Not all LED bulbs sold in Mexico Dim....

Hi

Just a heads up many of the newer LED bulbs sold in Mexico do not Dim.  The newer Phillips do but many of the off brands do not. Also
Phillips is selling the ugliest LED bulbs with a yellow glass top that actually are at 2700 degrees Kelvin or a true warm or Calida bulb. All
I have seen until now have been 3000 degrees Kelvin or  brighter white than I want. Some of you might not notice the difference as I know I am picky.  It looks like these new bulbs are delivering 60 watts of light for 10 watts of electricity. This compares to 40 watts of
light for 10 watts of electricity for CFB.  Costs are coming down. Costco has five packs of the new ugly yellow LED bulbs at a good price
of around 10 bucks a bulb.  Use these for your lights that are on the most and put your old CFB in the less used lights. Another good thing about LED bulbs is they are 100 bright the second you turn them on  so they are good for stairs where you need bright light now
which you don't get with many of the CFBs. We shall see if I have done enough to stay below 500KwH per two month period to avoid
DAC (double price or more for using to much electicity in Mexico).

Hope this helps

Z

Replace my Mom's house light bulbs in Seattle last week.  Below are US prices. For folks with big houses time to bring some of these down
here. I was 503 KWh for two months on my last bill in Mexico.  That will be DAC if I don't drop my usage and fan season is coming up.

Home Depot

Cree brandname,  2700K color, Small heatsinks, small bulb size. 1 watt of electricity makes 6 watts of equivalent light. Good looking bulbs and good quality light. I love the instant on and dimmability.

40w 5 bucks
60W 8 bucks (uses 10 watts)
75W 19 bucks

65W R40 pot light 15.99 bucks (you know those recessed lights in the ceiling about four inches across. R30 is smaller)

It is time to replace the 40s and 60s bulbs that are turned on the most. The R series Pot lights and 75W are still a little big expensive but product is coming down in price.  5 bucks for a 40 watt dimmable soft white bulb is a deal. I also did not see 45w pot lights yet.  The 65 are a little bright for my use. Did not see the smaller R30 pot lightbulbs in LED.  Maybe soon hopefully. Prices are pretax so compare in Mexico subtract 15% from price to offer a fair comparison.

Z

Thanks for sharing your research, Zed.
Much appreciated.

George

Something else I noticed is some of the newer CFB brighten up earlier than those from five years ago.  I actually was able to use a 90W CFB in a closet and it was bright enough fast enough. Still not as good as the LED but good to keep using CFB in low usage locations especially if they don't take 10 minutes to fully brighten like many old ones. Your mileage may vary as bulbs vary. The Newer Phillips low profile 75W equiv. 2700K CFB bulbs brighten at an acceptable rate. Available at Mexican Home Depot. New extremely sleek Phillips 40/60 3000K LED bulbs are also sold at Mexican Home Depot. Your spouse won't hate the look of the new Phillips bulbs if 3000K color is acceptable. Very happy with the 2700K Cree bulbs I brought back from US. Hope Mexican Home Depot will carry them at some point. Wish I brought back more however the
guy at the TSA machine looked at me like I was nuts at the airport until I told them what they were laugh out loud.



Z

Just a warning: aside from possibly Costco, Mexico isn't big on 'return policies'. We bought 3 LED bulbs (9W, around US$10-11 each) at Home Depot in Guadalajara. One of the three turned out to be defective, and after two or three weeks it started shorting out within a few seconds of turning on. (The other two bulbs have continued to work fine.)

I thought for sure that in the case of a manufacturer defect we would be allowed to perform a direct exchange for the same, but non-defective product, but no -- only within two weeks of purchase, with a receipt, I was firmly told.

Caveat emptor. :/

For great performing and nice looking LED bulbs, locally, at good prices, check this earlier post:

http://www.insidelakeside.com/t10143-led-lighting-from-sti-solar-technology

Note the current ones are NOT dimmable, more with those features will be coming soon.    And we DO take care of any (rare) issues 100% guaranteed.

On EBay I bought five 16-watt (equivalent to nearly 100 watt incandescent) corn-cob style LED lights from seller bgood2010 located in Guangzhou. us$9.50 each and they were couriered free of charge arriving 7 days after I bought them, no customs charge.  Other Chinese sellers of LED lights have sent them through the mail and one bunch arrived a month after buying (under us$50 and no customs charge).  You can find a wide variety of bulbs and bases in warm or cool white, some dimmable.

You can also order from Home Depot in the USA and Amazon.com

Cree 100watt equivalent LED 2700K bulbs  just released at Home Depot in US for 20bucks not including sales tax.  75watt down from 20 to 15 bucks.  Time to go north and bring some of these back. Under new rules you can bring back $500 USD worth of stuff above
and beyond the standard list on an airplane. Still $300 by car.  These bulbs dim, look good, and have a nice opaque glass cover. Full light at turn on.  I have been running about a dozen for a month or so of the cree 40,60, and 75 watt units with good luck.  Finally a good reading LED lightbulb!  Only sold in US home depot not Mexican home depot. LED take bad electricity better than CFB's. Now is it enough to get me below DAC (250KwH per month)??

Z