LED lighting

[Vernon]

Is LED lighting any good? We already have replaced standard bulbs with CFL, but we have some GU10 halogen fittings and some G9 capsule halogen fittings. I would like to replace those if possible as and when the bulbs fail(life is only 1500 hours).

I have seen GU10 LED lights for sale, but nothing to replace a G9 capsule, so I presume that is a non starter at the moment.

I have read loads of conflicting reports/opinions about the colour rendition and light output of LEDs and the results seem to be all over the place.

IF they last as long as they suggest, a 7W LED would replace a 50w GU10 bulb, and (with a large pinch of salt) last about 10 times longer.

Has anyone on here used any and can they recommend a good supplier?

[Mike Barnes]

Vernon :

Probably not what you have in mind but I've used them with excellent effect as internal lighting in drawers and cupboards.

(warm white)

They're seriously bright, a nice colour, and a doddle to fit.

[Tim Streater]

We have a 4W LED downlighter (GU10) that we use as a sort of night-light (it comes on when it's dark). It does actually provide quite a bit of light, so I could imagine that a 7W would replace a 50W halogen GU10. But, it costs around £20-£25 or so.

We've got about 16 of these in kitchen which it would be good to replace, but that would be quite a lot of dosh.

In any case SWMBO wants to replace the lot with some fluorescent strips, much more functional.

[Gordon Henderson]

To be expected - there's a lot of personal preference (and bias, predjudice, etc. that will apply!)

I like them and will buy more - wish I'd bought more when I first tried them as the price seems to have gone up!!!

I replaced a small number of 50w halogen GU10's with these:

do have a rather "hard"/"cold" light output, but I notice they have a new kind with a soft output option.

3W to replace 50W halogens... TLC offered them at a fiver when they first introduced them - Still, at £9.50, probably still worth it in the long-run.

Maybe not quite as bright, but it's a whiter light output than the halogen (I have one fitement with a single 50W halogen and a single 3W LED - very obvious the colour difference!)

My plan is to replace some dual-GU10 units with a triple GU10 unit with

3 x 3W LED units fitted... So I get (probably) more light output for only 9 watts of juice compared to 100 watts... That works for me.

[Vernon]

Thanks for the feedback, I had looked at TLC as a possible supplier. They suggest a 5W is a close repacement for 50W GU10, but at £20 it is twice the price of the 3W.

I notice an awful lot for sale on EBay, around half the price too, although you never know what you will actually get, especially as a lot looks like it comes from Hong-Kong.

Seems to be two different solutions, either lots of small LEDs or 3 large LEDs per bulb. Difficult to know which is best?

Next time I am passing TLC I might buy a couple of the 3W ones, and see how bright they actually are. At the same time order something from ebay to compare against.

[Peter Scott]

I'm a convert. I have replaced all screw-in spot lamps with LEDs. First lot were a bit white but that was in a study so OK. Go for a lower colour-temperature - 2700K is about right - where you want warm white.

I now get mine from direct-led-supply on eBay. Quick. Good prices and, so far, good quality. I got some from Hong Kong. Trouble is they take time to arrive and I had one that was dead-on-arrival. Refunded OK though.

Its best to use lamps with lots of small LEDs. The shadows are much less sharp, and if one or two leds fail it doesn't matter.

They really save money. The four 60W filament spots in my kitchen are replaced with four 4.7W lamps with 90 LEDs in. 240W down to 19W. I had

11W Megaman CFLs in between, but they took a long time to come up to full brightness.

Next I'm going to try the corn-cob style lamps.

Peter Scott

[Rob]

CFL's are a temporary aberration along the path to LED goodness.

Have a look at this URL and click on the G9 link. Should help

can get all sorts of "white". Cool, Warm, Neutral, ANSI.

dot LED look very interesting, especially when they become an everyday product.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Look up the cost of small LEDs and compare to the power ones. Look also at the claimed light output. Multiple small ones are very much cheaper to produce and buy. But then they also produce much less light.

LEDs can look very bright. But you need to measure the light that lands on say a white surface from a given distance and compare that to others.

IMHO, they are still a very immature technology for general domestic lighting. Perhaps OK for effect lighting, though.

[newshound]

Ditto. Following another posting I've just replaced some R63's with LEDs from direct-led-supply (which is in Ireland) via Ebay, and also some SES spots with LEDs from Lidl; the former about a tenner each, the latter £6. If anything brighter than the originals, and also a bit more diffuse and less "spotty". Still a bit pricey but low energy as well as running much cooler.

Very successful.

[Mark]

halogen GU10s". I've never seen this before and I use Halogen and LED bulbs successfully on the same circuit.

[Peter Scott]

Why not try one out? I light my kitchen solely with four and I am typing this in my study also solely lit by four. I don't have a meter to test them but I think that perceived brightness, colour and comfort is the ultimate test, and the LEDs I've got pass on both. I was disappointed by early attempts at low energy lamps of all kinds but I think LEDs have got to the stage where it's well worth trying them out. My kitchen used to cost 2.5p an hour to light. Now its 0.2p. Average over the year of six hours a day saves me about £40 a year.

Peter Scott

[Andy Burns]

Not sure about GU10/G9 format, but Philips have a new dimmable 12W LEDlamp

From what I'd read before they were only going to be released in USA this autumn, but they seem to exist in a bayonet version (last part number on page 5)

At 2700K they are only slightly "colder" than incandescent, and have CRI over 80, running life of 25000 hours is lower than other LEDs presumably a sign they're being pushed pretty hard?

[nicknoxx]

3W is equivalent to 25 watts 5W is equivalent to 45 watts

According to the TLC website

[Vernon]

although they are only 3cm wide, normal bulbs are very thin.

[dennis]

That's what the £6 3W ones in lidl say.

I bought a couple of MR16 replacements to try, they are much whiter than halogens and brighter too (but I do only have 20W halogens). IIRC it says they are 65 lumens a watt.

[Geo]

Wow! - lucky guy - a practical woman.

[Windmill]

I was keen to replace 3 watt candle CFLs with something which would last more than a year or so when left always on, but the 1 watt LED lamps I tried weren't anywhere near bright enough. (Which may have been why they were marked down to only far too much!)

Maybe the technology needs to advance a little more.

[Tim Streater]

Yes. The house we moved into has dark granite worktop. That's going before we crack any more china on it. And you can never tell whether it's clean or not.

Furthermore she hates the poncy modern sinks where you either can't sweep stuff off the work top into it, or if it's inset there's a lip a little way down that is a bug trap. So it'll be a proper 50s style sit-on sink in the fullness of time.

And she knows how to change the innards of a leaking or non functional tap, too.

[Huge]

Hear, hear. Inset butler sinks are a really dumb idea.