A) why, with all the care and attention in the world do mine only last a couple of months? I did buy a pack of a “generic” brand from eBay, maybe that’s why?

B) Any reason I can’t straight swap the duds with LED version of the same?

A) why, with all the care and attention in the world do mine only last a couple of months?

Because they are halogen.

B) Any reason I can’t straight swap the duds with LED version of the same?

No reason at all.

Get LEDs.
I’ve changed all mine for these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281636313745

I had 18W halogens in, these are very slightly dimmer, but not a problem, as we have 5 of them in the fitting.

Kryton57 – Member
B) Any reason I can’t straight swap the duds with LED version of the same?

Some of them are a fair bit larger, the one I bought first time around was actually twice the width of the halogen, therefore wouldn’t fit inside the fancy glass cover of the light properly. A lot of the listings now have the width for this reason.

Thanks chaps. I need dimmable ones alanl but I’ve found some, with sizes.

Googling halogens indeed has them less than satisfactory. Notibly OEM one supplied seem to be the worst, I’m annoyed now I have 22 of the buggers around the house!

Interested in dimmable ones, could you post the link please as I need 2 for a cooker hood.

And yes I’ve found g4/g9 to be a bit crap. I’ve swapped all my g4 under cabinet kitchen lights to led fittings as I couldn’t find any led’s that would fit.

I was thinking something like this, warm white, 5w

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0146D69HY?psc=1

Cheers but they’re not dimmable

B&Q have a reet good range of LED’s now (they do here anyway), recently replaced some of those stupid small bulbs you get. I love they way they say they’ll last 20 000 hours, they never ever do! LED’s have easily outlasted the old bulbs.

Hmmm…

So it turns out “dimmable” is subjective – some need a special “LED Dimmer switch”.

Can anyone comment if this is true for all LED’s or if there are some that can work with a standard dimmer switch?

I have dimmable LED’s in the living room, on a normal dimmer, they work fine. Not g9’S though, e27 I think. Don’t see why they wouldn’t work with a normal dimmer though.