e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Our team has been selling the e-watt LED light bulbs with some success.

For the most part they are pretty impressive when you demonstrate them to a potential buyer.

We have one buyer who bought several of them, using them in ceiling fixtures. A couple of the lights are flickering at a rapid pace. Only some of the fixtures do this, and it doesn't matter if I switch the bulbs around inside the fixture, they still flicker. If I move the flickering bulb to another fixture, the flickering stops.

So, two points for this post:

1. Have you run into complaints about flickering LED light bulbs? Any idea of the cause/solution?
2. What has been your experience with the bulbs?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

We've actually had some great success due to the dedication of a few of our mentors. I'm not entirely sure if it is allowed, but a store has even agreed to stock the bulbs for us.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Were the bulbs installed in a dimmer fixture?

These bulbs are not dimmable, which is our only complaint so far (we've sold several cases of them).

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

The fixtures were not dimmable. I'm just wondering if the fixture was marginal, maybe less power being delivered to them, flaky wiring or being at the end of a series of fixtures. The building is slightly old (1950s).

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

For those who are selling a lot of the bulbs, how are you selling them? Do you sell them door-to-door, at a school, at the parent's workplace, etc? What's been most successful?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Last I heard, we had sold something like ~$700 worth of light bulbs just on word of mouth alone. They're pretty easy to sell as long as you push the right points. (Lower cost over lifetime of bulb, longer operating life, money goes to a good call etc.)

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Who do you sell them to?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

When you walk into a business, check out their lights. If they are using CFLs, give them the pitch. Try to find the operations manager, or whoever is responsible for buying the lights, they are the ones that will be interested.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Any company, school, hotel, individual, etc., that is not bound to a contracted supplier for light bulbs. It is a very easy fundraiser. We're currently working on Philadelphia City Hall, I believe.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

We've had at least two bulbs with the flickering problem. Our theory is it may be one or both of the following (or a combination)

1) Bulb for some reason runs hotter than the others.

2) In a ceiling can light, this can cause the can-light fixtures to overheat protection switch to trigger, causing flickering. The can's trigger might also be more sensitive to other cans. Other factors might be amount of insulation/air space above the fixture in the ceiling/attic.

Note that the bulbs are not recommended for enclosed fixtures where little or no air can circulate.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Family, Friends, a Few Members of Administration, and last I heard we were talking with the Building and Grounds department to see if they had any use for the bulbs.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

In our experience, the bulbs are pretty easy to sell one or two to someone to try out. People seem to like the fact that they are warmer lights than CFLs and give off a similar appearance to incandescents. We have had a few requests for dimmable bulbs as well as different wattages.

My complaint is that the bulbs MUST be purchased from the supplier using a credit card. Our school doesn't have a credit card we can use, so that means a mentor or parent has to put it on their credit card and have a check cut from the school for reimbursement. Of course, the school doesn't like to reimburse for large amounts, which means we'll have some trouble if we want to sell a large volume of LED bulbs. (which we do!)

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Has anyone done price comparisons for comparable products?

I did some internet searching and found a similar product for $40, which is what we use in our sales pitch.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Recently, Home Depot or Lowes (I forget which, my dad just casually told it to me) had similar bulbs on sale for $10. There was one on Home Depot's website a few weeks ago that was similar, costing $40, I believe, but that seems to no longer be there. As of now, the FIRST LED bulbs do seem to be the cheapest/best ones available, but it seems like more and more similar bulbs are becoming available.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Kinda made over 4k on these guys so far....

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Suhweet! Any tips on how you are selling them?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Why do you need to keep inventory? Can't you (as the Girl Scouts do) just take orders, and purchase the bulbs with the customer's cash already in-hand?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I heard a rumor that their local itty-bitty airport uses them to line the runways. I wonder if I can get MKE's airport to do the same...

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Uh, I found $25 for what literally looks like the exact same bulb.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...052-0001-00001

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

are the color temperatures and lumen output the same as FRC bulb?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Both Home Depot and Lowes are selling a true 60 watt replacement that is dimable. I paid about 18$ for them. Very happy with them. The home depot bulb does have a slight hum at times. These are the bulbs we should be selling.
Also there are some really good replacements for the t-8 and t-12's that could really be sold to businesses. The problem is the ballast must be removed.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I had thought about convincing my team to buy both local Lowe's stores' stock of these bulbs to sell for profit. Because the biggest complaint from potential buyers is that they are not dimmable.

A lot of people also cannot purchase them because of the price tag. While they are 1/2 of retail cost... $20 per bulb is still pretty darn expensive for most people. I'm not saying there's really anything that can be done about it, it's just what I've been observing.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Just one tip on LED bulbs in general (as this is what I do)

Most LED replacement bulbs look similar, but that is where the similarities end, I assure you. Between what LED the bulb uses, the circuit design of the driver, the materials of the diffuser (the "bulb" portion) and the method of thermal management, LED bulbs can have a wide variety of performance.

The manufacturer of the e-Watt FIRST bulbs is a reputable one.

-Brando

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

1551 ordered our first case of 30 -- we'll see how they sell. (Small, small, SMALL town and all that.)

I am a bit concerned that you can buy LED bulbs, non-dimmable, 40W, etc, etc, from Lowes (only 20 miles down the road) for two bucks cheaper... We may have to sell them for less than the $19.99 MSRP.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

We can still run in to the same problem. If we push and get $1000 in orders at one time, some may be cash, but people tend to write checks to us. It will start to appear pretty shady if we start asking checks to be written to individuals instead of the school, or if we fund raise on a cash only basis.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

We are considering selling the bulbs as a fundraiser, but I'm looking for ideas/suggestions on how to sell them. Since we are not associated with a school or a community, being pretty spread out mainly in suburbia, we don't have a built in audience to approach. And I don't want to ask the students to go door-to-door. Anyone have any solutions?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Our local hardware store has agreed to sell them for us if we want them to. Also, word of mouth starting in schools isn't a bad way to go, methinks. I know the biology teacher across the hall wants to try a few, with the potential of converting over his entire house!(!!!!)

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Don't forget about taxes! I saw the bulb for sale at Lowes for $18.98. That's $20.50 with NY taxes!

I think if we throw in that it is a fundraiser for a good cause, people may forgive the cost a bit as long as it is close to the market rate.

Our team just received the cases we ordered (sponsored by a few parents and mentors - if the bulbs sell, the sponsors get their money back. If they don't, they get the bulbs.). One of the mentors made a comparison display that holds 4 bulbs with a watt meter to show the energy use. It's very cool. We will probably rely on sales at parent's and mentor's workplaces and with friends and families. We've been given permission to sell them at our largest demo of the summer, the Monroe County Fair.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

And it would be $20.74 in Los Angeles county!

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Can you share this with us? I'd like to maybe do something similar.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Agreed, I believe 1538 has a fantastic display for these lightbulbs as well?

-RC

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Well, I wasn't expecting people to be buying five at a time... Sold 12 today (including one to myself to try out), so the case has already paid for itself and then some... The rest is profit. We'll see how the rest of the case goes, and then look at the judiciousness of ordering more.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I'll describe it now and take a photo the next time I'm in the shop!

He built a wooden box and wired in 4 light sockets (porcelain?) Each socket has a on/off light switch underneath it. They are wired in parallel and at one end is an outlet. He provided a watt meter that plugs into the outlet. The four slots are intended for use for a regular 40 watt incandescent bulb, a compact fluorescent bulb, the FIRST bulb and a competitors 40 watt LED bulb for color comparison. At the back he has attached a piece of foam board to provide a surface to show the displacement of the light from the bulbs. Because each bulb has it's own switch, you can measure the watts for each bulb individually. Or turnthem all on and measure the total output!

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

From the rest of the description, it sounds like they are wired in parallel.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Monroe County WHERE?!!

Also, I want to say this: most of the sales tips I've seen in this thread so far is almost exactly how I used to sell band candy when I was in high school.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Monroe County, NY (Rochester).

You hooked up candy bars to 115VAC? Cool!

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

When you turn on more than one light bulb, the wattages add up. I think that makes them in series.

But I will admit that electrical has never been my strong suit. If I really have it backwards, let me know!

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

If the bulbs were wired in series, they would not operate properly. Each one requires the full 120 volts.

The 120v light bulbs in your home are all wired in parallel, and you can turn them on and off individually, and the wattmeter on your home reads the sum of the power they use.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

So If you had a switch on each bulb in the display set up you could turn them on one at a time to show how much power they use right?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Right. Like so.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

That is a great visual for me! Exactly! So it's parallel then!

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Oh, ****. For a moment there, I thought you were coming all the way out here to the Monroe County Fair. It's even larger than the Michigan State Fair.
Well, there was that one time we sold these massive sausage links...

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

One of my concerns with the FIRST light is that we don't use 40-watt bulbs much in our house; mostly we use 60-watt bulbs. This bulb is supposed to have light output equivalent to a 40-watt bulb. Our team leader tried one out and said it's as bright as a 60-watt bulb, but he used two different types of light fixtures to display them. While they both nearly blinded me, I didn't think that was a "scientific" enough test, so I devised a somewhat more "scientific" test, using the bulb my husband bought from the team. (If we like it, we'll probably buy more.)

We have a ceiling fixture in our house that had two CFLs and two soft white 60-watt incandescent bulbs. One of the CFLs was burned out. (CFLs do NOT last as long as traditional bulbs.) So I replaced the bum bulb with one of the e-watt LED lights, and turned on the switch. Cameras tend to be pretty objective about things, so I also took pictures. Here is one picture, taken from directly below the fixture. Can you tell which bulbs are brighter or dimmer? Can you tell which is the CFL and which is the LED light?

By the way, if you would like to use a larger version of this picture in your sales pitch, feel free to PM me.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I thought the FRC LED was rated as equivalent to 60Watt incandescent.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

The problem is that the light is much more directed, which is why the literature says that in downlight and spotlight applications it apes a 60W bulb, but in 'most other applications' it apes a 40W. I have one that I bought from our team to try in various applications around my house, and I find this to be almost exactly true.

In a standard lamp (where the bulb is upright), it's a bit dim -- the ceiling above the lamp is plenty bright, but it doesn't do that much for the room. In a light fixture where the bulb is at the ceiling and directed downward, it's great...

...and I think it's important to emphasize this distinction to customers when you're trying to sell the bulb if you want them to be happy with their purchase.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

FWIW:


60 watt incandescent 840 lumens

40 watt incandescent 490 lumens


LED T-67004M (Cool White 5000K) 560 lumens

LED T-67004S (Warm White 2700K) 450 lumens

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

In the picture I posted--
--the bulbs are horizontal
--the frosted glass shade is below them
--there is no shade above them
--the ceiling is moderately dark (main reason why this room is hard to light)

So maybe my "test" should include a situation such as in a table lamp, where the bulb is upright and lights up the ceiling and walls. One thing I haven't done is to try it at night, when there is no outside light. To be truly "scientific," though, I would have to remove all the furniture and somehow take a picture of the floor, but how could I do that without blocking the light with my camera? Oh, well. I guess the main thing is whether we decide we like it in our house.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I know, but all that really tells me is that a lumen rating is a poor indicator of how a bulb 'looks' in a room...

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

This is an extremely true statement. While lumens are an important metric when evaluating light, there are often many other factors to consider.

When dealing with LED bulbs in particular, higher CCTs (color temperatures) result in a higher light output (for the same drive current). Essentially, higher CCT LEDs are more efficient than lower CCT LEDs because the phosphor conversion of blue light to white light is less dramatic.

Many companies will try and squeak a few more LPW (lumens per watt; essentially how efficient the bulb is) out of their fixtures and bulbs by bumping the CCT up a little bit and essentially gaining free light.

CRI (color rendering index) is another very important measure, albeit a controversial one at times. CRI basically tells you how well the light coming out of the bulb/fixture renders colors. The higher the CRI (max=100) the closer it is to natural sunlight in terms of color rendering. You can read more about CRI here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

One last measure which has a lot of play in LED lighting is lux. Lux is a measure of ILLUMINANCE, not LUMINANCE. Lux takes into account how much light is being emitted over a certain area. In situations which are a direct replacement for incandescent or flourescent bulbs (such as the FIRST bulb) it is not as useful, but for other LED retrofitting applications it is extremely useful. One example of where lux is extremely important is in streetlighting. Streetlighting has very specific requirements for lamps to meet so roads/sidewalks/parking lots are lit correctly. Just putting a big light source in a fixture will not necessarily give you the correct light output. To ensure the beam is being spread and shaped correctly, measuring lux at specific areas of illuminance will tell a better story of how well the light fixture is working.

These are some more metrics that can be useful when evaluating light, and LED lights in particular. As with most things, there are direct tradeoffs between things like cost and efficiency, CRI and output, etc. It is our job as engineers to find a balance that consumers will enjoy!

-Brando

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

... and they do the opposite (lower the color temperature) with incandescents to create "long life" bulbs.

60 watt standard 840 lumens

60 watt "long life" 770 lumens


Don't forget that the user can easily lower the color temperature and/or change the lighting pattern by selecting a different lamp. A different lamp can completely change the look and feel of the same bulb in a given room. A glass bowl or reflector which directs the light upwards to reflect off the ceiling produces a completely different lighting pattern than a lampshade that is narrow at the top and wide at the bottom to direct the light downward. And a white lampshade produces a different "feel" in a room than a dark color.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I have way less of an understanding of how incandescents work so I cannot speak to them as well as LED, but how do you tune the CCT of an incandescent bulb? Just curious, it seems like a pretty interesting thing to do.

Lighting is all about "feel" as you have said. Unfortunately its extremely difficult to put measurable metrics on feel, which is why lighting is sometimes a very tough market to penetrate. As you said, options must be available for users to make their own choices of what feels right to them.

I do have to say however, since I began working on LED lighting around 3 and a half years ago, I now prefer cooler feel temperatures (higher CCT). Nothing in the 4500K+ range, but a 2700K temp actually feels wrong to me now.

-Brando

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

The user can change the color temperature of an incandescent bulb by dimming it.

The manufacturer makes long-life incandescents by changing the filament slightly so it doesn't burn as hot. That gives a yellower light, and the filament lasts longer. And the bulb is less efficient (fewer lumens per watt).

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Reported

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

What kind of watt meter would you use?
What brand? Where would you purchase it?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Our display has places for 4 bulbs so we can compare the color and directionality of the bulbs. Maybe we should get incandescent bulbs with the warm and cool designations to use in the display.

Karen - I can't tell the difference in your photo. You may have found the perfect application for a 40 watt LED that looks like 60 Watt in one direction!


When I next see our display and /or the builder of it, I'll get the details on the watt meter. All I remember it that it plugged into the outlet and had a digital read-out!

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Budget-conscious consumer electronics vendor Vizio is getting in on the act... reported here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/22/v...es-a-light-bu/

"...A Vizio price..."

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

Well, I got my first bulb yesterday, and boy are they directional. I have a standard lamp in the living room, and the LED bulb does not cast enough light downwards to read by - while a 60W incandescent is almost too bright.

On the other hand, in a downward-facing ceiling fixture, they are excellent.

Thank you PaW for the Vizio link; using a cheap bathroom light bar as my demonstration board will save me a bit of grief.

As for wattmeters: I am planning to get four $3 Harbor Freight digital multimeters, connect them to show Amperes for each of the four bulbs I want to display (LED, CFL, 40 or 60w Incandescent, 45 or 65W R30). People will see bigger numbers for the Incandescents, that'll be all they need. Done, & done.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I wish I could try one in our table lamp. However, we generally use a 150-watt 3-way bulb, so trying any 40-60-watt bulb replacement would not be a fair test!

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

For a user friendly meter you could also use something like this for $21.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I would watch out for those meters. I looked at some of the reviews and a lot of them said the meters were prone to breaking. And trying to show a potential costumer watts with a broken meter may not help you sell this product.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

That's odd. The customer ratings heavily favored it with only 6% out of ~700 people rating it who disliked it.

I suppose it also depends on how much it gets banged around.
Cost comes into play too. A professional grade meter will cost more than one for casual home use.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I use Kill A Watt meters often in my lab, in situations that do not require either (1) accurate data with traceable calibration, or (2) data sampling at a relatively high rate, such as might be required when we observe repetitive or pulsating load conditions. Most electric lighting tests satisfy both of the conditions above. (For tests that do not, we use much more expensive power metering equipment.)

We have not experienced failure of Kill A Watt in our tests. I would certainly use one for demonstrating e-watt light bulb power use.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

We just received a box of the led lights and man are they nice. There brighter than the 60 watt cfl bulbs I have, and they look cool. I thing this will be an amazing fundraiser for our team.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

We have sold a full case, and recouped a profit of 235ish dollars. The reason it is less is that we couldn't get any purchases with 20 dollars, so we lowered it to 15, with 3 for 40.

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

We are beginning to heavily get into selling these bulbs. I'm curious as to other teams experiences, and if they saw something similar to the above quoted text.

I'm wondering if it's necessary to make $13/bulb (@$20 MSRP) on these when you could really get the volumes up while selling in the $15 range.

-Brando

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

I have heard of selling light bulbs as a fundraiser. Where do people typically buy the bulbs from? I heard that you can buy them for $7.50 and charge $15 as a fundraiser. Is this something you can do through FIRST or do teams just do it on their own?

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

It's through FIRST. Dean talked about it at Kickoff, before the game was revealed (and it's been going on for a year or two now).

Try http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...aver-resources for more info (and I had a tough time finding it...)

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

FIRST has an LED light bulb fundraiser
http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/first...aising-methods

Re: e-watt LED light bulbs - what has been your experience
 

My team, team 358 is looking for another fundraiser, to replace our main fundraiser we cant do anymore. I was wondering how much it cost to buy the light bulbs and how much you guys sell them for. Also how successful are you in selling and making profit with them? Thanks



Team 358