MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Tried a light today - £15 for a 3W LED, 240V, GU10, warm light. It looks good. Its all they had in the local shop. I'm thinking of ordering some more, but wondered if anyone has an opinion on this.
It looked poor against a 50W halogen, despite claims that 3W LED is 35W equivalent. The Halogen looks like it gives out many times more useable light at an improved colour. I'll need at least 4 of these to make teh equivalent of one halogen, I think.
I will typically have these lights on for 3 hours a day, so I worked out that will save me £90 per lamp before I move house, so it is worth looking at.
I'm planning to use the lights in ceiling recesses, so GU10 looks like a good size.
Has anyone any tried out the daylight coloured LEDs?
Has anyone tried some of the 5W versions I've seen?
Any recommendations?
What is needed to make these light dimmable (if I find they need it)?
I think you want to be looking at Megaman 11W units from the material Ive read so far.
Im spec'ing my new build at the moment and these are where Im leaning so far. Going to go to some wholesalers and do some testing in due course - after all a whole house worth (about 50 of them) is a fair bit of cash....
Have a look at the GU10 flouresant lamps they are very good and use 20% of the power of a normal GU10 and some are now dimable (but expensive)
http://www.lightingdirectory.com/products/article/181
imho it is a bit early for leds at the mo another 2 years and they will be the thing to fit alas the construction industry is lagging behind the cycle industry 😕
I've got these in my house. They are ace, bright, warm and nice spread of light.
[url= http://www.litebulbs.co.uk/product/22621/exergi-hyperbright-gu10-led-44-watt-50000h-warm-white-wide-flood.aspx ]Exergi GU10 bulbs[/url]
The downside is that they are very expensive.
Exergi GU10 bulbs £9 cheaper at amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/LED-GU10-EXERGI-HyperBright/dp/B002A0689U
claims that 3W LED is 35W equivalent.
Usual lighting BS I'm afraid. At best LEDs do 3 times as well as halogen.
Megaman is the place to go. They do all sorts of good energy saving lamps - some dimmable even with a standard light switch.
They are compact fluorescent downlights with a GU10 cap so will fit into a standard downlight. They are slightly longer than a standard GU10 so you might need to bodge the fitting somehow but this shouldn't be a problem.
We find them brighter than a standard halogen lamp with a wider light distribution and a different (whiter) colour. They aren't as 'twinkly' as the halogens.
I have found that the retro-fit led bulbs to be poor when compared to the lights they are replacing, So when it comes to downlighters fitted into ceilings, I would fit fire rated led fittngs from the likes of Collingwood and Robus. The energy consumption of these are 9-10Watts, anything less and you won't get 50Watt equivalent at the moment. The fittings are expensive when compared to halogens and the like, but the energy savings and life expectancy more than makes up for it.
Not keen on Megaman at the moment as there are a few rumbles about their reliability.
We've managed to light our entire kitchen using only 12V LED halogen replacements and LED ribbon tape unde the units.
However (and I'm going off to find the brand name of the LED), they have a major flaw. We assumed they were wired very simply, with the array of 24 surface mount LEDs wired to a bridge rectifier. However, whenever they were connected to any DC transformer (including fully rectified, stabilised supplies), they kicked out so much EM interference that FM radios didn't work.
We took one apart today and discovered some quite complicated circuitry in the base (including a giant capacitor and an inductor. Now, assuming this kit isn't being used to report back to the Chinese embassy, we can only concede that it's part of the transformer circuitry from the GU10 version, which doesn't suffer from the interference problem.
The lights are perfect, otherwise, but we're sending the whole lot back to the shop to get them replaced with their GU10 equivalent.
Used to work for Robus and there fixed LED downlight is pretty bright for what its worth!
The replacement lamps are all shite.... to produce the light output the heatsink would be huge, instead they make them GU10 size and they dont last/are to dim.
Robus LED unit (RF110LED etc...) is also dimmable on a standard plate.
Megaman are pants, they have had issues of failure from overheating in small fittings. The colours are a bit pants and the dimming seems to flicker til its warmed up.
My advice would be to go with LV.... not mega energy efficient but a 35w MR16 lamp will give you 50w of GU10 and last longer. Much cheaper than using LEDs and you can get different heat variants (aluminium backed etc. )