 breakers would then be drawing 0.1 mW, not 60,000 mW (60 watts).  It is utterly foolish too replicate the power loss of a small 5V power supply for every damn breaker, and design them without concern for power consumption when they are a 24/7 load.

Alas, we seem to be using Neanderthals for our entire power system design.

[LowGear]

I don't know about you but I thought the 8 deaths a year from electrocution in non work related accidents was fake news.  So being the gentleman that I am I emailed Bruce directly.  He encouraged better research and I'm quickly coming to the realization that I, again - notify Ripley, was wrong.  Eight deaths.  I thought it'd be up there with getting an eye poked out or running with sharp objects.  But no.  It's looking like 8 just might be the valid number.  Thanks BruceM.

Rant on brothers and sisters as I have much to learn.

I also want to repeat a message I've seen in this thread.  Energy conservation is a matter of planet stewardship absolutely as much as saving $20 a year.  The smarter we are with our energy use the sooner we can shut down coal and oil fired energy generation.  I watch a YouTube contributor named Robert Llewellyn.  I've started a new thread based on his last show.  http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=8267.0

[BruceM]

You also have to figure that of those 8 deaths per year per 325 million people, many could not have been prevented by GFCI breakers. 

My preferred solution is to go 120 volts DC for the home.  It requires 4 times the current through your heart to stop it, so is the equivalent for safety as 30 volts AC. 120VDC feels like a modest static shock, it is not nearly so jarring and painful as AC.

Edison will win out, eventually. So far it's just me, my neighbor and a few others, plus many large data centers (they are 350 VDC for compatibility with switching power supplies originally designed for 230VAC- that's still inherently safer than 120VAC).