Bruce Johnson wrote: > > On Dec 23, 2008, at 12:52 PM, Paul wrote: > >> Even with fluorescents, supposedly the mercury in them is less than >> the mercury released by the coal that might have been burned to make >> the extra electricity for incandescent lights. >> >> But LED's are even better, unless their manufacture or disposal >> involves something hazardous that I don't know about... > > Nope, the issue with LED's right now is their high cost. But they're > rapidly finding a big niche in the industrial and public sectors. The > vastly superior lifespan of LED's has lead to an almost wholesale > acceptance of their use in things like Traffic Signals, for example.
There's two other problems with LEDs. They are by nature a directional source of light. For many applications this is an advantage but for general lighting it's a bit of a problem. It's usually solved by arranging sufficient LEDs pointing in all directions. The other problem is the flicker. When powered by AC they have a 60Hz flicker. Normally it's not a problem until the observer or the LEDs are in motion, then they have a somewhat annoying flicker. Using filtered DC to power them avoids the problem altogether. > > Closer to home, I've gone from early November to now with a single set > of 3 AAA batteries in my bicycle headlight and it shows no sign of > diminishing, versus the two weeks max I used to get out of the > incandescent one. Same here. Plus I have about 7 strings of LED Christmas lights up on the house. The draw about the same amount of power as 6 of the medium sized incandescent Christmas lights (C7 size). I'm leaving my Christmas tree lights on all the time as they take a trivial amount of power and generate no noticeable heat. -- Clark Martin Redwood City, CA, USA Macintosh / Internet Consulting "I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway" --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
