LED Refridgerator light
 

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A while back, I put compact fluorescent lights in my refridgerator.

No, not that my fridge light is on all the time wasting electricity. Rather, incandescents make a lot of heat, which is what we want to get rid of in a fridge.

Well, the CFLs didn't work out too well in the fridge. They were a cheap brand, and fluorescents generally don't like the cold.

When I stopped at the hardware store today, they had their "dollar values" bins in the middle of the store. This is usually cheap, made in China, imported junk, but at good prices.

I looked through there and saw LED light bulbs for $5 each. Not battery operated or cheap flashlights, actually household current Edison base light bulbs.

They are only 1.5 watt, which is NOT a lot of light, but they were a small size, I thought might work well as appliance bulbs.

Tried one out, looks great in the fridge and doesn't make any heat!

It does say on the box "not for use in humid enviroment" and "not suitable below -43 F"

I will let you all know if it dies anytime soon, otherwise seems like a great little light just where it's needed!

word. I'm not too worried about replacing the light in my fridge, when it's open, its under 30 seconds, not even close to enough time for the bulb to heat up any amount of air, at least not enough to seem more than what I lost when opening the door. When it's closed, its off. Very small gains here. But hey, do it up, because it's there.

Hi,

The added heat from that "30 seconds" will take a lot longer than that to remove from the 'frig. I'm pretty sure that the compressor motor and the fan motor are non-trivial to run.

Interesting. I don't think the power savings will offset the cost of the bulb. Maybe you will save on the cost of burned out bulbs. But then, I don't remember the last tiem I had to replace a bulb in the fridge.

some of the new refridgerators are using led lights in them. My wife becomes instantly nauseated by the light in these fridges.

Hi,

How's that? Something about LED's makes her nauseous? :confused:

It happens. We're always experimenting with lights at work, and trying to use whiter lights with fewer lamps ("bulbs") in the fixtures by changing the types of ballasts. Some lights make some people feel slightly dizzy until they get used to the light. In other instances, the color of light emitted just isn't acceptable to some people.

Usually we just try changing lights in a wing of the building without telling anyone and then see who complains or what happens. There are usually fewer complaints when they don't know we've "been up to something." The blue-white light of the led makes some people feel slightly disoriented, and have problems with depth perception, among other things. It takes time to adjust.

It may be that the LED is being powered with 60 Hz AC. This makes it OFF half the time and ON the other half, creating a pronounced flicker.

This is far more pronounced than the flicker of florescents Since they are not OFF for half of the time. They only get dimmer, briefly, between AC polarity transitions.

Great diet product - "install the appetite-killer-light in your fridge and you'll want to yack every time you want a snack!"

The led would likely be accompanied by a bridge rectifier and capacitor to stay on full time.

My dad works in appliances at best buy, so we went to say hi to him and while we waited for him to finish helping a customer we looked around at refridgerators and my wife opened the new samsung unit that has the leds inside and instantly felt like she was gonna barf.

I should try that. I know that blue food tends to look unattactive to people. Perhaps you should market that.

Most of the LEDs for sale at Home Depot & Lowes emit a blue "cold' light much like the el-cheapo "cool" fluorescent lights. The "deluxe warm white" fluorescent light is a broad spectrum light which produces about a 1/3 less lumens and last about 33% longer. A "cool" light is great in a morgue but not around living people. Office buildings use cool lights because they are cheap.

If and when the LEDs mgf. start selling a warm or broad spectrum light, I be first in line. :thumbup:

Blue or narrow spectrum lighting can be very irritating to some people!

We have some LEDs with a more pleasant light color, but they were in the $30 to $50 range. Super Bright LEDs - MR16 and E27 Bulbs is one source.

i think a sociology book i had in college explained some experiment where they used weird lighting on foods and recorded appetite changes. it was quite profound.

Lighting does have an effect on psycology, but keep in mind here, all I am trying to do is NOT put a 40 watt heater inside my fridge.

When I am looking at my food and eating it, it's out on my dinner table.

The light in the fridge is only on for 6 seconds at a time. As long as I can see in there, it wouldn't matter if the light was red or green or whatever.

I have had the LED lights in there for a long while now, they were inexpensive, and I have had no problems running them.

Some people get uneasy when introduced to something unfamiliar to them. My sig other says LED and CFL light makes her "uneasy". Based on other observations, I believe some people do not like anything that saves money, especially if they do not have to earn that money. Change is BAD!

Arminius - the building management peeps where I work have been slowly changing out lighting over the past few years. If someone "catches" them, there are a lot of complaints. If they manage to do it over a weekend and none of the workers know, complaints are few. FWIW IMHO most of the complainers are people who spend more time working on commitees and events than the J.O.B. :D

(boy, am I gonna get it now from some sectors)

I think some people read reports of nausea and such then instantly assume the change is affecting them the same way, whereas if they don't recognize the change, they don't notice any difference to the way they feel. That said, there is a very legitimate beef with LEDs that aren't running off of smooth bridge rectifiers. If they are only running on the half cycle, they will flicker very noticeably and create visual artifacts when moving. Fully rectified supplies don't really produce a consciously noticeable flicker, but it still plays with the senses of some people in a negative way. Only a smoothed DC supply can provide a fully flicker free experience - and that is often the big difference between cheap LEDs and more expensive ones.

I have little doubt that the fridges that instantly nauseate some people are due to manufacturers cutting corners on the lighting power supplies.

I have CFLs in most lamps and fixtures in my house. I can't stand their colors (not all are the same which annoys me too...), so in my preferred reading locations I still have old fashioned bulbs. I also use lower wattage bulbs in places I can't physically fit a CFL (though I've found some that are ALMOST small enough to fit...). Most CFLs need a bit of time to "come on" fully, so are great in areas that need to stay lit longer. Such as, my front outdoor lighting. I do use regular tube flourescents in my garage. I've tried a variety of bulbs but still prefer the "soft" white to cheaper bluer bulbs. Cheap bulbs also seem to burn up ballasts sooner as well. The few LED bulbs I've tried don't bother me much except for the color. Never thought to try one in my fridge... Maybe I'll put one in my beer fridge. Might keep my wife out of it!!!

And I am one of the odd folks, sometimes I can detect the flicker in incandescent. Not always.

I'd like to point out that the savings from preventing heat in the refrigerator are actually smaller than the savings from the lower wattage bulb.

I was going to buy a few strands of White LED lights when they went on sale after Xmas, which they didn't (Sold Out)

I want to make a simple low wattage LED light for above my computer. As much as I love my illuminated key board, when it comes time to read something, I need more light.

I dislike having the light coming from one focused area and having shadows. Hopefully by creating an array that is 3' long by 6" wide I could easily give myself the desired lighting and also have a very energy efficient 'light'