Downlighter Light Bulbs

mcaul

We all know these bulbs are bloody expensive - GU10 Fitting halogen belbs that go into the recessed style lights.

Finally found 2 great options (I have over 60 in the house @ 50watts each!!)

This site http://www.tradesman4electrical.co.uk/ has the standard 50watt lamp for 60p sterling if you buy 100. But even better it has the new 1.4watt LED lamp for 5.20 sterling - These use practically no electricity - 1.4 watts and give about 30watts of power through a cluster of LED lights. Life of 50,000 hours too.

I have a box coming over and will report how good they are. (hopefully my esb bill of €200+ will come down substantially!)

branners69

Would be interested to know how you get on.

Anything to bring down my ESB bill is a good thing!!

Nukem

Let me know how you get on please im trying to replace all mine with LED ones but read the 42 LED lamps are the closest to the normal 50w. The closest you can get without LED lighting is the Megaman 15000hr long life ones but they are too long in the normal GU10 fitting:mad:

rubadub

Thanks, moved into a house and am constantly replacing those things, cost a fortune to buy and run.

5th down here
http://www.tradesman4electrical.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d3.html

on ebay too, might be worth emailing him for a bigger shipping quote

Ice_Box

Some talk about this over at Green Issues.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054854849

Sonnenblumen

mcaul wrote:

We all know these bulbs are bloody expensive - GU10 Fitting halogen belbs that go into the recessed style lights.

Finally found 2 great options (I have over 60 in the house @ 50watts each!!)

This site http://www.tradesman4electrical.co.uk/ has the standard 50watt lamp for 60p sterling if you buy 100. But even better it has the new 1.4watt LED lamp for 5.20 sterling - These use practically no electricity - 1.4 watts and give about 30watts of power through a cluster of LED lights. Life of 50,000 hours too.

I have a box coming over and will report how good they are. (hopefully my esb bill of €200+ will come down substantially!)

There's no way you'll get anything remotely like 30W from an LED, unless of course you like to live in the twilight, but with 100 GU10's hardly the same person?

Have you tried GU10CFL (Compact Flureoscent), a 7W GU10CFL will prvide +/- 40W. Readily available from any good electrical wholesaler.

Avoid GU10 like the plague, notoriously short life, and high energy users.

mcaul

Got 2 of the 7w GU10, but they are about an inch loger and don't fit into the fittings of recessed lights - fine for GU10 arm fittings.

LED light have come a long way in the past few months - there is now a 60LED GU10 lamp available which gives the light equivalent of a 50w bulb. I have deceided to try out a couple of different ones before I buy the bulk amount I need. A 21LED super bright 1.4watt & a 30LED bright white 3w.

mcaul

Forgot to metion the house was built by an electrician with a downlighter fetish!

Anyhow - have found the best priced LED supplier www.dotlight.de German company, excellent service so far and they have the bright GU10 LEDs with a lumen power of 27, which I believe is about the equivalent of 30watts. Price €6.89 or 50 @ €5.59

They also have a high power 70 lumen GU10 - fairly expensive at €16.80 but looks good. - I have 2 of these coming to me for 2 outside uplighters which need a very strong light.

http://www.dotlight.de/shop/index.php/cPath/203_212_261

Certainly the best price by far.

mcaul

Got the GU10 LED lamps today.

Got both warm white & bright white.

The 3w superbright led lamps at €16.80 each are superb - far brighter than the 50w halogens.

The 21 LED 1.5w bright whites are quite good €6.49 each - I reckon about 25 - 30 watt of light. The 21 LED 1.5w warmwhite are a little dimmer, but provide the ambient light that warm white gives.

Overall opinion is they are very good for general effect lighting - such as dining room, living room, halls, bathrooms etc but are a little on the dim side for being the main kitchen lights. ( I'm mixing 3 x superbrights warmwhite with 6 regular in the kitchen)

Saving in electricity terms for an average of 30 hours per week against a regular 50w halogen works out at approx €14 per lamp per year.

kaizersoze

Thanks for the feedback mcaul. Good info.
I got an 18 LED lamp from a crowd in England the other day, as an experiment, but found it a bit dim. I've ordered 10 of the 21 LED ones from dotlight.de after reading your post as they sound ideal.
Do you have a link for the 3w superbright led lamps at €16.80. I can't seem to find them.
Thanks

mcaul

In the product scroll on the left they are right above the standard GU10 3w HP-LED

Link
http://www.dotlight.de/shop/index.php/cPath/203_212_246?osCsid=48659f3d8b1f3caa57ab90de27734603

kaizersoze

mcaul wrote:

In the product scroll on the left they are right above the standard GU10 3w HP-LED

Link
http://www.dotlight.de/shop/index.php/cPath/203_212_246?osCsid=48659f3d8b1f3caa57ab90de27734603

This is what I get @ €19.49 per 50.
http://www.dotlight.de/shop/index.php/cPath/203_212_246
Have they gone up or am I looking at the wrong ones?

mcaul

Just noticed - I was on their trade site which is 16.80 + vat (German Rate of 16%) as I'm VAT registered they were sent to me on an intra EU invoice.

still very good value as these ones are very good.

farmerval

Got 2 watt superbright led bulbs from great bulbs in limerick yesterday, look really good at €34.50 plus Vat their website is www.greatbulbs.ie
The 2 watt are fine iand bright in the kitchen

Effluo

Just a thought here but this kind of bargain alert is so useful for absolutely everybody.
Everyone needs to buy light bulbs and i was wondering if there is any part on boards which deals with this kind of thing?
A section which gives practical money saving advice/online stores.

If not then maybe we could create a new sticky on this forum which deals with practical money saving options for all.

Maybe called "Practical Money Saving at Home and Work"

just an idea

the_pod

I second that, I think it would be more useful than some of the existing stickies
Only probelm I see is if a few more stickies are added, we'll have to start on the second page to see the latest alerts :P

farmerval

Forgot to say in above thread, €34.50 is for 3 pack 2 watt superbright bulbs, definitely as bright as original 50 watt

JohnDigital

Effluo wrote: »

.........i was wondering if there is any part on boards which deals with this kind of thing?

Yep theres a Bargain Alerts section here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=346

bmm

farmerval wrote: »

Got 2 watt superbright led bulbs from great bulbs in limerick yesterday, look really good at €34.50 plus Vat their website is www.greatbulbs.ie
The 2 watt are fine iand bright in the kitchen

farmerval, do you want to tell us what your connection to the website you are promoting is?:rolleyes:

rco2000

Any coupon codes for this site, anybody?

Effluo

JohnDigital wrote: »

Yep theres a Bargain Alerts section here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=346

:roll:

MayoForSam

Also try http://www.avocalite.com/, they work out cheaper than Greatbulbs for the 2W LED downlighters (34.50 for 3 before VAT, works out at €13.91 each, compared to €12.20).

I bought from Avocalite before (some low energy CFL's rather than LED's) and they replaced one for free after about 6 months when it failed. No complaints.

skywalker_208

http://www.futureleds.com/GU10_BULBS.html

this is where I bought some recently.
Got 3 of the top ones for spot lights outside (HIGH POWER 3W TRIPLE EMITTER LED GU10 BULB).
Nice light out of them but certainly not as bright as the halogens I took out of it. Also noticed they are a tiny but too long to fit the lamps correctly but its only a few mm so I dont mind too much

Tad expensive at €14 quid each so might try some of the other sites mentioned here.

Also bought some of the 60 LED GU10 BULB (5th down the list) at €9 to try.

Dont want to buy in bulk until I find what will suit

quenching

Or 3W GU10's from here from about €7.70 each delivered. Bought other stuff from Dealextreme and that was fine, so might try one of these and see....

skywalker_208

read some reviews on dealextreme saying the build quality isnt great (as with alot of their cheaper products) so I didnt buy any from them.

farmerval

BMM no connection whatsoever, just happy with the product and service in what is a very confusing area.

skywalker_208

skywalker_208 wrote: »

http://www.futureleds.com/GU10_BULBS.html

Also bought some of the 60 LED GU10 BULB (5th down the list) at €9 to try.

Put the 3 60 LED GU10s in the ensuite to try them.
The Mrs didnt like them at all. I got daylight instead of warm white so the light was blue/sharp white colour rather that the usual yellow white.

Noticeably not as bright as the 50w Halogens I took out of it either.
Looks like I will have to try something else

nephster

Skywalker,

You might want to stick with CFLs rather than LEDS, which *will* be as bright as the halogens and can be dimmed too. Only prob is generally slightly longer than the normal GU10 so trickier for recessed fittings. See eg the Megaman 11w in warm white... plenty of hits on Google and ebay.

zod

I'm using 2W LEDs and they ARE every bit as bright as the old 50W I used to have AND they have a soft light not harsh white.

LEDs have come a long way.

skywalker_208

zod wrote: »

I'm using 2W LEDs and they ARE every bit as bright as the old 50W I used to have AND they have a soft light not harsh white.

LEDs have come a long way.

Hi Zod,

Got a link to the ones you are using or where did you get them?

chris1970

i got 30 plus 2w 'ecopal' brand from ct electric galway, worked out around 13 each , great light from them as bright if not brighter ,(white light) the the 50 w halogen, get you money back it no time, plus switch to air tricty yesterday, esb bill where huge

locka99

chris1970 wrote: »

i got 30 plus 2w 'ecopal' brand from ct electric galway, worked out around 13 each , great light from them as bright if not brighter ,(white light) the the 50 w halogen, get you money back it no time, plus switch to air tricty yesterday, esb bill where huge

I bought about 30 ecopal bulbs for about 9 euro each from National Electrical (I think that's their name) in Cork. These bulbs are excellent, putting out the same kind of light as you would get from a 50W halogen - warm white and very bright - but for 1/25th the power consumption. I highly, highly recommend them.

I also bought 4 1.5W LED bulbs in B&Q and they were useless, projecting a weedy ghostly light that is barely equivalent to 15W bulb. Fortunately (and this will tell you how bad they are) they serve as nightlights on our landing so they're not a complete loss.

Slightly off topic, but the CFL energy bulbs in IKEA are terrible. They might be cheap but they take ages to light up. I wouldn't use CFLs for halogen replacements when good LEDs light instantly, use less power and supposedly last longer.

exaisle

Typically, 50watt halogens produce about 700 lumens (about 14 lumens per watt).

Cree LED's (the most efficiently currently commercially available) produce about 100 lumens per watt (Cree, the manufacturers, have prototyped an LED which produces 161 lumens per watt).

So, to emit the same amount of light (ignoring the actual colour temperature or bandwidth) you would need a 7watt LED at current rates, or if they perfect the higher efficiency LED, about 4.5watts.

However, the frequency of the light produced by LED's is different to that of halogens in that it is over a narrower bandwidth. Halogens produce a lot of light which is invisible to the eye (ultra violet and infra red) and therefore irrelevant in domestic lighting applications.

It's very difficult to equate halogens and LEDs in terms of equivalent wattages. The simplest thing is to get a couple of samples and try them out.

What seems obvious is that LED's are the light source of the future.

E.