Price of LED lightbulbs

[Michael Chare]

Today in Morrisons, I bought two B22 GLS 14W 1521 lumens 2700K light bulbs for £6, i.e. £3 each. Is this a record low? I have paid several times that amount in the past.

[Bob Eager]

B22 15W 1300 lumens 3000K from CPC - £1.62.

Philips ones with a closer spec are 11 quid, though.

[Martin Brown]

Price has been falling for quite a while now, but the cheapest ones may not always be the most reliable or most efficient.

[Brian Gaff]

So for the old BC light holders what are the best value that do not chuck out more RF than light? Brian

[alan_m]

Why should a LED and the power conditioning circuits in most LED bulbs push out any RF?

[Rob Morley]

I got some BC adaptors to take G9 halogen, for those lamps that are only used occasionally. :-)

[Adrian Caspersz]

Poundland. Several purchased certainly more than two years ago, still working.

[Fredxx]

Because they tend to use switching power supplies using small high frequency components.

[Scott]

I tried LED spotlights in the kitchen and they obliterated DAB radio reception. These were 12 Volts so the current would have been much higher. I was told the switched mode power supplies were to blame.

I am now running mains voltage LEDs with no such difficulty.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Do they? or just a capacitor dropper, a bridge rect and a smidgeon of smoothing?

[RJH]

Poundland/stretcher shop? I've bought a few from there and they're still going strong a couple of years on. Not 14W though - 8W IIRC.

Forget the price <groan>

[PeterC]

Home Bargains had the 12W 15oo lm lamps at £2.99 a week or so ago. I got 4 for a shed (bulkhead fittings in the corners, they are E27 and then, just for 'fun', 1 B22D - all 6500K - the E27s are great in the shed but the BC one is a bit, er, bright for almost anywhere! BTW, in refreshing honesty, they're claimed to be equivalent to 100W. Seem much more, but that might just be the colour.

[Martin Brown]

Most are tiny switched mode PSUs but they don't normally pump out much RF unless you are looking at the LW band where their harmonics will be.

The cheapest and nastiest ones are something like one or two strings of

20 or so white LEDs in series. So one failure and you lose all or half the light. I had one fail that way. Some of the nastier Chinese ones have potentially dangerous voltages on the bare SMD board - no cover.

[JoeJoe]

Bought some (25) very cheap ones off eBay 3.5 years ago. Used for several hours every day. All still working 100%.

[Martin Brown]

That is because DAB radios are pathetic designs that barely work.

[alan_m]

Really? That may have been true for compact CFL low energy bulbs but many of the LEDs seem to have a bridge rectifier, a current limiting series capacitor and perhaps an addition smoothing capacitor, all operating at a maximum of 50Hz. There is no voltage conversion necessary as the LED arrays, connected in series operate at high (mains) voltages.

[charles]

Not all of them are like that. Most of the ones I have use only 5 or 6 LEDs.

[Mike]

Ditto One failure out of 10.

[Mark]

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Outdoors, they tend to keep quite cool. Can be a different matter indoors, depending on fitting design. And heat shortens the life of the capacitors in the PS.