I don’t think this is correct. The charging voltage is 1.4-1.6V. The capacity is 1900-2200 mAh. Charging efficiency is 66% [1]. And let’s say the charger has 80% efficiency. So at most, one battery requires 2.2Ah * 1.6V / 0.66 / 0.8 = 6.66 Wh. My electricity, which is neither the cheapest nor the most expensive AFAIK, is $0.25/kWh, so one charge should cost $0.00025/Wh * 6.66 Wh = $0.00167, or 1/6th of a penny.
Your calculation sounds right. Maybe that was for the whole charger I had made the calculation. I had put our Kill-A-Watt meter on the charger so maybe that was for the whole 8 batteries on it. Our electricity is $0.12/kWh so I just took home the knowledge that I could simply ignore that cost in break even calculations.
Speaking of electrical costs, I have one of those new electrical meters that can be used for what my electric company calls “Dynamic Peak Pricing” and also “Time of Day” rates. Looking into signing up for one of these.
In general, they hit you hard on the pricing at the same time everybody is running their air conditioner, but give break at other times.
If I do this, I’m thinking:
- set A/C to pre-cool the place and then set it to a high temp during the expensive times
- put timer on basement dehumidifier to only run when cheap electricity
- set clothes & dishwasher to run during cheap times
- If I had electric car, only charge during cheap time
- re-charge AA batteries at cheap times (just kidding)
Some of these are easier to postpone than others. Car recharging may naturally fall at off-peak times, laundry/dishwasher, you can probably arrange to be in late evenings too. Humidifier may also work with enough latency that delaying usage is not a big deal.
But the AC would be a challenge for me. Freezing my ass at night so that house stays bearable until noon, then cook in hot house until it’s off-peak again to cool it down again does not sound appealing no matter the savings.
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Funny. Peak AC time would be April to October where I live.
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Probably too much work for too little savings. The biggest dent is probably made by replacing everything with energy-efficient appliances, LED lights, and turning off everything that shouldn’t be on.
And insulating, so the A/C doesnt have to run as much regardless of the time of day.
I disagree about LED lights, at least as a blanket suggestion. Swapping out working bulbs for LED lights is net-wasteful in a lot of (most?) circumstances. I watched my BIL spend a day swapping out every bulb in the house - most of them being lights that are on for 5 minutes at a time, maybe a couple times a day. And others that can go weeks without ever being turned on.
For high frequency, long duration usage, proactively changing the bulb can be beneficial, but (in our case) a majority of the bulbs that were ‘upgraded’ have a projected 15-20 year pay-back period. In which case, it would’ve been much better to wait for a bulb to burn out before ireplacing it. Only purchasing LED lights is a good idea, but a lot of times you’re better off first using whatever bulbs you already have.
Same could be said for most appliances, unless you have something really, really old and/or use it an awful lot.
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I have yet to get the life out of LED bulbs that they claim to have compared to incandescent - they last longer, sure, but not years longer. But more importantly, I just don’t like them. Last year I ran out of incandescent globe bulbs for our light fixture above the bathroom sink and when we finally got to 3 out of 6 bulbs burnt out, I decided to chuck the remaining 3 incandescent and get 6 new LEDs. That light is on a dimmer, but even though I got dimmable LEDs, they don’t dim nearly as smoothly as the incandescents did. The second lowest setting is still brighter than the old bulbs and the highest and lowest dim settings have noticeable flicker so they are unusable (and that’s annoying to have to pay attention to make sure you don’t set it fully high or low).
I was likewise disappointed in the dimmability of the LEDs I got for our living room ceiling fan, but thankfully, one actually died (way before it should have) a couple weeks ago. I spent a little time debating my purchase while in the hardware store, but I finally decided to treat myself and bought name brand higher end GE Reveal incandescent bulbs as replacements even though they weren’t cheaper than the LEDs and will cost several times more to operate. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it, but after I chucked the remaining 2 good LEDs and installed all incandescents, I knew I had made the right decision by going backwards. We now have a light that dims properly and the quality and temperature of the light seems better and more consistent between the bulbs as well.
I’ll keep using LED bulbs in lampshaded and non-dimmable fixtures. But anyplace where the light shines directly from the fixture or where I regularly use the dimmer, I’m going to be buying incandescents as long as the greenies let me.
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This is true, I’ve had a few LEDs fail before their time, but I got them very early on (~2013?) when they were still expensive (~$10/ea) and the base still gets very hot. The newer ones are a lot more efficient, don’t get as hot, weigh less, and cost a lot less.
You probably just got the wrong bulbs 
. I’ve had a few on dimmer switches without flicker (or noise, another common complaint) and with great and smooth dimming range. The best ones are made by CREE, but I also had good luck with Feit brand that Costco sells. And as far as brands go, I wouldn’t trust anyone who isn’t at the bleeding edge of the flashlight space, which is just three manufacturers now – CREE, Nichia, and Samsung. No Phillips or whatever else name or no-name-brand sold at stores (I took Feit on faith because Costco).
You can get LEDs in the right color temperature AND with a high color rendering index (CRI) – I only buy 2700K, 90+ CRI (basically incan-equivalent), like this one.
I replaced everything in my house with LEDs, because (1) the previous owner had daylight CFLs everywhere (which I gave to someone else who gladly took them), and (2) I’ve been a big fan of dimmable (infinitely-variable) warm LED flashlights, so it was an obvious decision for me.
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I’m like meed, the LED lights don’t give enough light, No LED power.
But, I’m going to take scripta’s advice & check out Costco. His story is very convincing. 
But, did you really change every bulb in your house? What a job!
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I’m not going to disagree with you here because you clearly know WAY more about LED bulbs than I do. But I will make a point that I think you allude to in your post: When a technological innovation is claimed to be much better than the thing it is replacing, you shouldn’t have to do a ton of research before adopting the new technology in order to get a benefit. You should be able to walk into a store that sells both technologies, but the newer one, and be happier with the results compared to the older one. If you have to know what brand to get and which store sells them, the technology isn’t fully baked yet.
For instance, I consider myself more well versed than the average consumer in the flashlight world because I had to use a flashlight every day at work for 8 years and my safety depended on it. I did my research and I bought a highly regarded (in the industry) expensive flashlight that only needed to be replaced once during those 8 years of heavy use and abuse. All that said, none of the brands of you just mentioned make any of the flashlights I or my coworkers used. None of us could tell you where the LED bulbs in our flashlights were sourced from for each of the brands and models. So the sentence “I wouldn’t trust anyone who isn’t at the bleeding edge of the flashlight space, which is just three manufacturers” is a completely meaningless statement to 99% of consumers. No one knows who is at the bleeding edge of the flashlight space, not even people that care about flashlights.
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Another reason LED lights suck… they are making our car insurance premiums go up.
Anyone that has gotten in a front end wreck in a newer car recently has found out that the replacement of their headlights is over $1,000 easy.
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The visibility with those LED headlights is way better in my experience. One of our cars has them, the other has regular headlights and the difference is stunning. I have never had to replace headlights so I’m not sure how much the regular ones run. So I cannot say whether the LED lights are worth the premium but I’d probably still get them based on performance alone.
That said, I’ll echo what everyone has experienced about LED bulb service life. The ones I got early on barely lasted as long in fact. More recent ones - I only replace old CFL when they die since power consumption is not that different especially on rarely used lights - have been more solid though.
As far as temperature though, I only used soft/warm whites (2700-3000K) in bedrooms and for outdoor lights. For other areas, I prefer more neutral white ~3500K ones. 4000K is my limit on how close it looks to being in a hospital LOL. Maybe it’d be fine in garage or unfinished basement since I’m not spending a ton of time there. Of course, when it comes down to it, my favorite LED bulb color is “on sale”. 
We are digging the led Christmas lights from Costco in our backyard. Since we leave them on from sundown to 3-4am, the led bulbs are a significant savings, plus they’re in hard to reach spots so changing them less often on a ladder is a bonus. I’d recommend LEDs for all exterior lighting just for that reason.
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Only about 30 bulbs. It’s not a farm house . I just couldn’t stand the blue hue of the daylight “bright white” color that the previous owner used.
The brands I mentioned only make the LEDs, not flashlights. I don’t think any flashlight manufacturers make their own LEDs. I’m guessing you had a Surefire, a LEO/mil favorite, because they have some govt contracts and certifications, made in USA, some even come with shock absorbers. Or maybe a Maglite, some of those are also still made here and the big ones double as a beating stick. But they SUUUCK out of the box when it comes to LED temperature, brightness, and color rendering, and are way overpriced relative to what is actually available in the market. You could buy four or more high quality China-made flashlights with much better LEDs and better interface for the price of one Surefire (and each will probably last just as long). If anyone ever wants to dive deep into the world of flashlights, CPF, BLF, and reddit is where I go.
I do agree with your other points, I had an advantage over most LED consumers and it really shouldn’t be on the consumer. Home Depot around here has demo stations with multiple brands on dimmers to compare. Color temperature is something all consumers should be familiar with by now, since CFLs had the same problem and they’ve been around for a very long time. CRI is a deep one, but manufacturers mention it on the box, so that too should soon be common knowledge I hope.
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That’s what I figured. I just wanted to point out that most people don’t dig deep enough to figure out who makes the LED in their flashlight, not even people that care about their flashlight.
Good guess, but no. I had a Pelican 7060, but was in the minority. I’d say most of my coworkers had Surefires and Streamlights and a few had Fenix.
Only a couple old timers had Maglites. I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t even LEDs though.
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Are those the ones that blind other drivers? Serious question… I see many new cars that appear to have ‘normal’ lights at night but a few have this blinding, intense light. Drives me crazy.
Not that old yet but get off my damn lawn!!
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It’s true that many LED headlights feel like more intense than halogen ones. I don’t know if it’s the reflectors design or the LED themselves though. Or it may have to do with how high the other vehicle has its headlights sitting at and whether they replaced their OEM headlights with overpowered aftermarket LED ones.
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It depends.
Cars that have LED headlights installed from the factory are not likely blinding you unless the driver is using his high beams, in which case, they would be blinding you regardless of the bulb. No factory low beams should blind oncoming drivers because of the way they are designed and aimed.
But the trend right now for people that don’t know much about how headlights work is to put LED bulbs in headlight housings that were not designed for LEDs. I have heard it from many people who could explain it better than me that when you put an LED bulb into a reflector headlight housing meant for a different type of bulb, the beam of light is not directed in the same manner as it was with the factory bulb. I can’t explain it myself, but what I have seen from people that seem knowledgeable about this stuff on multiple car forums is that these are the sort of lights that are blinding us old fogeys nowadays. I haven’t seen anyone able to counter their arguments with anything besides, “It lights up the road in front of me just like my old lights, so how can it be blinding people?” or “I like it because it’s so much whiter than my old lights.”
So yeah, next time you are blinded by a bright white headlight, note what type of car it is. I doubt it will be a newer luxury car that came with LED headlights standard. Most likely, it’s either a car that didn’t offer LED lights, or a car that did offer it, but only as an option, and the owner didn’t get it but wishes they did so they put LED bulbs in their halogen housing.
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A similar problem exists in flashlights 
. The tiny LEDs come in different sizes. The reflector (a shiny mirror-like cone) is always made to size, to create a perfect beam from the LED. If you replace the original LED with another of a different size, or just move it along the z-axis, you end up with a narrower or wider beam than intended, sometimes with an ugly ring pattern.
Car headlights don’t just direct the light straight out in a circular cone, they are made to not blind other road users, including pedestrians, the rear view mirror of the cars in front of you, and the drivers in the opposing lanes. If you’ve never noticed or thought about this, park your car in front of a flat wall or garage door at night and note the light pattern – you should see a slightly angled line at least from the left headlight (this is to not blind oncoming traffic). I’m guessing that improper modifications fail to account for this by not being an exact match for the reflector.
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