Household LED bulbs

[fatblokish]

Are they worth it?

Perhaps for hard to reach places they can replace conventional bulbs and be seen as a fit n forget solution.

In our house we have replaced all the conventional bulbs with cfl types, except for the downlighters in which we have halogens. Is it worth the expense of replacing halogen with LED spotlights? Usual hours running etc.

I see that 2w LEDs are advertised as being equivalent to a 35 halogen; does this sound reasonable? And £9 quid a bulb for the LED; seems like a lot of power would need to be consumed before a payback was reached.

Any guidance would be very well received.

 

[sheddy]

12v or 240v ?

 

[fatblokish]

12v or 240v ?

A few of both. And then a few (presently) dimmable 12v capsules...

 

[amasidlover]

We've just put them in our refurbished house and have found them to be really good - we put in about 1.5 times more than the electrician would have normally used for 50W halogens and found that gives a really good light level. We went for the daylight simulation ones (as I actually dislike the orange light that incandescent bulbs give) and they are really nice.

We paid £8.50 per bulb for 4W bulbs, I think they need to last about 1/3rd of their 'estimated life' with electricity prices as they are. The heating argument is a good one, but as our heating is off 8 months of the year then most of the year we don't want/need our lights to be heating the house.

 

[summerdays]

We've got loads in our house ... we've been experimenting to find the best ones for each situation. We have one 6 w one that is incredibly bright - the kids actually complained. We also have changed our exterior security lights so that we now have a 20 w one at the back ... it isn't as bright as the one it replaced but to me looks quite like moonlight in the garden, and the one at the front is 30 w and it seems to be much brighter than the 20 w one. One of the bulbs is 2 w and I find it totally fine.

(Also had a missed delivery today which apparently was yet another LED bulb )

Another brilliant use for them that Mr Summerdays has found is in strip form ... they are now strung along the ridge of our attic which illuminates that space brilliantly.

The advantage of the LED over the CFL is that you don't get that delayed start and they are often smaller so easier to fit into certain lamp holders.

 

[2PedalsTez]

O tried some LED spots in my kitchen (row of four) the light made me feel ill! It had a blue/white tint to it. I have got used to them now, but I don't think they are as good as the normal halogen bulbs (but significantly cheaper to run)

 

[sheddy]

Another brilliant use for them that Mr Summerdays has found is in strip form ... they are now strung along the ridge of our attic which illuminates that space brilliantly
linky please - we want to illuminate the tops of the bookshelves

 

[summerdays]

Another brilliant use for them that Mr Summerdays has found is in strip form ... they are now strung along the ridge of our attic which illuminates that space brilliantly
linky please - we want to illuminate the tops of the bookshelves

I'll try to ask him tonight!

 

[summerdays]

O tried some LED spots in my kitchen (row of four) the light made me feel ill! It had a blue/white tint to it. I have got used to them now, but I don't think they are as good as the normal halogen bulbs (but significantly cheaper to run)

Many of the sites selling LED bulbs now list their temperature so that you can choose how blue or yellow you want the light to be - currently a point of dispute in our house where he prefers the cooler end and I'm preferring a warmer colour.

 

[Red Light]

You get what you pay for and there are a lot of cheap Chinese LED lights out there with very poor colour balance and questionable lifetime. You have to pay a bit more to get ones which are correctly colour balanced and you can even get ones where you can change the colour balance to suit your mood. If you want some really good made in Britain lights try PhotonStar

 

[User482]

2W LED is nowhere near 35W halogen. I have a 5W MR16 LED in my bike light - I'd say it's about equivalent to 20W. You may find that's bright enough, though.

 

[meenaghman]

Equivalency seems to be about 10%.. ie 3W=~30Watt halogen - 4W=~40W. There are other things to consider such as temperature (Colour) and beam angle too. I have swapped out 1400W of Halogen bulbs in the kitchen alone for about 120W of LED.. various sorts - Some are 12V some were 12V and I converted them to 240V. Meant getting rid of dimmers and with the 12V ones getting proper LED drivers (some of the transformers were electrical rather than electronic and the LED drivers are only 3-4 quid a pop). We have other halogens throughout the house.. suffice to say seen our daily electric usage go from >30units/day in winter time to about 22units.. and thats with extra computer server running. My wife doesn't like all of them.. we've got some different sorts.. I still have 2 to do where I couldn't get the transformer out of the ceiling area.(all the Halogens were 12V). Stay away from the multi - led bulbs ie 60/80 multi-leds .. those seem to blow easily.. from brother's and sisters both with new build houses experience. There are now bulbs with SMD LEDs (surface mounted LEDs) and also ones with 3, 4 X 1Watt or 2 Watt LEDs which seem to be better. Finally if replacing 12V with 12V you may find interference on radio.. don't be fooled by ROHS etc.. our chinese friends can stick those on without caring..so even buying off a UK (I got lots of my bulbs from Hong Kong (No one in UK was doing them at the time)) based supplier one can have this problem.. Ironically some of the ones I got from China don't cause this. Have a look on google with LED radio interference.. There are some suppliers in the UK who test their bulbs and will guarantee. Me I just shielded my radio and it seems to work now.
Overall LEDs aren't quite there in light terms but I see the really big companies starting to produce bulbs now and I reckon that I'll be swapping out one or two in the near future. The next experiment is to get a few CFL replacement equivalents, as those bulbs really do my head in.

 

[subaqua]

Ikea 4W LED GU10 cap. nice light and the housing looks really good too. phillips do a 6W LED for about £7 in Homebase and Tesco. have a mix of both in our new lofty conversion as they are better than multiple 50W halogens

Ikea also do a LED replacement for CFL E14 cap lamps.

 

[Red Light]

Equivalency seems to be about 10%.. ie 3W=~30Watt halogen - 4W=~40W. There are other things to consider such as temperature (Colour) and beam angle too. I have swapped out 1400W of Halogen bulbs in the kitchen alone for about 120W of LED.. various sorts - Some are 12V some were 12V and I converted them to 240V. Meant getting rid of dimmers and with the 12V ones getting proper LED drivers (some of the transformers were electrical rather than electronic and the LED drivers are only 3-4 quid a pop). We have other halogens throughout the house.. suffice to say seen our daily electric usage go from >30units/day in winter time to about 22units.. and thats with extra computer server running. My wife doesn't like all of them.. we've got some different sorts.. I still have 2 to do where I couldn't get the transformer out of the ceiling area.(all the Halogens were 12V). Stay away from the multi - led bulbs ie 60/80 multi-leds .. those seem to blow easily.. from brother's and sisters both with new build houses experience. There are now bulbs with SMD LEDs (surface mounted LEDs) and also ones with 3, 4 X 1Watt or 2 Watt LEDs which seem to be better. Finally if replacing 12V with 12V you may find interference on radio.. don't be fooled by ROHS etc.. our chinese friends can stick those on without caring..so even buying off a UK (I got lots of my bulbs from Hong Kong (No one in UK was doing them at the time)) based supplier one can have this problem.. Ironically some of the ones I got from China don't cause this. Have a look on google with LED radio interference.. There are some suppliers in the UK who test their bulbs and will guarantee. Me I just shielded my radio and it seems to work now.
Overall LEDs aren't quite there in light terms but I see the really big companies starting to produce bulbs now and I reckon that I'll be swapping out one or two in the near future. The next experiment is to get a few CFL replacement equivalents, as those bulbs really do my head in.

Performance is improving all the time and LEDs are getting brighter and brighter with each new generation. Just compare for example bicycle LED lights of three years ago with today. But its not cheap to do a good LED and driver and there are a lot of cheap ones out there with all sorts of problems which are giving them an unnecessary poor reputation for brightness, colour, lifetime, poor dimmer control, interference etc. On a properly made one none of them should blow - the main lifetime limiting factor is the capacitors in the drive circuit not the LEDs which should last twice as long. If you want something reasonable stick with a recognised name, not something cheap off the internet, even if it costs you a bit more.

 

[PpPete]

I got some 3.7W GU10 LED from B&Q - to replace the horribly dim CFLs that had themselves replaced 50W Halogens.
The LED ones had nothing like the claimed lifetime.... less than a year.
Had good reports of the Aurora 6W ones available on Amazon, so will maybe try those next.