White LED Recommendation

[BuffaloEngineer]

Does anyone have a recommendation for an LED for a lamp - I'm looking for the brightest LED per $ spent. Generally I just look on Digikey, but their LEDs are mostly lower power.

Is there a conversion I can use for the number of Watts I need? If a 60W incandescent is = to a 13W CFL, how many Watts should I use for an equivalent LED (or set of LEDs)?

Thanks!

 

[Sceadwian]

Depends on the LEDs efficiency which you have to get from the datasheet.
Lighting Efficiency Comparison

provides some rough guidelines.

LEDs as far as dollar per watt are probably one of the worst possible choices you could make, even though they are pretty efficient. Their monochromacity and narrow output beam haven't been addressed very well as far as general lighting goes yet either. So you really need to re-examine your lighting requirements. There are cheaper better sources of light available on the market. Exactly what you need the light for will be extremely important. Is this for room lighting, spot lightning or task lighting?

 

[BuffaloEngineer]

I wanted to do some creative room lighting with them - I wanted to use them for their small size, but if they're not quite as bright as other lights, I'm okay with that. I'll have some sort of diffuser over them so the light isn't too harsh. I'm also wondering if it's less expensive to use a few lower power LEDs or 1 higher power LED. Are there good distributors for white LEDs besides Mouser and Digikey?

 

[k7elp60]

Both the lamp and the LED have a common measure of
illumination intensity. The unit is the candela or the
millicandela. The candela relates to candle power. Most
lamps are rated in Mean Spherical Candela (MSCD) or lumens.
Most LED’s are rated millicandela (MCD). Milli is
standard and 1 milli = 1/1000. Most household lamps are
rated in lumens and this can be converted to MSCD by
multiplying the lumens by .07958. For example a typical 75
watt household bulb is rated as 971 lumens. MSCD = 971
lumens x .07958, or 77.27 MSCD.

Here is a website that has a lot of LED's. I have bought from them several times.
SUPER BRIGHT LEDS - LED Lights & Accessories

 

[Oznog]

There's also a HUGE question of "color temperature" for aesthetics. Most white LEDs are a bluish white, called "cool". The "warm" version is more towards yellow and is closer to incandescent. Warm is greatly preferred, but they're typically harder to find, more expensive, and less lumens/w.

There isn't much in the way of LED lamps and room-lighting "bulbs". Unfortunately, what there is is often made very poorly and is very prone to early failure, despite the high cost and low power.

 

[Sceadwian]

You'll have to use multiple large power LED modules to get any kind of decent room lighting. Even the brightest 5mm LED's you can get won't put out enough light to be useable unless you use hundreds of them, and as Oznog stated you will have issues with the colour temperature. A diffuser will help but it will also reduce the already limited light you're getting. Are you completly opposed to using standard incandescent lighting? If so for what reason? To get equivalent brightness of an incandescent bulb and LED module/modules are going to be nearly the same size anyways, so you're not really saving any space. I'd rethink the whole idea a bit.