LED bulbs

[Gazz]

I've about had it with CFL bulbs... well, really their failure mode,

Had fallen asleep with the wall light on as usual, woken up by the smoke alarm going off, room in darkness and that oh so lovely aroma of burning electronics accompanying the smoke coming from the bulb base, wall lamp has the bulbs mounted base down, so maybe that added to this failure mode.

But i think it's time to go over to LED's, as people are saying they are now reaching the lumen per watt threshold that makes them worthwhile.

Standard bayonet cap fittings throughout the house, most of them base up, but a couple of wall lights that have the bulbs base down, and 2 fittings that have the bulb mounted sideways for the low profile enclosure (may well be ES bases, must check)

So firstly, are LED bulbs sold in separate versions for base up/down/sideways orientation? or does it not matter too much as long as they have a decent heatsink in the base.

I am used to the slightly colder white of CFL's now, compared to tungsten bulbs... so much so that the 60 watt tungsten bulb (all i could find... no spare CFL's left) i put in the bedroom wall lamp makes the room look weird to my eyes due to the yellowness of the light,

So would i be looking for warm white led's, or something else to mimic the CFL's i'll be replacing, almost every light here originally had a 60 watt tungsten bulb in it, so i was running 20 watt CFL's to get a similar light output.

Any recommendations for half decent led bulbs that fit what i am looking for? i want to avoid the cheap s**te chinese knock offs with fake CE stamps on them... the ones that imitate fireworks when they fail, but i also can't afford to be paying £15 per bulb when i want to change all the bulbs in the house.

[Michael Chare]

Search Amazon for:

MiniSun High Power 11w LED BC B22 SMD GLS Energy Saving Long Life Bulb -

1000 Lumens £7.99 at time of posting. Buy one and see if you like it.

Pendant LED bulbs tend to shine downwards. Unlike tungsten or CFLs they don't send much light towards the ceiling.

[dr.s.lartius]

I have private code that compares lamps, allowing for brightness, cost, pow er, and life. The current best of those for lumen-hours per pound that I h ave personally seen (not necessarily seen working), is Tesco LED, £8, 10 A, 806 lm, unspecified life, IIRC 100,000 cycles. I might buy one. I have done no measurements.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not sure LEDs are going to be any better in this respect. Had a 240v one which went bang in a spectacular fashion.

[Tim Watts]

No

They prefer base down as long as the enclosure allows air to move through. Base up is OK IME in a fairly open fitting - might be less good in an enclosed one.

Philips LEDs are top class - good life, warm light and they vary from "true" GLS and pretty bright to GLS+++ (extra long) and mentally bright.

However they are not cheap. But IME they seem to last.

Crompton (compton?) - blew one of theirs (out of 1) in < year. I write the dates on the side when I install them. Don't touch.

The "TCP" brand that Homebase sells seem quite good (testing one now in candle/SES format). Cannot say how good the life is as I've had it for

3-4 months. But good price.

Megaman aren't bad for the money.

I would avoid any other names unless someone explicitly vouches for them here - there is a LOT of crap being sold.

[Martin Brown]

Base down is generally better for them. Base up heat rises and cooks the electronics - especially in closed glass globe type shades.

The main thing is that they do need a bit of airflow around them so like CFLs they don't like being fully enclosed.

Good price - probably a bit on the bright side if the OP has become accustomed to the notional CFL incandescent "equivalent" wattage. I got caught out by my first LED bulb being too bright for its location being a nominal 60W equivalent that really was a true 60W incandescent output!

Is one such although £1 more expensive (and £1 more is dimmable although I have no experience of them on dimmers). The models available seem to change almost every time you look for them.

They are distinctly more directional with can make the walls appear darker in some sort of light shade.

[Bob Henson]

The new ones do.

[Lee]

Was going to say the same, they usually still have a SM supply in them. There are some Youtube videos showing comparisons and teardowns of LED lamps. Which are interesting.

[Brian Gaff]

Well, I'm not a great light user these days, obviously, but many people seem to not like leds due to their tendency to be very directional. It might well be that different choices of design for each situation you describe might stop this being a problem but certainly some types of wall light that emit light in all directions work better with cfl or ordinary bulbs than with leds. And what makes you think that led bulbs will fail any less smelly than cfls? grin. Brian

[dennis]

CPC have these on offer ATM

[Andrew Gabriel]

I've not seen an LED where base up versus base down would make any difference.

The cooling fins are not normally oriented for horizontal operation, but even that probably makes little significant difference.

I have a few TCPs which have been running a while. If you have a Homebase nearby which is closing down, they're all 30% off.

IKEA have a large ES globe one which is also quite good.

[Nick]

If you mean the daylight bulbs. I did my house in them 4ish years ago. Some have gone but not many.

I like daylight bulbs because I can actually distinguish colours properly which I couldn't with standard yellower CLFs.

[Peter Johnson]

Buy from a supplier with a five-year warranty, then you can send them back if they don't last.

[Tim Watts]

Can you name any?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Being able to distinguish colours is more to do with the spectrum of light than the base colour temperature.

The snag is that to provide a reasonably continuous spectrum with both florries and LEDs tends to reduce the efficiency. It comes for free with halogen.

With tube fluorescent, it is possible to buy specialist tubes that are very good indeed - they are used for film etc lighting.

[Mike Barnes]

[Tim Watts]

Thank you - I did not consider the *supplier* might have such a long warranty...

[PeterC]

ledlam

[bert]

Sainsburys, Wilko's Phillips £7.99

[Nick]

Well I don't know the science all I know is that I appear to see colours much better with Homebase "TCP" daylight bulbs than I could with non daylight CLF bulbs. I accept black body radiation bulbs should be better for colour but haven't been able to test it for myself.