LED Flood Light vs LED Solar Flood Light – Advantages and Disadvantages

LED Flood Light Advantages

When people have decided that they need a flood light for their home area or even business property illumination, next thing to consider is what type of flood lamp is best for their needs. In past years the obvious choice has become one – LED. And reasons for that are quite many. LED flood lights have changed light bulb industry noticeably by improving ways how and what lighting is used in our own houses. Here are listed 10 advantagesthat LED flood lights have over their older predecessors incandescent, halogen and CFL lights and 3 disadvantages for LED flood lights.

1. Long lifetimeLED bulbs have significantly longer lifetime than other type of lamps. Average lifetime of LED bulbs and diodes is 50000 hours and can reach up to 100000 hours. That can be more than 10 years of non-stop working. If you use LED lights as your house lights and they are not continuously on, lifetime of one bulb can reach even 20 years. Compared to for example incandescent or fluorescent bulbs who each how average below 10000 (and incandescent above 1000) hours of lifetime, LED flood lights last about 10 times longer than others and that is huge improvement and advantage of LED lights. LED lights don’t just burn out and stop working like other lights, they emit lower power and become less brighter and efficient.
2. BrightnessLED lights can produce more light using less energy that means that they are brighter than other lights and, for example, one LED flood light can produce same light than two or three halogen flood lights and be as bright. White light produced by LED flood light is pretty much similar to daylight and that can be used in stadiums in dark to make all area brighter and provide visibility like daylight.
3. Less energy usage, smaller electric billsOne of main advantages of LED flood light is high luminous efficiency which means how well light source produces visible light compared to power usage. About 80% of LED lamps energy is produced into light and only 20% in other energy like heat. In other light bulbs more percent is lost in heat that means more energy to produce same brightness as LED’s. So, for example, if you need light source to output 800 lumens, LED light would need about 7 Watts, CFL 14 Watts and incandescent bulb 60 Watts. You can save a lot if you use LED’s as your home lights and not incandescent bulbs. This advantage of LED flood lights over other lights can be seen not only as numbers on paper, but also more savings on electricity costs and lower numbers on your electric bill.
4. Durability and QualityLED flood lights are usually built with good quality and high durability. They come with different safe and protective covers, for example aluminium (you can read more about specific details of each lamp in manufacturers websites) and many lights are waterproof. This is great for different outdoor usage, as you can rely on your LED floodlight to suffer some more complex weather conditions like storms, rain, snow, hail and other. Unlike CFL and incandescent bulbs, LED bulbs are more difficult to damage with external shock, impacts and vibrations, because they are made of solid material which is not so fragile and can stand more rough conditions.
5. Less heat more safetyLED lights produces much less heat than other light bulbs which means that the risk of electric or fire accidents is significantly reduced. Also they are not so fragile as other bulbs and can’t be so easily breakable. LED flood lights are considered to be one of the safest lighting options. The majority of lamps and devices using LED’s are “safe under all conditions of normal use” and are classified as “Class 1 LED product”. Of course high power and very light LED’s must be used with attention and care to ensure safety.
6. No toxic substances – Environment friendlyLED lights do not contain toxic chemicals like mercury or other hazardous substances compared to fluorescent lamps that contains mercury, which is very toxic to human health and also bad for the environment. LED lamps also are recyclable and over 95% of LED bulb can be recycled. Another environment friendly plus is that LED’s have much longer lifetime and 1 LED can work as long as 3 incandescent lights, that saves much more production material and again you help environment by not buying a new light each 3 or so months.
7. Resistant to low and fairly high temperaturesLED flood lights can still work in low temperatures well below 0 degrees celsius. Unlike other lights, LED’s remains stable and can function well in colder conditions. This is good for any outdoor usage also in winter. One option would be if you live in area where winter and snow is regular each year, to use LED flood lights outside your house or in backyard rather than other lighting source flood lights to guarantee that they would not fail or become unstable in colder months of year. Also they would be a good option for larger and colder warehouses. Generally, if you need a good outdoor flood light that works all year around and live in colder areas, you should definitely go for LED flood light.
8. Low costs on maintenance and replacementsConsidering other points mentioned in this article – long lifetime, durability and quality, efficiency of LED lights, it is much cheaper (less costs and man hours of work) to maintain or replace them. It simply does not take so much attention whether you need to check if light is still working or replace it after few months of work time. Long lifetime means that you probably would not have to worry about replacing bulb for some years, durability and quality means that LED bulbs are tough and durable and will last longer in more extreme weather or other conditions and are more harder to break, efficiency helps to achieve long lifetime and save you more additional costs on replacements.
9. Low VoltageLow Voltage helps to use LED lights as outdoor lighting source. Combined together with a solar panel they make a very good option for any outdoor light that also can save money on electricity. Adding a motion detector to this combination makes it more better choice for areas where it is not possible to access electrical power or to use LED solar motion detector flood lights as a more economical lighting source.
10. Direct light and no warming up period – instant light onLED floodlights produces direct light which means that light is focused on one specific area rather than spilling it in other directions. This way more light gets to your desired area and much less light is wasted aside and makes LED lighting more efficient than other lightings, for example halogen bulb, which does not provide such a direct light.
    Also LED lights turns on immediately in nanoseconds and achieve maximum brightness very quickly and they can be switched on and off repeatedly without affecting quality and lifetime of LED bulb.

LED Flood Light Disadvantages

1. ExpensiveAlthough LED flood lamps are not so expensive than some time ago, they are still more expensive than other light bulbs. Good LED lights can cost more than 5 to 10 times more than CFLs or incandescent lights. However afterwards additional costs will be much less expensive due to long lifetime, durability and efficiency LED flood light provides, that will even the pricey LED bulb purchasing costs.
2. Not powerful enoughLED lights may not be a good option to produce very high brightness. They have limited temperature tolerance and resistance, and efficiency may fail as the temperature gets more higher. That can be a turn off point for areas or cases that needs very high lumen. Proper heat sinking is needed to maintain LED flood light working and produce longer lifetime with high lumens or it may result in overheating LED package. This may be a concern with LED flood lights if you need them to produce very bright light (10000 lumens for example), as other lights can more easily reach that brightness level.
3. Color rendering index (improved on new lights)Older LED lights used to have problems with color rendering. Color rendering index measures the ability of light source to reproduce colors and light in reference to an ideal and natural light source – sun (measured from 0 low to 100 high). Indoor light should have 70 – 90 CRI. Old generation LED lights had low CRI (below 70) which was a problem, because they make colors look poor and lifeless. Compared new LED lights have much improved CRI (80-90 and even more) and can produce much more natural colors.
   

Advantages of LED Solar Flood Lights

Here are listed LED Solar Flood light advantages and disadvantages compared to regular LED Flood lights.

• Electricity and money economyOn of main advantages for using LED solar flood lights is efficiency and power economy. They have a solar panel set with LED light that accumulates solar energy on what light can be powered whenever needed. Running on solar energy means that you do not have to pay anyone for electrical power, solar energy is free for everyone. This means saving up money and cutting on electrical bills.
• Can work in places and areas with no reachable electrical powerOther advantage of solar lights is that they can be used in areas where other electrical source to power light can not be reachable. This can be good for outdoor places like gardens, backyards or sheds, or other places without electricity. At home a nice option would be to use LED solar flood light as a front door or garage light combined together with motion detector to save up more energy and provide longer work time with one charge at time.
• Using alternative energy – environment friendlyEven if you are not all into green lifestyle, it is good to consider a little bit about environment around you. And solar lights are one of many things, that can actually help environment by using alternative energy. It may not sound interesting, but it is certainly an advantage for solar lighting and green thinking.

Disadvantages of LED Solar Flood Lights

• ExpensiveOne disadvantage of LED solar flood light is their cost. Solar lights are more expensive than regular lights because of solar light panel. Also it is more expensive when replacement for solar panel is needed and it can be difficult to find rather cheap and good solar panel for specific LED flood light.
• Can not be powered all time just with solar powerLED solar flood lights cannot be powered full time just with solar light. Each lamp has its own specifics of how much work time it has with one full charge. It may vary from below 1 hour to even 10 hours and more of work time depending on how much charge can solar panel hold. Of course as longer the work time is for one light, as higher the price for lamp gets. Good option to consider is to get LED solar flood lights with motion detector. It can help to increase work time for light a lot. If you do not need your light to be working all time, motion sensor can help you to turn it on just when motion is detected in front of lamp and that way help to save more energy and improve flood lights work time. This is great in home and backyard use to illuminate road to your garage or front door where you probably would not need light to be turned on and working all night, but just when someone is walking towards the door.
• Needs a suitable place with sufficient sunlightFor the best LED solar floodlight effect a good place to set up a light must be chosen. Solar panel needs to be placed in area where direct sunlight can reach it. Solar panels require correct installation for archiving good efficiency. If you are not living in a sunny area, solar lighting may not be the best option as your flood lighting.