I recently saw some "long-life" replacements for halogen lamps that seem to consist of 7 or so LEDs in a package of the same shape. Are these any good?
(I don't have any halogens, but a relative has about 8 or 9 recessed halogen fittings in her kitchen ceiling & replacing the lamps drives her nuts. She was convinced that they were blowing much faster than they should; the electrician who'd done the wiring in the house re-tested the whole set-up & found no faults. I think it's just particularly noticeable when one blows because they don't last very long compared with fluorescents but cost a lot more than incandescents.)
They vary... some are quite good, give bright light with a warm colour temperature. The only downside being expensive, and having a light spectrum similar to a CFL lamp. Reliability can be variable on some.
Others are cold, very blue, and give out a fraction of the light over a very narrow angle. OK in a head torch perhaps, but crap for a general light.
If they are mains halogen, then they are a usually pretty poor for life expectancy. They are very vulnerable to vibration as well. LV halogen on the other hand tend to last very well.
If you touch the glass bulb bit that encapsulates the filament, finger grease apparently degrades them; however those suckers are intended to attach to the protective front glass pane that most (but not all) of these halogen lamps have. The sucker is often required because there may be no other way to grip and twist the lamp in order to remove it - nothing to do with not touching the glass on the front. David
I have seen one set in use that could make a fair claim to be a comparable replacement to mains halogen MR16s. Similar colour temperature and beam width. They were pricey though at about £25 a bulb. The light had a slight CFL quality to it - but not actually as bad as most CFLs if you see what I mean.
(I presume these were coated LEDs which actually produce a fair amount of their output using a fluorescent coating stimulated by the more blue/white light produced by the LED itself)
I (due to ignorance and penny pinching?) used mains GU10? downlighters in the bathroom, rather than LV ones. In my defence, the fittings were exactly what I wanted and a good price. The supplied lamps blew in short order. The replacements bought from TLC have lasted as well as any 'ordinary' mains lamp.
It's odd. We have GU10s in both the bathroom and the kitchen. Although different fittings, both are similar in the length of the base of the bulb covered, etc., yet the kitchen ones are blowing all the time and in the bathroom, only one (of three) has blown in five years! Both are on lighting only circuits in the same consumer unit.
This is a problem with CFL replacements for incandescents too. I can't find anything over a so-called "60 W equivalent" (which, let's face it, isn't really equivalent) that will fit in a basic bulkhead light.
No, with two adults and five children (one of the adults with IBS) the bathroom gets a lot of use, plus the lights get left on when the children forget and frequent switching when everyone remembers.
The kitchen on the other hand is on and off when we're walking in to get something and on for some of the time while cooking or ironing - we use the fluorescent lights under the wall cupboards most of the time, as 8
50W GU10s are a bit pricey to run!
Overall, the number of switchings and the on time are not too dissimilar.
Again not likely to be the problem. The room above the kitchen is the bedroom for our youngest child, it is basically unused unless he is in bed and luckily he drops straight off when put to bed and usually has to be woken when we're getting ready in the morning, so he's not bouncing around in there.
It's not transmitted vibration from the other rooms up there either, the joists in the bedroom floor only span the 8ft from the outer wall to the solid brick dividing wall, the next bedroom has a completely different set of joists spanning the rest of the house.
There must be some difference, but I just can't work out what.
In the meantime, I'll keep trying to persuade my wife that fluorescent lights will be fine in there - she made me remove the old ones!
Yes, a well-known problem. 40W equivalent (about 10W CFL) at same size is about as good as is achievable currently. This max equivalent size has crept up slowly over the years.
Consider CFL replacements. They plug in but are slightly longer so will protrude slightly. Mine come on at half brightness immediately and are full on in about 30 sec.
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