I hate halogens, kitchen lighting ideas.

[philipuk]

Hi All

I've got a new place and the kitchen is lit with a ceiling fitting with 6 halogens in it. It is pretty enough to satifsy SWMBO and does a reasonable job of lighting the kitchen (with the odd shadow in places) however the constant bulb replacements and 300W of energy use all day every day (yes there is a light switch, the rest of the household doesn't seem to know how to use it) upsets my skinflintishness and environmental concience. There is also under cabinet strip lighting, these are just look grubby and never get used.

I would probably just replace it with a flourescent fitting of reasonable quality, possibly twin tube to give decent illumination, however suspect that wouldn' be pretty enough for SWMBO.

I've dismissed replacing the bulbs with LED's as I suspect the colour spectrum and more importantly the light output would not come up to scratch.

So any ideas for a replacement at a reasonable cost?

Anyone mentioning parts of p's can go away right now.

Philip

[sm_jamieson]

I have to decide this soon. I plan to have concealed fluorescent fittings configured to illuminate a matt white ceiling, which should give good general illumination. It will be two tubes arranged horizontally above the kitchen cabinets. Simon.

[Jonathan]

Can you get CFLs that fit the sockets? In my dining space, where I had the same problem, I have put in a mixture of different brand LEDs (different colours) and CFLs, which seem warmer. I find the result acceptable.

Jonathan

[Chris J Dixon]

Whilst we all wait for better light sources, feed the existing fitting via a movement detector like:

you don't waste energy when there is nobody present.

It works very well for me.

I was originally a little unhappy to find that mains halogens had been fitted, especially when a couple of them failed quite soon. I got in a stock of bulbs, but they have been absolutely fine since, and don't seem to be stressed by the switching at all.

Chris

[Dave Osborne]

We've got one of these:

35W t5 tubes. Instant-start high-frequency control gear. It looks quite snazzy.

don't know if £100 is reasonable for you, but did I mention HF instant-start control gear?

HTH DaveyOz

[Jim K]

twice ;>) what's it mean?

Jim K

[js.b1]

part protectionism? :-)

TLC Direct do a fluorescent which is HF, with a reflector, with louvre. It is sort of high-end office look but would give good light in a kitchen.

Can not recall the part number, but someone posted it here long ago.

There are triple-spot with R80 bulbs into which you can fit CFL. Halogen are a bit "twee" although you can avoid the "light in the centre and always working in your own shadow syndrome. Under cabinet halogen is a bit clinically harsh, it reminds you that you either can't tile, can't grout or did not get the tiles perfectly level to that last 0.5mm.

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:02:39 -0700 (PDT) someone who may be "js.b1" wrote this:-

the first two items.

Fine for a kitchen, though a little fiddly to clean if the style of cooking involves lots of smoke.

[dom]

I'm doing a chapel conversion, and am fitting the whole building out (20 units) with bulkhead fittings containing an electronically- ballasted, T5 circular fluorescent.

I bought Eglo Giron from GBLighting:

've been satisfied in every way with these, instant on, no-flicker, no hum, very even, clear & pleasant light - and GBLighting have given sterling service. Recommended.

[Dave Osborne]

Well, high-frequency means that the tubes last longer, don't flicker and give a generally better light.

Instant-start, means that you switch the light switch and the lights come fully on straight away. No waiting, no buzzing, no half-hearted flashing, etc.

All good, but explains why the fitting costs a hundred notes.

[Dave Osborne]

Just realised the above link doesn't work reliably. Try this:

[Roger Wareham]

We have two of the HF version of these fitted with triphosphor daylight tubes:

of light, instant start, easy to clean, and the tubes are hidden.

Roger.

[John Rumm]

The first obvious retrofit would be to swap what sounds like mains halogens for low voltage ones with individual transformers. That way you can drop the wattage on each lamp a bit (you get more light per watt at

12V), the light quality will be better, and the bulbs will last *much* longer.

Another option to look at would be some over cabinet strip lights. These are hidden from view but light the room indirectly via light bounced off the ceiling.

[John]

I wonder if the reflectors will withstand much cleaning.

[Vortex7]

I would not dis' LED too quickly.

In our office kitchen we had a 3 x 50W Halogen fitting and replaced lamps with 3 of these:

colour is acceptable. The intensity is perhaps 30% lower (claims are plausible). No complaints and I would buy again.

Of course the leccy bill for these will be 8% of what it was. At (say)

10 hours per day your paying £100 per year just for this fitting so you could buy 6 LED lights for a trial. if after 6 months you can't get on with them they will have paid for themselves anyway!

David

[Tabby]

Really the first choice would be to a) keep the halogen, but fit far lwoer power lamps b) add concealed fluorescent uplighting, with a good tube and an electronic ballast, and ideally dimmable.

Halogen: excessively power hungry, short lived, glare, uneven lighting. LED: poor light quality Filament: gobbles watts

Just take care over tube selection, there's a lot of poor quality tubes about.

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

The most significant factor is higher efficiency. When the alternating current halfcycle becomes shorter than the time it takes (on average) for an excited mercury atom to decay back to base state and release a photon, the nature of the discharge changes from start/stop to continuous, and this improves the tube effiency by about 10%. The cut-over frequency is about 5kHz, and all HF control gear operate well over this.

T5 tubes are now rated for HF operation only. When they first appeared they were also rated for switch-start, but AFAIK no switch-start ballasts were made for them, and this was then dropped from their specification. Also, they are only rated for programmed start (preheat start), not instant start, but you may find some instant start ballasts for them if you really search.

The other thing about electronic HF ballasts is that dimming function is easily included in the electronics, although they can demand premium prices.

I really wish it did. Unfortunately, it's also used to refer to non-instant starting HF ballasts. You really have to go and check the datasheets for the exact part number, or just buy one and see.

I would have guessed more, so I would say it's not bad for a style fitting.

One comment I would make is that T5 tubes are thin light sources, yet produce virtually same light output as T8. This means the glare will be higher from such a fitting. Usually T5s are only used where the tube isn't visible in the line of sight because of glare.

[Tabby]

Really any bare tube fitting is best avoided. Fashionable styling doesnt change bad lighting.

NT

[Dave Osborne]

In this case, no wishing required. The lamps start immediately you switch on.

We also have fluorescent light in the utility room which I converted from switch start to HF with (as I recall) an Tridonic Atco jobbie I got off Ebay. This one preheats for nearly a second before the lamps come on, which in comparison is a quite noticeable delay.