[Rupert the bear]

To-day I have been checking the exterior lighting ready for the darker months, the main yard lighting are 250w sodium flood lights and then cfl's in fittings , The sodium bulbs get changed out every 2 years as they become dull the cfl's are useless in the winter taking too long to warm up and dim as a glowworm . I've been thinking of getting LED floodlights but wonder if they have enough ooomph in the illumination stakes , has anyone used LEDs ?

[JEP]

i change a lot of lights to led its better to get lights bigger than what you want
or you can fit more of them
there is 2 main sorts warm white & day light
warm white is more of a yellow light
day light is white light
but they all use a lot less power

[Fleecewife]

Don't forget to shade your outdoor lights from above to minimise light pollution 

[mab]

as a rule of thumb, 10W of LED (cool white) gives about the same light as 100W of incandescent, so a 10W LED flood will be a bit less bright than a 120w halogen flood and the 30w and 50w LED approximate to 300 and 500w halogens.

the warm white are slightly less bright for the same power than the cool.

[devonlady]

I've got a torch!

[pgkevet]

If it's intermittent secirty lighting and finding your way to the barn... then I did buy one of those cheapo led solar panel floods for where I park my car down behind the barns in it's garage nook. They have a lousy range on the detector nd the light is weak compared to a 250w flood but more than adequate to fidn one's way about.. zero running costs and about £30 each.... a string of them (to make up for the poor detection range) set for 20 secs would get one around most holdings outbuildings without breaking the bank or polluting th skies.

[bloomer]

We had some led floods on the event site I was running last week, they aren't as good as the halogens we normally use but for areas where power supply was iffy they were great bright enough to cook by even whilst running on fresh air apparently, I'm looking for some for my chicken pens currently as the only way to get power down there is a 50m cable run which is a bit far to run a conventional halogen light on a spur. So the LED ones seem a good compromise to me.. I prefer the yellow white, the daylight ones are a blue white light and feel wrong to me (yes I know I'm special)

[JEP]

the problem with sensors is they detect at just about 2.5m from floor
but the light should be high up
i install a sensor or 2 low down and lights high up and link all lights up together

[Rupert the bear]

Been looking at industrial ones at a site I visited to day 100 watts ! bloke says its like sun light, apparently its the lumens that count...  now to work out the lumen output of a sodium fitting and price a led replacement

[pgkevet]

....if you'ld asked last week the local scrappy had some football flood lights with 3000watt bulbs...

..just one on a pole in the middle of your holding.....

[Rupert the bear]

I purchased a LED bulb to try in a bulkhead fitting spec on the package  620 lumens  7w ,  also a LED flood light 10 w version , now I need some help here, the bulb output is equal to a 40w bulb, the flood light is as bright as a 60w bulb, upon checking the power usage with the meter the 620 lumen bulb draws 0.075 amp this is about 30 watts not the proclaimed 7 watts , the flood light draws 0.133 amp that's around 50w   way above the advertised 10 watts.
So I took the flood light apart. The chip is powered by some electronics and seems to be the principle power consumer as when the chip current was measured it ran at 0.0226 amp a shade under 10 watts .
Not really impressed as both intolerant to voltage drops below 210 volts ( we are the last on the supply line ) 
any suggestions ?

[mab]

I'm guessing you're using one of those cheap'n'cheerfull power meters? these just measure the current and use Watts=amps*volts to calculate 'power'; this is fine with d.c. or with a simple resistive load on a.c. but most - non-resistive loads have a 'phase-shift' between volts and amps, or 'power factor'; this means that unless your power meter is a true power meter (i.e. expensive) it will give falsely high readings on non resistive loads.

The other way to verify power consumption is to consider the heat output of the lamp - if the LED flood was really consuming 50W (and outputting ~10W as light) it would get as hot as a 40w filament lamp, and fry it's own electronics.

I'm surprised that your lamps are that voltage intolerant - but then the LED floods I've tried were rated 90-264v and seemed happy even at 80v@ 26Hz

[Rupert the bear]

I'm guessing you're using one of those cheap'n'cheerfull power meters?

I'm surprised that your lamps are that voltage intolerant - but then the LED floods I've tried were rated 90-264v and seemed happy even at 80v@ 26Hz

Errr no,  my Fluke was far from cheap !!  the flood lights electronics are quite warm to say the least, I was surprised at the voltage problem too.  These were from toolstaton  I guess I will have to see if there are  any non Asian / Chinese units available.
With regard to our poor voltages , re run all our electronics through ups  to maintain a constant supply through bitter and expensive experience !

[mab]

Fluke meters certainly aren't cheap, but I note in your post you quote the amps draw suggesting you're using your fluke to measure amps not watts  - my point being you can't do use amps*volts to give watts for a.c. electronic aplliances - you need a meter that simultaneously measures amps and volts and factors in the phase difference. I still think if you 10W LED is pulling 50W then it will let out the magic smoke within a few minutes.

I think you may struggle to to find much electronics these days that isn't made in china, but there's good chinese stuff and rubbish chinese stuff out there.

I got my LED's from a local electrical factor - certainly if your supply is as bad as you say then you would be better off finding ones that are rated 90-264v even if you pay extra for them.

I have to say that the UK electric suppliers are supposed to supply 230V +10% -6% (at the meter) - I thought it was a legal requirement, end of the line or no  - certainly if the voltage is too high they will send someone to check very quickly;  so if it's dropping to 210V or below you might want to ask them to check their connections.

[Rupert the bear]

Fluke meters certainly aren't cheap, but I note in your post you quote the amps draw suggesting you're using your fluke to measure amps not watts  - my point being you can't do use amps*volts to give watts for a.c. electronic aplliances - you need a meter that simultaneously measures amps and volts and factors in the phase difference. I still think if you 10W LED is pulling 50W then it will let out the magic smoke within a few minutes.

I think you may struggle to to find much electronics these days that isn't made in china, but there's good chinese stuff and rubbish chinese stuff out there.


I got my LED's from a local electrical factor - certainly if your supply is as bad as you say then you would be better off finding ones that are rated 90-264v even if you pay extra for them.

I have to say that the UK electric suppliers are supposed to supply 230V +10% -6% (at the meter) - I thought it was a legal requirement, end of the line or no  - certainly if the voltage is too high they will send someone to check very quickly;  so if it's dropping to 210V or below you might want to ask them to check their connections.

good point in the first paragraph thats what I was doing, any way upon reassembly I noted that the lamp is of Polish origin, as for the magic smoke , the paint peeled off first . Looks like I will have to find some " good Chinese" lights
As for the supply ,  the line has been upgraded twice in 20 years the last time the entire 8 miles of 11Kv line was replaced, pole transformer as well , they buried the final half mile to the croft and everything was hunky dory for five years,then 2 new houses added to the spur, we had sold the old petter genny as the power cuts had stopped but ended up with a 17kva pto alternator as back up , bleeding switchgear cost almost as much again . We are enjoying 215v at the moment but if some one up the line has a shower we'll go brown again .
Our Hydro tech is a good sort and has done his best , we have learnt to adapt ( now don't get me started with the VLF from the submarine communications base )