lame - led bulb as hot as incandesent bulb

londonTiger

I bought a desk lamp from ikea, thinking LED is efficient. Well I think I've wasted my money because it's not as bright as a fluorescent bulb and produces much more heat.

It's a 6W bulb, but it creates a lot of heat around the white plastic part: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10266221/

cant touch it more than a millisecond before it gets too hot.

What a waste of money, should have stuck to pure LED light bars that produce more light and give off no heat at all.

RyanWarner

Hi,

Can I ask what brand of LED light it is and is it a GU10, MR16 or E14? I work for a company that specializes in LED lighting so might be able to provide you with some general information if you would like it.

LED lamps should not get hot in general, in my opinion it sounds like you may have a faulty one.

Ryan

wiogs

londonTiger wrote: »

I bought a desk lamp from ikea, thinking LED is efficient. Well I think I've wasted my money because it's not as bright as a fluorescent bulb and produces much more heat.

It's a 6W bulb, but it creates a lot of heat around the white plastic part: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10266221/

cant touch it more than a millisecond before it gets too hot.

What a waste of money, should have stuck to pure LED light bars that produce more light and give off no heat at all.

Must be faulty then.

Southend1

Led lamps do get hot around a particular part. They are designed so that the heat produced is drawn away from parts that may be damaged by it. A 6w led should be pretty bright and will use a lot less power than an equivalent brightness incandescent lamp. Although a particular part of the bulb is getting hot, it is producing much less heat than an incandescent.

londonTiger

Southend1 wrote: »

Led lamps do get hot around a particular part. They are designed so that the heat produced is drawn away from parts that may be damaged by it. A 6w led should be pretty bright and will use a lot less power than an equivalent brightness incandescent lamp. Although a particular part of the bulb is getting hot, it is producing much less heat than an incandescent.

incandescent = hot wire old style bulbs
fluorescent = gas filled energy efficient tube bulbs, (or spiral tubs for compact size bulbs)

Ok the led bulb base being as hot as an incandescent was probably an exxageration. an incandescent would burn you and would be unberably hot before you even make contact. But the IKEA led is surprisingly hot - I thought LEDs were a step up from fluroscent but it appears I am mistaken and are probably just below fluroscent in terms of efficiency but people prefer them before of their lifespan and instant on.

Having said that I have aquarium LED lights and they do not produce any heat as they don't use the light bulb sockets, perhaps that is the way to go, perhaps the light sockets cause heat as they have to transform the voltage up and then reduce it down at the bulb.

Southend1

londonTiger wrote: »

incandescent = hot wire old style bulbs
fluorescent = gas filled energy efficient tube bulbs, (or spiral tubs for compact size bulbs)

Ok the led bulb base being as hot as an incandescent was probably an exxageration. an incandescent would burn you and would be unberably hot before you even make contact. But the IKEA led is surprisingly hot - I thought LEDs were a step up from fluroscent but it appears I am mistaken and are probably just below fluroscent in terms of efficiency but people prefer them before of their lifespan and instant on.

Having said that I have aquarium LED lights and they do not produce any heat as they don't use the light bulb sockets, perhaps that is the way to go, perhaps the light sockets cause heat as they have to transform the voltage up and then reduce it down at the bulb.

The LEDs are much more efficient than CFL or incandescent. I.e. they produce more light per watt. This doesn't mean they don't produce heat -

"... crucially, heat is produced within the LED device itself, due to the inefficiency of the semiconductor processes that generate light. The wall-plug efficiency (optical power out divided by electrical power in) of LED packages is typically in the region of 5-40%, meaning that somewhere between 60 and 95% of the input power is lost as heat.

The energy consumed by a 100-watt GLS incandescent bulb produces around 12% heat, 83% IR and only 5% visible light. In contrast, a typical LED might produce15% visible light and 85% heat."
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2005/05/fact-or-fiction-leds-don-t-produce-heat.html

lstar337

londonTiger wrote: »

I thought LEDs were a step up from fluroscent but it appears I am mistaken and are probably just below fluroscent in terms of efficiency but people prefer them before of their lifespan and instant on.

LED's are more efficient than CFL's, perceived heat through touch is no way to judge these things.

CFL's do get very hot too. I'm not going to suggest you try to touch them, but the end of the tubes that go into the bulbs plastic body are where the main heat is.

LED's do give of heat too, but generally not as much.

londonTiger wrote: »

Having said that I have aquarium LED lights and they do not produce any heat as they don't use the light bulb sockets, perhaps that is the way to go, perhaps the light sockets cause heat as they have to transform the voltage up and then reduce it down at the bulb.

They will be producing heat, but it is likely less due to being lower wattage LED's and due to not being concentrated to a confined location. Your aquarium lights probably also have an external power supply and driver circuitry. In standard BC light fitting LED bulb, the driver circuitry is crammed into a tight space with little air movement, so it gets hot!

ABrass

A CFL is normally in the region of 10% efficient. Even if your LED bulb were three times that efficiency the majority of energy is emitted as heat.

Let's say at least 4W of heat for your 6W bulb, probably closer to 5W. That's a pittance compared to a normal bulb but it's still enough energy to get that LED bulb up to finger-burning temperature pretty quickly.

Also don't forget that your fingers dont' sense heat, they sense heat-transfer. Metal will suck heat out of your hands faster than wood, which is why a metal bit of cutlery may feel cold to the touch compared to a table despite both of them being room temperature. The heat sink on a bulb is designed to conduct heat as fast as possible (as heat makes the LED less efficient) whilst the CFLs are designed in part to hold much of the heat in. Human senses are rubbish at science.

londonTiger

thanks to lstar and abrass, this thread was surprisingly educational.

spannerzone

I was in a hotel recently that had this lamp fitted into a mirror lamp and I was amazed how dim the bulb was, it was nearly useless other than being a bit better than a night light. I assumed it was faulty

Mike-b_4

The base part of the lamp is designed as a heat sink and removes the heat from the LED chip. The hotter the chip gets the less time it will last for

given its a 10 watt lamp with claimed 60 lumens per watt, im surprised its getting that hot

quite likely they are driving a high current into cheaper, low wattage leds to try and get the output up while keeping the price down

you didnt mention how it looked as far as output goes. If the output is ok - well you are still using significantly less energy than the 60 watt bulb you have replaced