* Posts by Michael Bishop

3 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2008

The amazing magical LED: Has it really been fifty years already?

Michael Bishop

Domestic LED bulbs are now good enough and cheap enough to replace CFLs (IMO)

I've had CFLs in my house for years - since the early days when they were made with a fluorescent tube, a iron-cored choke and a little starter in a glass jar. The early electronic ones were expensive and not quite as bright as the tungsten bulbs that they were supposed to replace, but Osrams were very reliable and easily lasted 8 years. More recently I bought a stock of Feit CFLs; they are cheap and very bright but barely last 8 months, and 'recycling' them is a pain. So I am more than ready to change over to LEDs.

I remember early LED lamps as dim and very blue, with terrible colour rendering. But technology improves, and the latest ones seem very good to me. I've bought several 3W GU10 and E24 bulbs from three of the cheaper brands, for £5 to £8 each. They are rated as 3000K, but look less orange than warm white CFLs (which is a good thing in my opinion). I'm been impressed by how much light you get from a 3W bulb. I have replaced 200W of halogen with 15W of LEDs in the kitchen. The room is not as bright as it was, but it is bright enough, and the energy saving is massive.

There are small but visible differences in spectrum and colour rendering between the three types, but none is unacceptable to me and the £5 diffuser bulbs from Lidl are superb. (I've done the resistor colour code test and there's no problem at all.) So far, there have been no failures, although I've only had LEDs for a few months so it's too early to draw any conclusions about lifetime. If you've previously looked at LED lighting and hated it, perhaps it is time to take another look. It may not be perfect, but modern LED technology is not as bad as some Reg commentards like to claim.

Nationwide Freeview tune-up takes place today

Michael Bishop
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May brick your box, too

Some old Freeview boxes (and TV's) don't have enough memory for the enlarged Network Information Table and never work again after the retune. It happened to my brother's Daewoo STB in Plymouth last year, and there's a list of affected equipment somewhere on the interwebs. It's not really the end of the world, as a new box is about £20 in Tesco.

Anonymous hero: Can't be bothered to provide the links because you're an abrasive git. Find them yourself.

Pininfarina B0 production schedule slips

Michael Bishop
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Matter of Hours

The article says that the capacity of the battery is 30 kWh. (45 kW is the peak power output.) And there isn't "always a substantial _loss_ involved with charging a battery". True for lead acid, NiCad and NiMH but Lithium-ion chemistry is reportedly very close to 100% efficient. So 30e3/(230x13) = 10 hours. Even if that's a little optimistic, you should still be able to drive it every day (not just every other day...).