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Brighten His Day (Father’s Day Wish List For 2013)

May 222013

Fathers Day Brighten His Day (Fathers Day Wish List For 2013)
Father’s Day falls on 2013 this year. So, it’s about time I share my Father’s Day gift picks!

I’ve put together a list of some of our coolest, handiest lights that will literally brighten Dad’s day (in an unexpected way).

We have a big selection, so I’ve broken down the list into categories based on some of the things Dads like to do:

For the Dad who can grill a mean steak…

You can’t go wrong with a barbecue light. It’ll make it easy for Dad to grill, even after the sun sets! Here are some options:

1. The Clamp-On MR16 Halogen Barbecue Light

Halogen Barbecue Brighten His Day (Fathers Day Wish List For 2013) Continue reading »

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Outfitting Recessed Can Lights: LED Light Bulbs, LED Retrofits, or LED Housings?

Buyer's Guides 2 Responses »

Apr 262013

PinExt Outfitting Recessed Can Lights: LED Light Bulbs, LED Retrofits, or LED Housings?

iStock 000006954225Small 300x199 Outfitting Recessed Can Lights: LED Light Bulbs, LED Retrofits, or LED Housings?
When using LEDs in your recessed can lights, should you install completely new LED housings and trims, use LED retrofit modules, or simply switch out your light bulbs for LEDs?

A customer recently contacted Pegasus Lighting with that very question. She wanted to use LEDs in her recessed cans, and asked us about the advantages and disadvantages of LED housings/trims, retrofits, and light bulbs in order to make her decision.

So, our lighting experts went to work crafting an answer. Here’s what they had to say:

When Using An LED Lamp With A Conventional Incandescent Housing And Trim…

L Prize Light Bulb Outfitting Recessed Can Lights: LED Light Bulbs, LED Retrofits, or LED Housings?

This option is by far the simplest. Just unscrew that old incandescent or halogen light bulb and replace it with an LED lamp. Depending on the size of your recessed can, you can use LED reflector lamps or A lamps.

Advantages:

Easy To Alter. It only takes one person to screw in a light bulb (usually). So, if you don’t like how your new LED light bulb looks or performs, you can switch it out for a different one with minimal hassle. Since LED innovations are still evolving and LED efficacy is increasing dramatically each year, using LED light bulbs gives you more freedom to try out new technology. With a more extensive LED system, it would be annoying and expensive to try to keep up with new technology.

Generally Cheaper Upfront. LED light bulbs for recessed cans can cost anywhere from about $15 to over $100, while the prices for LED retrofits and LED housings and trims range from around $30 to over $200.

Disadvantages:

Could Trip Your Circuit Breaker. LED light bulbs and conventional recessed can lights aren’t always compatible. Some of the LED light bulbs used in halogen and incandescent recessed lights might cause a heat sensor inside the housing to trip your circuit breaker. This is because LED lamps generally direct heat up towards the ceiling and the fixture’s heat sensor, while incandescent sources project heat down and out of the recessed light. Continue reading »

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Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Workaholic

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Dec 102012

PinExt Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Workaholic

This post is the 6^th in a series on holiday gifts for your loved ones. This year, we’ve broken it down for you based on hobbies, occupations, and personalities. So far we’ve covered gifts for techies, bookworms, adventurers, chefs, and handypeople…

Life, work, and even family can be exhausting. So exhausting that when you’ve finally made it home, all you want to do is kick back and veg out. If you know someone who works hard all day – whether at an office or in a kitchen, climbing mountains or keeping shop, you can give them the gift of relaxation this holiday, with light!

Check out these neat gift ideas that will work hard for you:

Remote Control Light Switches Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Workaholic

$9.90 for 2-Pack

Remote Lighting Controls

Nothing says “license to chill” better than a remote control, and when you’re ready to call it a night, you might not always have the energy (or mental capacity) to get up and turn off the lights. That’s where this remote control comes in handy. It’s a cinch to install on almost any lamp. Use it while reading in bed, for aging in place, or just for someone who needs to catch a break every now and then.

Continue reading »

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Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Techie

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Dec 042012

PinExt Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Techie

Today, we’re continuing our series on helping you find those perfect holiday gifts. So far, we’ve offered unique ideas for those who love to read, cook, fix things, and adventure through the great outdoors. Now, let’s move on to those technology-loving techies…

Techies. We all know the type. They’re the ones always up on the latest gadgets. They love spending time just tinkering with machinery, making things work.

And, they’re the ones who we call on to help fix what’s broken – slow computers, malfunctioning toys, anything mechanized or electronic. So naturally, we want to return their kindness for the holiday.

Here are a few of our most innovative, fun, and helpful high-tech gift ideas:

The Techie’s Essential Light

It’s a glorious era in the lighting world for die-hard techies. LEDs, the most up-and-coming lights, are an electronic power source capable of so much more than older filament and fluorescent lights.

If your favorite gadget lover hasn’t jumped on the LED train yet, gifting them a few LED light bulbs to use around the house will satisfy their thirst for electronics, and even save them some dough on future energy bills. Shop, and learn more about LEDs right here!

Continue reading »

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Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Bookworm

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Nov 282012

PinExt Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Bookworm

Gift Guide3 Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Bookworm

This is the fourth post in a series on finding perfect holiday presents for your loved ones. We’ve already covered gifts for chefs, adventurers, and handypeople, so now let’s move on to those clever book lovers…

Whether they prefer Aristotle or Dr. Seuss, we all know a bookworm or two. Some are students, some are teachers, and some are simply literary enthusiasts, but they all enjoy sitting down with a good book any chance they get.

If you’re looking to give them something they’ll really enjoy this year, and you’ve exhausted the idea of giving, well, books, then why not help improve their reading experience with light?

Check out these awesome reading light ideas:

For Readers On The Go

On long plane rides, evening commutes, or even for retreating under the blankets, some readers need a light to take along. Our bright, hands-free flexible utility light makes a great gift for bookworms on the go, because its flexible arm can conveniently wrap around the cover of a book or e-reader, or even around your neck! It can also be hung, attached, and propped almost anywhere, for your book lover to enjoy his books everywhere.

Reading Light Around The Neck 300x300 Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Bookworm Continue reading »

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Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Adventurer

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Nov 192012

PinExt Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Adventurer

This is the third post in a series on picking perfect holiday gifts for those you care about. Click here for gift ideas for people who love to cook, and here for those handy dandy handypeople.

Have a brother, sister, friend, or coworker who’s always off in the great outdoors? If they’re not biking or hiking or jogging or swimming, they’re driving somewhere in search of a new adventure. They’re always on the move.

If that’s true for anyone you know, it can feel next to impossible to find a gift that they’ll actually use, especially when they make a lifestyle out of only needing the bare minimum.

Luckily, we have several products that are simple yet essential to the all-out, mile-a-minute, scale-cliffs-for-kicks way of life. Your voyager will welcome these additions to his or her bag of tricks.

For Biking

When your favorite traveler is furiously biking on dark streets and roads, visibility is essential. Bicycle spoke lights allow for maximum visibility, lighting up the wheels in a variety of different colors. They’re light, streamlined, and easy to install, and they come in round and oval shapes. At $6.90 for a pack of 2, they also make great stocking stuffers.

Bike Spoke Lights Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Adventurer

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Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Chef

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Nov 092012

PinExt Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Chef

This is the second post in a series on finding the perfect holiday gifts for everyone you love this season. You can read the first post on lighting gifts for your favorite wrench wielding, solder-for-fun handyperson right here.

If you know someone who loves to cook, whether she got her skills from culinary school or the Food Network, whether he lives with you or just nearby, you get to reap the benefits year-round. So, you’re probably looking for a way to thank them this season. Maybe you’ve exhausted gifts like fancy knives and aprons. Perhaps you’re at a loss.

Why not gift them with light this season? There are tons of different easy to install (and easy to love) lighting options that will augment and expedite the cooking process, while enhancing the atmosphere.

Here are a few ideas: Continue reading »

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Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Handyperson

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Nov 052012

PinExt Holiday Gifts For Your Favorite Handyperson

It’s November, everyone! That means many of us have started to wonder what in the world to give our favorite people for the holidays. Here’s an idea: give light! Not only is light jolly for this time of year, it also enhances the things you love to do. This is the first in a 7-part series on holiday gifts.

Odds are most of us know a handyperson. You know, that gem of a somebody who can fix almost anything in record time, whether it’s a leaky faucet, a broken headlight, or a rocking chair. Your handyperson might actually enjoy repairing his or her own car, and probably relishes trips to the hardware store. Whatever your handyperson’s forte, I guarantee some handy lights would really help them do what they love.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Flashlights: One of the most convenient utilitarian lights around, we carry high-quality classics, and models with all kinds of bells and whistles.

The Ultra Bright Aluminum Flashlight emits a ton of light, and even comes with its own case and colored lens filters. The epitome of convenient handheld task lighting, this light’s durable, weatherproof design makes it perfect to use almost anywhere! Continue reading »

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Reliable LEDs: Fact or Fiction?

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Oct 102012

LED Dimmable Reliable LEDs: Fact or Fiction?
50 years ago yesterday, Nick Holonyak Jr. demonstrated the first LED to General Electric suits. Back then, while the only existing LED emitted crimson infrared light, Holonyak predicted his invention would replace standard household incandescent light bulbs. Today LED manufacturers haven’t stopped being idealistic.

Since LEDs have only been around for half a century, the 20, 25, 30 year expiration dates on the brand new technology might be difficult to believe. Honestly, LEDs have barely been around long enough to find a niche in the market, let alone undergo 20, 25, 30 years of definitive testing. The claims and the benefits of LEDs are impressive, but how can we make sure they’re not a farce?

Enter the U.S. Department of Energy and their new Lighting Facts program, created to help you navigate the teeming sea of new lighting technology. The program addressed this issue of LED luminaire depreciation in depth, to help people like you and me know what we’re getting into.

How do manufacturers come up with these numbers?

Instead of traditional testing, where a large sample of lamps are operated until 50% burn out, developers must determine an LED’s rated life a different way. Since the LED doesn’t burn out, but dims gradually, the rated life comes from the estimated lumen depreciation, not accounting for other causes of decline.

What causes LED failure?

Other factors besides age that might increase the rate of gradual dimming include:

Exposure to extreme temperatures
Contact with moisture and humidity
Voltage and current fluctuations
Driver or other electrical component failure
Damage to material encapsulating the LEDs
Damage to any wire bonds connecting the LED to the fixture
Degradation of phosphors

Since very few of us live in sterile, mellow, laboratory-like houses, the entire light bulb’s rated life will not live up to the life span of its LED. Continue reading »

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How To Choose Light Bulbs For Your Home: Bathroom Light Bars

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Jun 282012

PinExt How To Choose Light Bulbs For Your Home: Bathroom Light Bars

Stock Photo Bathroom Lighting How To Choose Light Bulbs For Your Home: Bathroom Light Bars

You depend on it to prevent shaving nicks and makeup mishaps. It wakes you up in the morning; it’s one of the last lights you turn off before bed. Bathroom lighting is crucial to your home. How much thought do you give to your bathroom light bulbs?

We’ve written a couple of posts on bathroom lighting: this one explains a few design tips to enhance the space, and this one advises you not to use recessed downlights over the mirror to avoid the Dracula effect. For those of you who are looking for light bulbs to your bathroom light bar appropriately:

The best bathroom lighting emulates sunlight. Heard of G.E. Reveal light bulbs? They have a special coating of an element called neodymium - you’ll see that the light bulbs have a bluish tint when turned off. That neodymium coating helps create something very close to natural, outdoor light.
Keep an eye on Color Rendering Index (CRI) – it’s a measure of how accurately your light bulb renders colors. In the bathroom, you want a high CRI. It’s measured on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being sunlight. Anything 85 or above is considered to be very good.
Many people don’t think about dimmability in the bathroom, but it’s a very useful feature. Ever felt like you’re blinded by the light first thing in the morning, or wished it didn’t have to be so harsh for late-night trips to the bathroom? If you install a dimmer, you can create those low-light conditions without sacrificing the bright light levels you need the rest of the day.

So, there you have it: For bathroom light bars, look for dimmable, neodymium-coated light bulbs with a high CRI.

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