Ok, I've seen lots of bantering back and fourth about this so I figured I'd ask, I know some people really like LED's and LED fixtures, and some people really hate everything about them, just mentioning them will incite comments, what I'm wondering if you could design and build your own, only using LED's as light source what would you build or what features should be added to an existing fixture, or do you have an LED fixture you like or bulb you like even though you might dislike LEDs..

I would use a LED light :

 - Where some specific illumination, not general area lighting is needed : Highlighting or backlighting, Feature lights, Sign lights, .....

Example of such luminaire :



 - Where i can take advantage of the LED's light spectrum : Lighting an area which is viewed from afar but nobody is on it, with 3000K..4000K when i want it to appear sterile but still welcoming and the light source not visible (it is easier to distribute and hide LEDs due to their small size), or "flashlight White" color when i want to make it look sterile and dead. This could be used for e.g. lighting something in a way that implies "area is closed". Though the wide spread of LEDs elsewhere defeats this application as their light does not look so special anymore. The sterile look is in that under LED lght the natural colors of e.g. stones, walls etc. dont fully show up

 - Where i want some appearance that only LED can give. Filament lamps in 6500K

 - Where i need a void filler for no actual purpose. Recently i renovated (at somebody's business) a room interior that had some FL lights and Halogen MR16 spots around the room perimeter. I doubled the number of FL luminaires so the room is bright, and there is no need in the Halogens. But the owner liked the appearance of some spots there, so i put in MR16 LEDs (also replaced the Halogen transformer with a suitable DC power supply)

 - Where LED seems to be good choice for the area lighting on hand. Which rarely is the case for most places we want to light up, but sometimes it is, like the airport runway posted in the gallery



My first LED lantern was one i made myself ~16 years ago. It was a prototyping board on which i soldered a big array of 5mm Amber LEDs (the then new, high brightness ones with clear lens). This used to be a headlight on a scooter and a bike i had, and it lit the area very well with its Amber color

Since then i made a few more, mostly with prototyping boards and 5mm LEDs, sometimes with the LEDs put in some other structure like lighting into the edge of a PMMA stick

Some of my biggest issues with many modern LED based fixtures has been:

1. Lack of standardized, modular, commonly available repair parts. many fixtures are made in a sealed non-repairable proprietary way.

2. Expensive

3. Temperature and humidity/water sensitivity

4. The way many companies have pushed the technology without real evidence to back their claims up. This leading to the brainwashing of many a lighting layperson and speeding up the product line EOL of many a discharge lamp/fixture style. Same reason I didn't want a ricer civic when I was a kid. I didn't want to be associated with the pompous (...) who made outlandish claims about what their cars could do.

I have become fond of the cheap eBay "high power" led based fixtures and parts as they solve #1&2 right away, they are on my shortlist of next items to purchase. I also think they could quite possibly be a big part of this communities' future. As much as I hate to see HID go, I am excited about the developments in LED before us. We should be the ones using our knowledge and influence to help shape its direction to be better.

 

Standart would be something cool. It would not only help one to compare products but also help to find replace product easier when replacing faulty lights that are out of production.

What comes to component level standart (drivers, led-modules) and replaceability, that's something I think we're never going to have. I have come up with image that led lighting is like speakers. Making a led driver and led module to work is not a rocket science. But like with active speakers, the best possible combination can be archived only when the led driver is designed to work with specifict led module.

Btw, is there any standart way to control led streetlights like dimming etc or does every manufacturer use some proprietary system? A standart for that would also be wise.

My requirements are:

Fairly cheap
Low glare
Super long life if it can't be easily repaired.

-Looks like a real cobrahead and ideally has a glass refractor
-Has standardized parts that are interchangeable just like HID gear.
-Has a decent rated life
-Is considerably more efficient than CMH and still lights up a large area effectively

I'd make one that looks like a SOX lamp, monochromatic is the way to go!

Amber/orange color LED nightlights, flashlights and emergency lighting only.

As long as it emits light at a narrow band around 589nm I'm a happy camper

I won't buy a "LED fixture" per se. I will retrofit a standard fixture with off-the-shelf LED lamps.
What's the point in buying a fixture that has to be discarded when the light source fails? Hate the Earth that much?

I remember a few years back, people claimed, rightly so at the time, that LED lighting should have it's own specific fixture to maximize the performance and efficiency of LED tech. Biggest concern at that time was cooling. We had self-proclaimed LED bulb geniuses who could summarily dismiss a LED bulb is "insufficiently heat-sinked" just by looking at it. Now we have all-glass high-lumen LED bulbs with no apparent "heat sink". So, we don't really "need" a LED-only fixture these days. At least not residentially....too many good LED products leverage existing light fixtures just fine!

The problem here, (i.e spares and repair ability), is just with the `consumer` LED fittings, which is not too bad, as you can now have a fitting that takes an LED lamp, (as stated above).
However, there isn`t an issue with `highway spec` LED lanterns, as almost all manufacturers provide spare parts and upgrades for their products now, (so the entire fixture dosen`t have to be binned)!
 
The problem for those of us that have highway spec lanterns in full time use at home though, (for outside lighting), is we can`t get access to those spares should something go wrong! , (unless you know people that are in the industry, and can get all that sort of stuff).

I`m happy to use LED fixtures outside, but they HAVE to be highway spec, not the `Joe public consumer`, garbage thats giving LED tech a bad name.
Its good at least, that LED lamps for home use are now at an acceptable standard and price for consumer use in large numbers, they just need to get outdoor LED consumer products to the same spec now.

If it's from Lowes or HD

That would be the displays

LED: Neat, no dead tubes, longer life= more people buying them because it says it's "brighter"
Fluorescent: Sloppy, lots of under driven or dead tubes, incorrectly installed fixtures, bent or broken troffer covers= less people buy because of how it looks on display VS. what you would do or how you would install it

I'd never buy a LED fixture

LED professional luminaires are not same as FL/HID. There is no standard light source module, the replaceable parts are proprietary. Drivers are in better position (atleast unless there are some special features involved, its just a DC current source, and are not greatly different in their form factor)



All the complaints i see about Fluorescents is direct result of how they are done in the US : Normally underdriven, even the "best" gear sucks (shunted sockets Instant Start), lamps aren't too great either (2900 Lm in the US, with a lamp format that does 3350 Lm and better CRI for the same power consumption over here). If anything, this is a result of how energy efficiency laws and exemptions have been done in the US all those years..

LED tubes appear brighter simply because they put out light in 180deg, so they appear on a darker background (unlit ceiling or luminaire insides). With a 3350 Lm 36W T8 or 1700 Lm 18W half-T8, the flux emitted from a unit surface area of the tube is pretty much the same. The higher glare and excessive Blue in the spectrum (which also contributes to the preceived glare) make the feeling of the light being brighter than it really is, but does not make the place under the lamp better lit



LED fixture - Ok for a fixture for special application, with good reliability so it is expected to last for decades. For example, a LED backlit sign with low intensity LEDs not driven at high currents

All the complaints i see about Fluorescents is direct result of how they are done in the US : Normally underdriven, even the "best" gear sucks (shunted sockets Instant Start), lamps aren't too great either (2900 Lm in the US, with a lamp format that does 3350 Lm and better CRI for the same power consumption over here). If anything, this is a result of how energy efficiency laws and exemptions have been done in the US all those years..

I didn't know that the American fluorescent lamps are dimmer than the equivalent European lamps of the same wattage and format (i.e. American F40T12 is dimmer than European 40W T12 and 36W T8).

The American 40W T12 is either brighter or dim with high CRI compared to T12's over here (the 765 and 640 are the main types of T12s here, they were banned in the US many years ago)

The American 32W T8 is less efficient and lower CRI than the Europen Triphosphor 36W T8 (which uses 32W on HF gear)