Cheap R80 Reflector to Poundland Golf Ball SES LED conversion.

One for those that last decorated in the 70s/80s when halogens weren't the rage.

I've got a few incandescent R80 ES style eyeball light fittings in the ceiling and fitting replacement CFL and LED bulbs to them is not so cheap in bulk.

So, I've just hacked in a Golf Ball styled E14/SES 3W LED bulb from Poundland using a cheap ES/SES adaptor from Amazon ...

Wanway E27 to E14 Socket Converter,ES to SES (78 pence free delivery)

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... using a discarded CD with an 25mm hole centre cut out (Q-Max metal punch) as a reflector / hider of nasty looking metal work up beyond the bulb. All looks better than in the photo when lit.

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Had to bend the the CD carefully to get in and past the 85mm aperture opening. Expect to snap a few doing that (but AOL CDs are plentiful...)

Reply to
Adrian Caspersz
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What wattage spot did you have in it before? 3W sounds a bit wimpy.

Are LED R80s /that/ expansive? 100W equivalents seem to be had for £6+

Reply to
Andy Burns

I did a project reusing CDs. You'll run into stress fractures a lot. While it is sortable, it's not trivial and not worthwhile. Best use something else.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

I can't remember the last time I saw an AOL CD.

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

I've got a triple pack of R80s but nothing to put them in following a remake a few years ago!

Reply to
Halmyre

I've got 12 volt halogen spots run from a torriodal transformer - five units from each transformer. Can I replace these with LCDs or would this cause problems with under-loading the transformer? I have read something about having to have one conventional lamp in the circuit but I don't fancy this as I would rather have them all the same.

Reply to
Scott

No, it's fine - got four in a room, all walls painted white. Used to have 4W LEDs in the R80 shape for £6 per bulb (eBay). They only lasted a couple of years and had a colder light colour.

Before was two batches of R80 11W CFL's from CPC. They hummed and weren't exactly pretty end on.

And before was just standard R80 40W bulbs (and darkish walls).

From 120W down to 12W. I have saved a leaf in the rain forest.

Reply to
Adrian Caspersz

I got this 4500 Lumen beast which is the brightest LED I have along with th e 50W security floodlight which is also 4500 Lumen.

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Reply to
Simon Mason

It happens that Adrian Caspersz formulated :

I began 20 years ago with R80 E27 tungsten reflectors at 100w each. Then because of their consumption and constant need to replace them, I swapped them for 16w CFL's. Most recently I paid £9.50 for a pair of 9w E27 R80 LED's, they are much brighter than the CFL's and made for less of a bright pool of light we got from the original R80 tungsten.

The LED's have been in use a couple of months now, without problems.

It seems they are becoming better and more reliable.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

CFL's were not good for making spotlights, because the light source is too large for the small reflecter. The one exception in R80 format was the GE Genura, because it doesn't use a folded or coiled tube, but it uses a discharge tube which is same shape as the front of an R80. It generated more light output than a

100W filament R80, for 23W power consumption. They weren't cheap though, and life depended on how well the fitting was ventilated. I used lots of them ~20 years ago at a company I was working for.

I haven't needed R80's recently, but I would imagine there are equivalent, if not better, LED products around now. Something around 12W should get you similar output to a 100W R80.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Electronic transformers have a minimum load, but a toroidal transformer probably doesn't. The voltage will be higher, but an LED probably has a switched-mode PSU inside which will compensate for this (although there are some cheap ones which just use a resistor).

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Actually the cheap way to drop LED voltage for mains uses is a series capacitor. Then FW bridge rect and if you want smoothing caps, and put the LED chips in series.

for e.g a 7W LED you need 30mA or about 7.5k impedance at 50hz.

About 0.47uF.

Frankly I'd lose the toroids and use mains lamps.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

need to add a resistor too

+1 for LEDs.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

No, you don't. Especially with a smoothing cap.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Without one the only Rs in circuit are the dropper cap, the diodes and the reservoir cap. The LEDs would then be hit with brief massive overpower at t imes, and the current limit of the dropper & diodes exceeded. You can build it like that if you want, but it's not a smart choice.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

+1

Also, remember to allow for the worse case which is a switch-off when the cap has 340V across it, followed by a switch on half a cycle later (or n+0.5 cycles later), which gives you 680V across that resistance. The series resistance is needed to limit peak current flow in this case.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Does it need a reservoir cap?

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

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