# LED floods? replace 100 watt floods?



## Sofaman (Sep 30, 2012)

I use regular 100 watt blue floods for my yard haunt & plan on adding soe more since every year I seem to add to my haunt. Are LED colored floods as bright as the regular 100 watt that I have been using? Last year I think I used 8 or 9 floods and this year will add maybe 4 or 5 to a different corner of yard. I'm having to plan routing my extention cords to different breakers and thats why I am thinking about to start replacing with LEDs.
Just worried about brightness.


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## Spooklights (Jul 4, 2006)

Yes, they are! I was very skeptical when I bought my first LED spot, but I swear they are just as bright as the 100 watt bulbs. I have had mine for 3 years now, and I'm very pleased with them. The biggest plus for me is that they are smaller and I can hide them better.


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## Sofaman (Sep 30, 2012)

What type & brand lights do you have spooklights? I'm looking at Darklight floods. They are rather small. Also wondering about the LED screw in type bulb that would fit in a regular incandescent flood fixture.


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## Skiddy (Oct 8, 2012)

If you want to replace the bulbs go with the blue cfl bulbs. That's what I use, they are very bright and use far less power than a 100 watt incandescent. Plus you can get them at big box home improvement stores. I put mine in cheap drop light fixtures and then paint the outside of the reflector flat black.


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## RandalB (Jun 8, 2009)

I use the multi color 9w ones off of ebay. They are easy to wire (12v and 120v available), have multiple color modes and effects (flash, fade, dim,etc), use a wireless remote and are waterproof. If you look around you can find them for less than $20 shipped. 
All the ones I've gotten recently also retain the color setting when the power is turned off too. 
I'll never use an incandescent bulb again. 

HTH,
RandalB


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

I think you'll be pretty pleased if you switch to either LED or CFL from an incandescent... especially considering a colored flood light.

Incandescents are only about 5% efficient from the start and that is a broad spectrum output which is filtered so only one color shows through. So if you consider the best case - your power being spread evenly across the spectrum (33% blue, 33% green, 33% red), then any given color is only using 1/3 of the 5% power actually coming out as light...ALL the rest is turning into heat.

With a CFL or LED, the starting efficiency is much higher and the light can be tailored to emit only a certain color through phosphors (for the CFL) or the diode material in the LED. So you have a light which is more efficient from the start and it's putting all that power in the narrow band of color you actually want.

Plus, an incandescent filtered light can't hardly hold a candle [pun] to the rich, saturated light from a CFL or LED.


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## mikeythemars (May 10, 2008)

The IMHO big downside of both LEDS and CFLs is they are more _much_ more involved and expensive to acquire and configure if you need to have dimming capability.

Which is exactly what I require. I run four different elaborate animated routines in my haunt that all have staging that involves dimming and/or brightening lights. I do that using incandescent spots of varying wattages, where the brightening and dimming is precisely controlled by an X10 system using LM465 light control modules. The net investment I put into all bulbs, fixtures and x10 hardware required for that is a fraction of what it would have cost to do using CFLs or LEDs.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

You do bring up a good point on the dimming. CFLs generally don't like to be dimmed. There are some special 'dimmable' units out there, though I don't know that I've seen them in colored bulbs. LEDs are a bit easier to dim... especially if using a DC supply. They're a bit harder if using an AC converter or SMPS. If a person just wanted 'static' dimming, you could just use a smaller aperture on the light can. But for 'active' dimming, that brings up a whole other issue. 

It's also worth noting, (IMHO at least) - you can almost go overboard with light. I've never tried to create a perfectly lit scene where you could read a book by the light. Dark corners, ghoulish shadows, flickering, fading and 'barely' enough light to see by, all seem to add to the ambiance.


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## Spooklights (Jul 4, 2006)

Sofaman said:


> What type & brand lights do you have spooklights? I'm looking at Darklight floods. They are rather small. Also wondering about the LED screw in type bulb that would fit in a regular incandescent flood fixture.


That's what I have... the Darklight floods. Haven't tried the screw in type yet. ( sorry for the delay).


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## mich625 (Aug 30, 2014)

*Just What I Wanted to Know*



Skiddy said:


> If you want to replace the bulbs go with the blue cfl bulbs. That's what I use, they are very bright and use far less power than a 100 watt incandescent. Plus you can get them at big box home improvement stores. I put mine in cheap drop light fixtures and then paint the outside of the reflector flat black.


I bought both a CFL blue and regular 100W blue flood and decided to go with the 100W because the color was more of a rich blue.

I am going to paint the outside reflector also as you said, but I did not buy heat tolerant paint, just plain black spray paint. Since the flood will put off some heat, do you think it will be too much for the paint?

Appreciate it!


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## jaege (Aug 23, 2009)

I use the screw in type LED spots. Love them. I have not tried those ones that you use a remote to change the color. I understand that they have to be "reset" to the desired color every time the power is shut off. I think that would be annoying. I use the ones that are permanently a single color. Just as bright and a lot smaller, unobtrusive, and less fragile than the incandescent ones. And as others have pointed out, use much less power, so you can hook up a lot more lights.


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## Skiddy (Oct 8, 2012)

mich625 said:


> I bought both a CFL blue and regular 100W blue flood and decided to go with the 100W because the color was more of a rich blue.
> 
> I am going to paint the outside reflector also as you said, but I did not buy heat tolerant paint, just plain black spray paint. Since the flood will put off some heat, do you think it will be too much for the paint?
> 
> Appreciate it!


100 watt bulbs put out a good bit of heat. I would use high temp paint just to be safe. I use CFLs and Lowes .99 spray paint, holds up well but CFLs put out a lot less heat.


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## R. Lamb (Oct 11, 2011)

I have a background in theater so, when I first started lighting my first haunt I used incandesent par-cans. They worked great but, I had to turn every light and fixture in the house off to keep from blowing circuit breakers. I Now use LED slim pars to light the whole yard and I no longer have a problem. A few par 64's, a couple of par 56's and a par 38. Those and a few of the Gemmy pin spots and I can light up my entire haunt. I've tried using CFL's and other lights but NOTHING comes close to the lumens I need to light two sides of a house on a corner lot. It is a bit expensive but, I add one or two every year and I have been doing it for about 10 years now. (This of course, is just my way and it may be wrong.)


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## Fiend4Halloween (Aug 28, 2008)

Hey R.L., was reading your info on lights and where are you buying your lights from? I'm not familiar with the par term but after searching and trying different types of lights, I basically just have flood lights, 4 on just one side of the house to light it up and I'm not really excited about the colors, they basically start to fade away halfway up the side of my home. Also the stake lights your using, are they only able to illuminate 1-2 tombstones or are they much brighter and can light a small area? Thanks everyone for your input to the lighting. Happy Haunting!


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