We're looking for lighting for the living room. We've a central ceiling rose and 4 lighting sockets around the room controlled by a twin dimmer switch. For one of these locations wer'e building a shelving unit and wanted to put some downlights into the shelves. Halogen ceiling spots are the obvious simple answer but it would be nice to use something a bit more efficient.
Does anyone make dimmable low-energy lighting? Are compact fluorescents the only option?
Yes - you can get dimming ballasts for standard fluorescent tubes. I have them for my kitchen worktop lighting. Not cheap, though.
sound.
Can you suggest a source online? I'll buy locally but it's worth having an idea of price first.
The other thing i was wondering about was LED's. I know they're not really "there" for serious lighting yet but would probably be good for cabinet lighting, especially as they run cool. I presume they're not dimmable (as my understanding is that where they are dimmed it's by some fancy circuitry flashing them at high speed) but i was wondering if i could have them running off a dimmed circuit using a relay (ie so they're on at a constant brightness but the other lights on the circuit dim). How difficult would it be to wire up a relay to do that?
There are 3 techologie that fit this, linear fluorescent and LED, and if you ever manage to find them, dimmable CFL. However none of these will work on standard dimmers in most cases.
A switchbank makes a lot more sense than a dimmer in almost all cases.
With LEDs it is simple to fit dimming where the lights are, on the low v side. A row of ultrabright LEDs (27p each), a wallwart and a pot will give much more even lighting than mains voltage LED cluster lights, and if you dont use white, last far longer. Also, being typically 5mm wide, theyre easy to build in to woodwork, making the lights themselves hidden.
NT
and do a search on dimming ballasts.
Mine are made by Osram, and any decent wholesaler should have details and be able to order them. I doubt you'll find them in stock locally, though.
LEDs are very easy to dim - you simply vary the current going through them, normally by changing the voltage.
I'd *guess* they can be dimmed in the same way as other low voltage fittings.
I'm unaware of any good online stockist. RS and Farnell have very small selections.
The best selection I know of is stocked by Bernlite in Watford,
LEDs actually work differently to other lamps in operation. They have a constant V drop, regardless of i, and below this v no i will flow. So they need constant voltage with variable current. This is usually done with a wallwart type supply plus a potentiometer. Standard wallplate dimmers can easily be turned into LED dimmers, just rip the guts out and replace the pot with one of the right value and same type of spindle (with or without switch).
LEDs are well suited to low level lighting, eg among shelving etc. The white ones are a funny sort of white, but they come in lots of intense colours, can be nice for mood lighting. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and iffy variable white. Use ultrabrights for lighting.
NT
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