LED lighting General discussion, read here before posting a question.

Stoner

josip wrote: »

But the 3W version only gives 330lm compared to 800-950lm for a 12V halogen. "All lumens are equal but some lumens are more equal than others?

Great Post OP, please don't take this the wrong way, as you can write and understand the text that I quoted you on, it places you in a position that you know more about lighting and how is is measured than about 95% of the people who post on this thread, so be careful of people pushing products, either because they sell them or are for some reason very attached to a certain lamp.

Stoner

josip wrote: »

OPTIONS/QUESTIONS
The Philips Master LEDs are the most obvious replacement according to Herr Google. I would appear to be able to change bulbs incrementally as they fail. Apart from the high cost £30?:eek: my concerns are that Philips say the 10W is a replacement for 50W Halogens. My understanding is that a 50W halogen has 800-950 lm whereas the Philips only gives out 490lm. Am I missing something? Also, if they need a transformer per downlight and 2 of these have gone so far, I see this as adding to my annual Opex. Finally, don't the transformers themselves consume 10-15W; more than doubling the LED downlight consumption? There was a Philips Master LED pioneer on here a couple of years ago, not sure how he got on though.

On the subject of lumens, the 60 SMDs got good reviews earlier in the thread about being brighter than halogens. But the 3W version only gives 330lm compared to 800-950lm for a 12V halogen. "All lumens are equal but some lumens are more equal than others?

When you measure light on a surface (working plane) the unit is Lux, so we are into square meters, this is why the angle is important, LEDs tend to not have very wide angles, this is due to a number of things, but to allow them to actually deliver a certain amount of lux for a task (say 300 Lux in a kitchen) the energy from the lamp is concentrated. This is why some people think that their LEDs are just fine because they seem as "bright" in some areas but outside those areas they may not be, for example it might be fine to read under an LED light, but the halogen might have given more light around the room, this is usually measured as ratio of the max and min values of "light" in a room, so you could find that after changing your lamps that your max light level is about the same, but your min "light" level is lower, this will result in a lower ratio of max to min, or Uniformity of light.

So your comments about some lumens being more equal than others is correct but in reality how this may be evident to you might not be directly under your new lamp, but maybe over in a corner or between fittings.

If you have a traffo per fitting you can take each one out and present 220V at each location, however you should not mix the dimming from 230 and 12V, so per switching circuit you could tackle the traffo replacement in groups, getting rid of the lossy units in the ceiling and giving you a GU10 connection per fitting, as you suggested yourself.

Megaman have some very nice 15Watt lamps that you could look at, but always look at the angles of the lamps, your current lamps give you 36 degrees LEDs tend to have sharper beams for example 24 degrees. The 7W Philips master LEDs is a decent lamp but in your case you will likely get some "pooling" but anyway you look at it getting rid of the traffos is a good idea.

I did something similar, I've been through various CFL and LED options, it was better when i removed the traffos and went with a GU10 connection, so what ever you try it will most likely be a GU10 connection. I'm not 100% sure from your post that you have access to the traffos, but they may just pull down if you take out the fittings and pop your hand up (if the hole is big enough)

So you still have to look at the amount of fittings you need, you might just have to compromise, also as you are talking in the correct units I'm sure you've noticed that there are comparisons with halogen fittings, however a GU10 Halogen is a 230Vac halogen and it does not have the punch of light that the 12V halogens have and Philips base their direct comparisons (understandably) to the GU10 lamp, but you have bypassed this issue by looking at lumens.
With respect to this thread, all halogens are equal but some are more equal than others. Not every 12V 50W halogen is the same either did you measure your halogens or just take a number from the internet? there can be a difference of up to 30-40% between a good 12 50W halogen and a pound shop lamp.

IMHO my advice would be to have a look at the megaman site, they have some nice options with drivers etc, stay away from ebay lamps, the best lighting manufactures with the R&D departments still produce the best lamps, data and testing, Osram, Philips etc.
You might get a lamp that has a huge output but wont last because its drawing too much current, and over heats so someone could claim quite correctly that it is "brighter" but it may not last.
If you buy from a decent source keep the receipt and you will have somewhere to bring the lamps back to if they pop. The SMC arrangements are nice too. To be honest Philips have tried to take on the 50Watt replacement challenge, if you change your fitting to GU10 you could try one and see what you think. In short if you are looking for a LED fitting with a standup guarantee that attempt's to match replace a 50Watt halogen then the Philips unit is a decent punt, except it is a long unit due to the fan (it is cooled backing up the over heating argument above, with out the Fan the lamp will still work, but for less time).

I'm aware of the 15 Watt megaman arrangements being used as replacement 50 Watt lamps, but this would have been more at design stage when the position of the fittings was not fixed.

ledbulb

josip wrote: »

Thanks ledbulb for the reply. However your subsequent wumming of paddy has meant that my post has lost visibilty in this thread and the half an hour I spent trying to describe my confusion has been largely wasted. I appreciate you taking the time to read my post and to reply, however it could have been a lot more valuable and been the instigation of further replies if it had been left at that.

Sorry for that
If you like back to your question
Gu10 led bulbs can work with your old dimmer depend of lamp and depend of your dimmer , halogen dimmers have minimum woltage they can work ,for example some of them need minimum 20watt output so you will need min 5x4w led in one circut. You can buy spacial dimmer for led lights, this dimmers can work with really small woltages.

paddy147

Just a heads up here.

Tesco in Artane Castle and Clarehall are now selling "Tesco" 6 watt GU10 LED lights.

Also "Tesco" B22 and E27 8 watt LED bulbs too.

All are 7 euro each.


Took a B22 bulb out and had a look at it,seems ok to look at,but wouldnt know how good or bad it may be.







PS-Seen as I was very recently accused by certain people of working for Eurosales/Philips.Im waiting for some idiot to now say/accuse me that I work for Tesco.;):rolleyes::pac::D

Bruthal

paddy147 wrote: »

Just a heads up here.

Tesco in Artane Castle and Clarehall are now selling "Tesco" 6 watt GU10 LED lights.

Also "Tesco" B22 and E27 8 watt LED bulbs too.

All are 7 euro each.


Took a B22 bulb out and had a look at it,seems ok to look at,but wouldnt know how good or bad it may be.







PS-Seen as I was very recently accused by certain people of working for Eurosales/Philips.Im waiting for some idiot to now say/accuse me that I work for Tesco.;):rolleyes::pac::D

How`s the job in tesco goin:D

paddy147

robbie7730 wrote: »

How`s the job in tesco goin:D

See,what did I say?????:D:D

paddy147

robbie7730 wrote: »

How`s the job in tesco goin:D

Ah well its not that bad at all.

Few hours in Eurosales in the morning,then hop on me bmx and pedal as fast as I can down to Ikea,3 hours working there packing their LED lights on the shelves,and then back on the bmx to Tesco Clarehall and stack the shelves till 9pm.

Then spend an hour with my girlfriend at night and then off to bed for a sleep.

Yeah,its all good working for all 3 companies.:pac::D:D:D

ted1

paddy147 wrote: »

Just a heads up here.

Tesco in Artane Castle and Clarehall are now selling "Tesco" 6 watt GU10 LED lights.

Also "Tesco" B22 and E27 8 watt LED bulbs too.

All are 7 euro each.


Took a B22 bulb out and had a look at it,seems ok to look at,but wouldnt know how good or bad it may be.

Have you seen the 6W LED's in action?
I know that the Philips Master 6w claim to be the equivalent of 50w GU10's. for €20 cheaper it'd be intresting to see.

I've 8 50W GU10's in the kitchen that I'd like to replace but the payback period is to long for my likings, but for €7 a lamp i could justify it.

paddy147

ted1 wrote: »

Have you seen the 6W LED's in action?
I know that the Philips Master 6w claim to be the equivalent of 50w GU10's. for €20 cheaper it'd be intresting to see.

I've 8 50W GU10's in the kitchen that I'd like to replace but the payback period is to long for my likings, but for €7 a lamp i could justify it.

I havent bought the Tesco LEDs....was just giving a "heads up" to anyone on the lookout for them.:)

bennyob

Can anyone give an opinion on these...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Life-Lamp-Company-replacements/dp/B006UR5IUY/ref=sr_1_1?s=lighting&ie=UTF8&qid=1352416877&sr=1-1

blahblah06

Ok lads need your help.
Ive bought 15 6 watt mr16 led bulbs off ebay..

I put them into the holders and some of them flicker ever so slightly but I can notice it.

What do I need to do ? Ive heard of transformers but are they hard to fit ?

WhiteNoSugar

@ blahblah06

They are flickering because the minimum load of most electronic transformers is 20W. It will fail eventually and probably take the LED lamp out with it.

Options

1. Replace the individual traffos with LED drivers
2. Change the whole circuit to 12v (bypass all the transformers and put a 100W LED Constant Current driver on the circuit.
2. Get rid of the traffos altogether and replace with a GU10 cap and GU10 LEDs.

WhiteNoSugar

bennyob wrote: »

Can anyone give an opinion on these...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Life-Lamp-Company-replacements/dp/B006UR5IUY/ref=sr_1_1?s=lighting&ie=UTF8&qid=1352416877&sr=1-1

Lot's of LEDs need lots of cooling. The heatsink on that doesn't impress me.


I suggest you google "5W GU10 SMD5050 Ireland" for a comparable product from a local supplier.

WhiteNoSugar

Right now there isn't a retrofit LED lamps out there to compare with a good quality halogen 50W.
A good quality Halogen lamp delivers about 16 Lm/W which equates to 800Lm for a 50W.
When all is said and done an LED is about 7 times more efficient. So to compare with a 50W lamp you need (theoretically) slightly over 7W of an LED.

BUT

because you are now pushing that much current through the LED array you are making the LEDs much hotter and because of the size limitation of the MR16 form factor the laws of thermondynamics kick in as you simply don't have enough room to cool the LEDs properly so they get warmer, and efficiency drops correspondingly so now you get fewer Lumen/Watt.

Which all means that if you want to replace a 50W halogen spot and you don't want to compromise on light output then your only option is a dedicated fitting with a proper heatsink. There are some good 10W units out there that are really good light sources and will last a long long time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing LEDs, far from it. I just get annoyed seeing products being misrepresented as something they're not.

The bottom line here is that you need to draw a line between Consumer Grade and Professional Grade products. Professional grade products need to be better (and more expensive) because they are on for longer hours and maintenance callouts are expensive.

For consumer grade lighting, anything 5W pushing 320Lm or better is a perfectly adequate product. Why? Because the good Lord gave us eyes that adjust to the available light, so after a few minutes you'll see just as well by the light of a 35W as you did from a 50W... (obviously there are exceptions... reading...threading a needle etc..)

Colour
In terms of colour I think 3000-3500K is fine for the kitchen or any other task area. For living/dining room you probably want to go with a 2700 or 2800 CCT lamp (CCT stands for Correlated Colour Temperature, which is the colour of a piece of Iron heated to that temperature in degrees Kelvin)

Dimming LEDs
Yes, some LEDs bulbs with good drivers can be dimmed. Chances are your existing dimmer won't like LEDs because most legacy dimmers expect a load of 60W or more to operate properly.

Mod edit:
text removed

freddyuk

bennyob wrote: »

Can anyone give an opinion on these...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Life-Lamp-Company-replacements/dp/B006UR5IUY/ref=sr_1_1?s=lighting&ie=UTF8&qid=1352416877&sr=1-1

When it states "55w out put brighbness" it should give you a clue!!!!
A spell checker costs nothing but worse is the fact that watts is not a measure of output brightness. (Whatever that might be).
If you blow up the spectrum graph it seems to suggest all the readings are 0000 so maybe it is an RGB herring....allegedly.;)

WhiteNoSugar

LOL, they're being sold by a crowd called "Strictly Lamps".. check out their product page:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aag/main?ie=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfilled=&isCBA=&marketplaceID=A1F83G8C2ARO7P&orderID=&seller=A11XEBUJSDP4OW

blahblah06

WhiteNoSugar wrote: »

@ blahblah06

They are flickering because the minimum load of most electronic transformers is 20W. It will fail eventually and probably take the LED lamp out with it.

Options

1. Replace the individual traffos with LED drivers
2. Change the whole circuit to 12v (bypass all the transformers and put a 100W LED Constant Current driver on the circuit.
2. Get rid of the traffos altogether and replace with a GU10 cap and GU10 LEDs.

Cheers for this. Ok the led bulbs are 6w bulbs so would a driver like this work ?
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/300725932650?var=600047133236&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

Obviously I buy the 6 w version right?

I was thinking of the gu 10 but it just wouldnt pay to replace to this as already have the bulbs and the whole house has mr16

arikv

I bought one of those Tesco GU10 6W leds 9I've had it for a day now and thought I'll share my limited experience (and hope to read some others), the light is cold white but bright, my dimmer seems to work with it (I had only 50W Halogens before. Seems okay to me but needs to be part of strip or multiple, concentrated downlights as it's a spot led.
Overall I'm very happy with it, and with a price tag of 7 Euro per bulb, if it lasts over a year (it said 25 years on the box) than happy days.

eddiem74

I normally stick in a few coloured GU10 50W bulbs at Christmas in the hall/porch to get into the spirit of the season.

Any LED equivalents or alternative suggestions?

Scartbeg

eddiem74 wrote: »

I normally stick in a few coloured GU10 50W bulbs at Christmas in the hall/porch to get into the spirit of the season.

Any LED equivalents or alternative suggestions?

Don't think I'm allowed to name the supplier, but I got colour changing GU10s for €12 including remote control from an Irish website. Very happy with them (installed as bathroom mood lighting)

2011

Scartbeg wrote: »

Don't think I'm allowed to name the supplier, but I got colour changing GU10s for €12

Blatant advertising is not permitted, but I have no issue with you mentioning a supplier under these circumstances.

Scartbeg

2011 wrote: »

Blatant advertising is not permitted, but I have no issue with you mentioning a supplier under these circumstances.

OK then - I got mine from Future LED
http://www.futureled.ie/gu10-bulbs/45-remote-controlled-colour-changing-gu10.html

Only annoyance is that they automatically go into a colour changing mode when power is applied, so you need to use the remote to select a fixed colour. Now I think of it, this is probably intentional, as if you had several of these bulbs it would be difficult to get them to synchronise their colour changes using the remote

They also do adapters from GU10 to other light fittings. Can't vouch for any of their other products.

Stoner

WhiteNoSugar wrote: »

Who am I?
I'm a technical guy in the LED business but I'm not going to say for whom this forum. I'm just here to clear up a few issues and help a few folks out.

WhiteNoSugar,

Advice and debate is always good, answering a question nobody asked, telling people you work for a company and inviting them to PM you is not.

This is not the embarrassing illnesses forum, there is no need to invite PMs, this is a discussion forum and we share our information and invite you to do the same, there is only one reason to invite PMs here and that is to communicate messages that are not permitted on this forum.

There is no issue with your company being added to the list of suppliers, just PM a mod and we will do it.

Welcome to the forum:)

Gr1f

Hi,
I have a question for you. I am looking to replace 30 GU10 Halogen bulbs. LED might seem like an obvious replacement however, the LEDs I have tried out had a refresh/flicker rate (similar to old fluorescent lights). Noticeable when you move your hand in front of your face and it looks like an old movie... This effect would not work for me at all and i'd prefer Halogen constant light. Can anyone tell me do all LED replacements have the same flicker issue? If not, which make would you suggest? I was looking at Philips MV 4-35W GU10 2700K 40D Warm White....

Steve

Gr1f wrote: »

Hi,
I have a question for you. I am looking to replace 30 GU10 Halogen bulbs. LED might seem like an obvious replacement however, the LEDs I have tried out had a refresh/flicker rate (similar to old fluorescent lights). Noticeable when you move your hand in front of your face and it looks like an old movie... This effect would not work for me at all and i'd prefer Halogen constant light. Can anyone tell me do all LED replacements have the same flicker issue? If not, which make would you suggest? I was looking at Philips MV 4-35W GU10 2700K 40D Warm White....

I have these installed, I think they're the same as the ones you looked at. They are all on non-dimmed switches and there's no noticeable flicker at all.

Were they on a dimmer circuit when you looked at them?

WhiteNoSugar

Gr1f wrote: »

Hi,
I have a question for you. I am looking to replace 30 GU10 Halogen bulbs. LED might seem like an obvious replacement however, the LEDs I have tried out had a refresh/flicker rate (similar to old fluorescent lights). Noticeable when you move your hand in front of your face and it looks like an old movie... This effect would not work for me at all and i'd prefer Halogen constant light. Can anyone tell me do all LED replacements have the same flicker issue? If not, which make would you suggest? I was looking at Philips MV 4-35W GU10 2700K 40D Warm White....

I think Steve's hit the nail on the head here. A dimmer is the most likely cause of the flicker, even when left turned all the way up.

Not all LEDs flicker like this but you probably want to get yourself a low-load dimmer as most dimmers have a minimum load requirement of 60W to operate correctly.
Google "v-pro led dimmers" and you should find some local webstores selling V-Pro dimmers which are pretty good at handling low loads.
How well the GU10s dim is another matter. Some are really good, many only dim down to 20% or so. YMMV

Gr1f

Thanks for the reply guys. For this application they won't be on a dimmer. However, you're correct. I trailed the ones I had an issue with (not sure what brand) on a dimmer circuit originally at home. They and a high frequency flicker even without being dimmed.

I'll try to get my hands on a couple of Philips MASTER LED 4W and see what they're like.

Had a reply from Peter in Ledvista, he recommends the Philips too.

paddy147

WhiteNoSugar wrote: »

I think Steve's hit the nail on the head here. A dimmer is the most likely cause of the flicker, even when left turned all the way up.

Not all LEDs flicker like this but you probably want to get yourself a low-load dimmer as most dimmers have a minimum load requirement of 60W to operate correctly.
Google "v-pro led dimmers" and you should find some local webstores selling V-Pro dimmers which are pretty good at handling low loads.
How well the GU10s dim is another matter. Some are really good, many only dim down to 20% or so. YMMV

The Philips Master 4w dim up and down very well indeed.

Have them on a dimmer panel in my kitchen/dining area and also in my open plan living area too.

They only work/dim with "certain types of dimmer"..so you need to make sure you buy the correct dimmer switch/panel for them to dim up and down correctly.

Otherwize they will flicker.


Hope this helps.:)

danger_mouse_tm

paddy147 wrote: »

The Philips Master 4w dim up and down very well indeed.

Have them on a dimmer panel in my kitchen/dining area and also in my open plan living area too.

They only work/dim with "certain types of dimmer"..so you need to make sure you buy the correct dimmer switch/panel for them to dim up and down correctly.

Otherwize they will flicker.


Hope this helps.:)

Which dimmer did you get paddy? I'm running four rooms on the master LEDs. I need three single dimmer switches and one double.

Stoner

danger_mouse_tm wrote: »

Which dimmer did you get paddy? I'm running four rooms on the master LEDs. I need three single dimmer switches and one double.

most dimmers are rated for something like 250 Watt or 500Watts, but many only start to operate about 20Watts, so you need to check your dimmer for its range and make sure you have load (watts) on it. A dimmer might work in someones house because that have 8 number 4Watt LEDs installed (8*4W=32 Watt and sits in the 20W to 250W range of certain dimmers), it may not work for only 4 number 4W LEDS

So you will need to know how many lamps you want to dim too, it's a factor