HELP: halogen vs energy-saving light bulb.... woes :S

[KevinGPO]

I need some help and advice. I just moved into a new expensive flat. I am trying to save money as I am low on income. I noticed that my entire flat is illuminated by halogen light bulbs. Every single light bulb socket in the ceilings are halogen bulb sockets. I know that halogen light bulbs uses 10x more electricity/energy than conventional/old light bulbs. Does anyone know the easiest way to replace the halogen bulb sockets to be able to use the conventional/old light bulbs? Does there exist a convertor?

To save some money I have taken all but one halogen bulb out from each room. However I still don't like the sight of halogen light bulbs. I prefer installing "energy saving" light bulbs but I do not want to use floor/table lamps. There are now holes with dangling wires from where the halogen light bulbs used to be. The wires are the halogen sockets.

[Grunff]

Moving into an expensive flat was perhaps not the best move then?

Really?

[Geoffrey]

You do realise that you can now get energy-saving lamps to fit halogen sockets?

[Clive Mitchell]

In message , KevinGPO writes

Halogen lamps are MORE efficient than common lamps but less efficient than compact fluorescent lamps.

What voltage and wattage are the existing lamps? What type of base does it have?

If these are ordinary 110/240 volt lamps (depending on where you live) then you could replace the lamps that are most likely to be lit for long periods of tine with compact fluorescent.

Heating or air conditioning will account for a much greater cost than lighting. If the weathers cold turn the heating down and get a woolly jumper. If it's hot, turn the air conditioning to a warmer setting and walk about in a pair of underpants. :)

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Andrew Gabriel]

The lamps themselves are, but lighting a room by indirect light reflected off the floor is horribly inefficient. It's common to find a kitchen with 500W of halogen downlighters that has a much lower level of illumination everywhere that matters than you get from hanging a 60W lamp in the middle of the room.

[David]

Hey ! everybody, we are a energy saving lamp manufacturer in Taiwan and actually had been develop this kind of bulb, I mean in G6.3 base ( same with MR11 bulb ) and working in 12Vac, so, it can replace MR-11 bulb directly without change anything, the original idea is design to replace halogen bulb in low voltage garden lighing system, especially for pathway light fixture application, we had been promote with USA market, in our idea this way can use a small power transformer can drive more fixture and get more illumination, but, the reponse is not good, does any can get us some comment, I hope I can know where is going wrong.

David Huang

"KevinGPO" ???????: [e-mail]...

[meow2222]

Hear hear. Halogen downlighter installs are horribly expensive to run. Fitting standard filament bulbs wil gain nothing. Replacing the fittings with CFL downlighters will improve things by a factor of 3 or so, but will still not be energy efficient.

If you want sane running costs, you need to change away from downlighters. A wall mounted spotlight fitted with a CFL bulb and pointed upwards makes a fairly good uplighter. A couple of those are enough for a small room, as one can only really fit 40w equivalent cfls in them. Spots, pendants, bowls etc can all be mounted on ceilings too. The trick is to point them at the white ceiling, not the carpet. CFL lighting is the most economical option, so forget anything not CFL compatible. For pendant shades, pick white and make sure the shade is washable.

If you're adding new lights, use a switchbank, each light on its own switch. Payback is typically within a year.

NT

[Capitol]

Are the lamp dimensions exactly the same as the MR11? How does the light output compare, for say, a 20W lamp? By the way, the MR11 seems to use a GU4 base, is this the same as a G6.3?

Regards Capitol

[Geoff Norfolk]

[Clive Mitchell]

In message , Geoff Norfolk writes

And indeed emit minimal light too. These are best suited to mood lighting.

The white ones are still predominantly the ugly blue-white and the quoted life is often not achieved when the lamps have used crappy LEDs.

That said, the circuitry that drops the mains voltage and limits the current to the LED arrays in these lamps has evolved to a stage of utter simplicity and low component count. Namely (for a 240V lamp) a 240 ohm

1/4W current inrush limiting resistor (also acts as a fuse), a 270nF 400V capacitor to limit the current, a 1Mohm 1/4W resistor to discharge the capacitor and avoid nasty nips off the lamp pins and lastly a small bridge rectifier to rectify the limited AC to DC for the LED array. Sweet.

See the PCB of a lamp here:-

[Blueyonder]

[David]

Certainly, the diamension will be much bigger than a MR11 bulb, it need a ballast so it is much bigger thana normall bulb, but the lumen efficiency of engery saving lamp is batter than halogen bulb ( about 4 times ), I remember MR11 is G6.3 base not GU4.

"Capitol" ???????:dp1l3f$49l$ [e-mail]...

[Clive Mitchell]

In message , Blueyonder writes

Take a look on my website at the fibre optic hack. It contains roughly the same circuit but with smoothing and all the hassle that entails. The discharge resistor is in a different position in the schematic on my site and all the components on the DC side of the rectifier are not needed except for the LEDs.

a modest number of LEDs the 100/120Hz flicker is not noticeable anyway.

If you take a look at the original picture I linked to and follow it through with me, then this should make sense...

1M resistor is soldered across the capacitor. It isn't really needed, but without it you can get a nip from residual charge when the lamp is unplugged.

The 240 ohm resistor and capacitor are in series between the mains Live (Hot) and one of the AC pins on the rectifier. The other AC pin on the rectifier is connected straight to Neutral (return).

The LEDs are all connected in series between the +ve and -ve terminals of the rectifier. And that's it!

For 110V use I guess you might need a 470nF 200V capacitor, but I've only seen the insides of the 240V lamps. (Someone in America might perhaps open one and tell us?)

[Blueyonder]

You may want to consider earthing those metal bolts that hold your mains-potential PCB up, and that also stick out the bottom of the case. Perhaps nylon bolts would work - not sure - but a warning would perhaps be good for those that may try to copy it and not realise. Cool all the same.

-- Jason

[Clive Mitchell]

In message , Blueyonder writes

It does mention that there should be good clearance of the bolts or plastic ones should be used.

That said, as soon as I put that hack up the shops ran out of those lights and have started selling a much less hackable version.

I really should put up the Christmas tree version. It's a PCB designed to fit onto standard fixings in the most common fibre optic tree bases and provide bright ultra-pure colour LED lighting up the fibre optic branches at less than 2W. I made the first few last year and made a few custom versions for friends this year.

The UV LED "Gothmas" tree was most psychedelic.

[Victor Roberts]

You say only "energy saving." What type of lamp is this?

[David]

It's 3U sharp engery saving lamp with G6.3 base and working in 12 Vac

"Victor Roberts" ???????: [e-mail]...

[The Natural Philosopher]

And sadly provide minimal light too.

I looked into this recently. The output is down around '10W halogen' equivalent.

[Victor Roberts]

I'm sorry - my question was not clear enough.

Please describe the lamp technology. Is this a standard incandescent lamp, an incandescent lamp with IR reflecting coating, a halogen incandescent lamp with or without IR reflecting coating, a compact fluorescent lamp, some other type of discharge lamp, or a solid state lamp such as a light emitting diode, or something completely different?