I was one of the most popular people at work this week after word spread that I was melting chocolate bunnies with light bulbs. People kept stopping by my desk to ask if the scuttlebutt was true. And when they found out it was true, several co-workers declared that I have the best job ever.
But I wasn’t melting the bunnies for fun, or even for a snack. This experiment was for the sake of the LED lighting revolution.
I can preach the benefits of energy-efficient LED lighting until my voice goes hoarse (which I’ve done) or type out blog posts, tweets and e-mails until my fingers callous. But, let’s face it, seeing is believing.
So I turned an empty office into a studio for my experiment. I placed chocolate Easter bunnies under a 12 Watt Cree LRP-38 and a 65 Watt incandescent floodlight. Both lights are designed to be hung from tracks. And, despite their Wattage differences, they’re a relatively fair comparison — a 12 Watt LRP-38 can replace Halogen bulbs up to 90 Watts (the folks at Furniture Row in Denver, Colorado replaced one thousand 90 W Halogens with LRP-38s).
Here's the setup.
The results were exactly what I expected. The bunny under the incandescent light melted into a pool of chocolate that spilled over the plate and onto the desk. The LED bunny kept his shape, with just the tip of his head becoming soft when I touched it with my fingertip. Watch the time lapse video to see the incandescent bunny’s downfall:
Once the incandescent bunny collapses, you can see my hand reach over and reposition the plate. That’s because that sucker fell backwards and out of the video shot, so I had to reposition him so we could all watch him melt.
I hope the video conveys how much more energy-efficient LED lights are. Since LED lights consume significantly less energy than incandescent bulbs (and even compact fluorescents), they don’t emit as much heat. In fact, LEDs are sensitive to heat, that’s why good thermal design is important for a long-lasting LED light, and that’s what the heat sink helps accomplish (the metal fins or slots that surround LED lights).
Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll have to start melting chocolate with light bulbs around every holiday. If you’ve got suggestions of what I should melt next, post them in the comments!
