Great expectations
I was so excited to get these and I ordered the whole set to replace all the lighting in my house. All of the other lights have been wonderful but these have let me down a bit. Why? Well the way the 3 curling arms are built it is very difficult to get them aligned enough to look right. The middle shaft first has to be straightened to it is perpendicular to the ceiling and then each of the 3 arms takes some wiggling and maneuvering. Otherwise they stick out funny or are too far from the glass. I originally ordered 5 but returned 3 of them in exchange for the Hardware House 543744 Berkshire 12-Inch by 5-1/2-Inch Ceiling Lighting Fixture Oil-Rubbed Bronze.
Also a note about the whole set--many oil-rubbed bronze pieces have a sort of brushed look over all the metal work but these lights only have the effect on the edges. It looks good still and matches well enough with my faucets etc. but if you are going for perfection in your coordination you might want to be aware of that.
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Great halogen replacements
Finally a bright-enough LED par20. I replaced 50W halogens for almost the same light output. They dim great (Lutron electronic dimmer don't know the model). They CAN be installed with halogens at the same time and will dim together fine which is great for the undecided or for the ones who don't want to fully commit to a slightly colder color. (They aren't quite warm white but close)
I'm sure that as my review ages my rating will go down for them but right now these are hands down the best energy efficient par20 dimmables for the price. CFL dimmables do exist and cost half of these upfront but they tend to die fast. Maybe I have bad luck but dimmable CFLs are known to have much shorter lives when cycled often.
For me the big win is that in California energy is really expensive. For a typical bill the last 100kWh of the month costs me 35 cents per kwh. These let me reduce electric consumption in kitchen lighting from 45kwH per month to 4kwH. That's $14 a month or $168 a year. They'll pay for themselves pretty quickly though I'm sure I'll leave them on more now.
The bulb is never more than slightly warm to the touch. My recessed lights are 18 inches above my head so I could always feel the heat when under the halogens. It never bothered me but with these you won't get that.
Overall the only downside for me is the slightly colder light temperature. Not quite as warm white as I'd like but certainly not white. But the fuzzy feeling of saving money makes it warmer.
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Crash and Burn
I was highly disappointed in this item. The paint job on this little guy looked like a child did it. Sloppy. The only reason I'm not returning it is that I purchased at sale price and paid more for the shipping than I did for the item itself. This was for my child's bedroom which is aviation themed. I went with something else.
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Works perfectly...I recently treated myself to a nice 24" Samsung LCD monitor because I was tired of the cramped 14" monitor on my laptop which is my main computer at home. Problem is because I have the monitor on my desk directly behind the laptop I have to fold the laptop monitor at about a 40 degree angle in order to not obscure the monitor and because my desk lamp is next to the monitor I was having trouble seeing the laptop keys.
Well this light fixed that problem perfectly. Five seems to be just the perfect number of LEDs. Also like the on/off button and dimmer. It's certainly an attractive looking accessory if aesthetics is important to you. Not sure if the blue LEDs on the back of this light really reduce eyestrain as claimed but I don't really mind them in fact they look kind of cool like something from a sci-fi movie lol.
All in all this is way better than the single-LED USB light I got at Walmart which cost half as much.
My only complaint/wish is that the adjustable neck is a bit too short if it were about another 5" longer I would be able to position the lights directly over the center of the keyboard instead of off to one side. On the other hand a too-long neck might make the USB connection more prone to flaking/moving. Right now the USB connection is quite secure happy to say.
Am just keeping my fingers crossed that over time the neck will not lose its rigidity and start flopping around...
The eight fifty shipped I paid for it was pretty reasonable. Couldn't find this light at any of my local electronics stores for some weird reason.
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Aid to finding scorpionsI have used this black light to find and hunt down scorpions. Many of you may not know this but scorpions light up under the influence of a black light and give off this glowing white green color. They are very bright and unmistakable ehn illuminated with a black light. We had an infestation around our house. With the aid of the black light I was able to find and eliminate 64 scorpions in two weeks. With two little kids I cannot afford to let them get stung.If you live in the southwest you need to get one of these and make an inspection of your house and property at night. You may be unpleasantly surprised what you find.
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