led lights in cold weather

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JHZR2

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Im considering putting LEDs in some outdoor light fixtures. CFLs in this application take a long time to start up when cold. how do leds do below freezing? what about a lot of on-off? bad for the electronics?
 
LED lights do great in cold weather. The colder, the better. Just read the specs on the lamp you intend to use for maximum temperature extremes and humidity. Some are suitable for outdoor use, some are not.

I have an LED lamp in my refrigerator. The kids kept leaving the fridge open and the light bulb was cooking the food. The LED lamp runs very cool and doesn't heat the food up when they leave the door open.
 
Lol, LED's will be completely unaffected. LED's are solid state diode semiconductors. There's no gas or vapor or arc or anything to sustain.

Short of at absolute zero they should work wonderfully.

Edit: Look where you have LED's. My router for instance, the LED's blink all day hundreds of times a minute and have for almost 4 years...they're fine.

Most LED "lightbulbs", the fatal flaw is the voltage regulation from 110 VAC to whatever operating voltage it needs. They tend to die (capacitors and stuff in it).
 
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I use a cheap one I picked up at Newegg for the back door. Working fine thus winter. Granted it isn't exactly the Arctic here, but it has been in the teens.
 
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I used LED lights in my fish house when ice fishing at -39F and they worked great.
 
Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
...I have an LED lamp in my refrigerator. The kids kept leaving the fridge open and the light bulb was cooking the food. The LED lamp runs very cool and doesn't heat the food up when they leave the door open.

Good idea, I'll have to look into that.

Originally Posted By: RiceCake
...Short of at absolute zero they should work wonderfully...


No worries there.
grin.gif
 
The color of an LED changes slightly as the temperature drops to near liquid nitrogen temp. You'll never notice ANYTHING with one outdoors- brightness is immediate and they don't start out 'purple' like cold CFLs do.
 
I have a $6 one in my wood shed I got at mall wart. 1.5 watts. (Supposed 40 watt incandescent equivalent, I'd put it more at 25-30.) Sometimes it's on-off for 30 seconds, sometimes I leave it on so there's something to stare at in a snowstorm. It does fine, no surprise.
 
Originally Posted By: Rick in PA
Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
...I have an LED lamp in my refrigerator. The kids kept leaving the fridge open and the light bulb was cooking the food. The LED lamp runs very cool and doesn't heat the food up when they leave the door open.


Good idea, I'll have to look into that.

I think the best application of LED bulb is in refrigerator/freezer.

CFL is too slow and incandescent bulb is too hot.

I will look into LED bulb for my frig.
 
that is a good idea!!!!!

Next question -- seems some par38 floodlight bulbs are indoor only. Whats the difference between an indoor only flood and one ok for outdoor use, if the base is identical??
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
that is a good idea!!!!!

Next question -- seems some par38 floodlight bulbs are indoor only. Whats the difference between an indoor only flood and one ok for outdoor use, if the base is identical??


Easy. An LED light bulb may be potted in epoxy or not to seal all the converter electronics away from moisture. That's the difference. An "indoor" bulb has exposed electronics and if they get wet, could arc out and kill the bulb.

An "outdoor" bulb is basically sealed to prevent this. Obviously if you put your bulb in a sealed fixture away from moisture you should be fine. I run CFL's outside this way in my garage lights and such because they're largely dry and sealed with glass.
 
Originally Posted By: mechtech2
You do realize that many Christmas lights made for outdoors are LEDs.


The location of the electronics and other aspects may be vastly different than the high power projection LEDs used in real illumination lights.
 
Yes in light fixtures in place of CFLs or incandescents...

Not steady-state Christmas lights.

Stuff that goes on and off.

Just checking... Thanks!

Too bad the outdoor rated PAR38 Philips bulbs are $42 at HD...

Really nice, excellent lights, but too $$$.
 
Given the cost of LED bulbs, I still use CFLs in my outdoor fixtures -- They're on dusk-to-dawn sensors and do take a long time to fully warm up (20+ minutes) but once warm, they'll stay at full output all night, regardless of ambient temperature. The start up delay isn't a big deal since the fixtures kick on well before the sun is fully down.

Indoors, the slow warm up periods drive me crazy. I live in an old house that's always cold and try to avoid regular CFLs. I use a mix of Philips LED bulbs and hybrid-CFL bulbs, depending on what's on sale when needed.
 
What's a hybrid CFL?

I dont leave our light on all night, it comes on via motion sensor. So startup time can be a concern. But it wont be for an LED.

I may go "hybrid" in my fixture, with one incandescent or halogen, and one flood CFL, since I have a few outdoor flood CFLs in my inventory. Might as well use them! My lights are relay type, and I cant imagine the load imbalance between the two fixtures would harm the light, thoughts?
 
CFL's are known to be unsuitable for applications in which they will be on for less than fifteen minutes at a time. They tend to fail very prematurely.
 
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