Light bulbs.

It seems that for some reason, I’ve not had to purchase a light bulb for years. And in that time the choice has gone from 40w 60w 100w screw/bayonet, to an absolutely bewildering selection of sizes and types.
I’ve just recently replaced a lamp in my lounge. After living with it for a few days I’ve decided that the light it emits is inappropriate for its situation. It gives off a dimmable, but ultra white light, which would be great for an operating theatre for example, but too damn clinical for evenings in front of the telly. The old lamp gave out a kind of nice soft, orangey oldschool vibe.

So upon investigating the business end of both lamps it seems the new one isn’t a bulb at all, but a little LED thing! A GY6.35 to be precise. Whereas the old one had a more standard screw-in bulb rated at 1800k colour temperature. So can I just replace the LED with an 1800k LED? Or is that specific colour temperature ‘bulb only’. Maybe the old bulb had been in since the 70’s and had a healthy film of nicotine… or perhaps it was one of these retro type bulbs you see in every bar and restaurant these days. Either way, it’s all very confusing.

I honestly don’t think anyone knows anymore.

Smart Bulbs are the only solution I’ve found. Modern normal led bulbs are horrible. With the smart ones you can tweak the colour, temp and brightness to whatever you want

I honestly don’t think anyone knows anymore.

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Whenever i go into band q for a bulb i find the bulb section, look at it for 5 minutes then go off to try and find the actual bulb section. Only to go back to where I started then leave empty handed

Smart Bulbs

Oh god, please don’t tell me that all lamps now need to be connected to the internet and controlled via an app. I just want a lamp, preferably dimmable. It doesn’t need to connect to Facebook or calculate my macro-nutrients.

So can I just replace the LED with an 1800k LED? Or is that specific colour temperature ‘bulb only’.

you should be able to get pretty close – 100k or so isn’t noticable, 1000k is.

1800k is extremely yellow though. a traditional bulb is more like 2700k. What colour is printed on the new light bulbs (if any)?

2700k might work. osram are at least not some cheap chinese tat

What colour is printed on the new light bulbs

Good question. It appears to be entombed within the metallic lamp head above a seriously hot piece of glass. Will check tomorrow.

I didn’t buy the new LED bulb, it was already in the new (to me) lamp which came out of one these vintage/retro shops.

Just take your lamp in and see which one you like best in the shop.

Most bulbs are available in different Kelvin colours, often described as warm and cool on the box

Just look for a warm white led, not the more clinical white version. Also, don’t be fooled by the bulbs marked energy saving as they are sometimes just fluorescent bulbs in a rounded bulb-like housing. They start really dull and take a couple of minutes to warm up to full power.

Whenever i go into band q for a bulb i find the bulb section, look at it for 5 minutes then go off to try and find the actual bulb section. Only to go back to where I started then leave empty handed

Yeah right!

Just take your lamp in and see which one you like best in the shop.

Ok. If you don’t hear from me I’ve probably been sectioned after wandering round Wilko with a standard lamp.

all my lights are led warm whites.  gives that orange cast that mimics incandescants

I don’t know if they do them in your size but Philips do a range of dimmable led bulbs called warmglow (their spelling may differ) which emit a warmer light as they get dimmer. We’ve got them in a few of our rooms now and I like them.

You may still have to pick a starting temp but if they have the bulb shape that you need you sound like you probably just want the lowest they do.

https://www.lighting.philips.co.uk/consumer/choose-a-bulb/warmglow

I’ve recently changed all mine for 4k led’s in ceiling lights. 4k to me gives a more natural light. Lamps have all got 2700k in them as it’s a nice warm yellowey colour, more like old school ones.

6k ones give off that nasty blueish factory light.

Oh god, please don’t tell me that all lamps now need to be connected to the internet and controlled via an app. I just want a lamp, preferably dimmable. It doesn’t need to connect to Facebook or calculate my macro-nutrients.

No, they don’t. I replaced every bulb in the house about three-four years ago, because some were very dim incandescent bulbs, and others were those ghastly ’energy saving’ fluorescent things that my mum had got hold of. I bought most of them from Wilco’s, including an LED replacement for the ceiling fluorescent strip-light in the kitchen, and I also had some incandescent strip-lights under a wall-mounted cupboard that I replaced as well with led units.

While I seldom use the main ceiling lights, they’re all warm white, the under-cupboard lights can be either warm or cool, depending on which way you click the switch, and none of them are harsh and over-bright.

I’ve also got several little IKEA desk lights which are 12v, and had halogen bulb in them, which used to get blisteringly hot! I found LED replacement ‘bulb’s’ which are a straight plug in, and I use one on the coffee table in the evening when watching telly – it gives enough light to move around, without reflecting on the telly screen.

Just look for warm white leds, you can get really nice old-school filament bulbs which give a lovely warm glow, they’re more decorative than most, and are probably better used in accent lighting, but the range now is vast, without going near smart-lighting.

I replaced every bulb in the house about three-four years ago

I replaced a lot of them when we moved in, some with smarts – either with the stupidly expensive Philips Hue (ooh the Zigbee) I brought from the old house or the Tesco Calex which aren’t as good but are £8 rather than £47 – and some with regular GU10s which matched each other. Before that they were a horrid mix of varying warmths and technologies, just swapping the awful halogen ones out for LED probably paid for itself inside of three months.

I haven’t done them all because a) there’s no point in some rooms and b) I’d have needed a second mortgage, there are a lot of ceiling bulbs in this house. Off the top of my head there’s 9 in the kitchen, 7 in the back room and 18 in the front room, that would’ve been £300 in Calex before I even think about upstairs or ancillary areas like the stairs.

About 10 years ago, as an experiment, we fitted all cool white bulbs in our lounge. It took no more than one evening to realize the rest of the house was bathed in a sickly yellow, and we had to change the lot. Now the whole house is cool white, even the fridge had to change! No more Victorian incandescent lighting for us. It only looks odd if you mix colour temperatures, my preferred temperature is in the 4500-5000 range. We also have RGB mood lighting too where we can set the exact colour in addition to the cool white. Very modern. I mostly buy from eBay from places like ranpo lighting mall.

Smart Bulbs are the only solution I’ve found. Modern normal led bulbs are horrible. With the smart ones you can tweak the colour, temp and brightness to whatever you want

nah. Of course you can tweak with smart bulbs, but buy the correct warmth/brightness of a decent LED bulb and they’re fine. I replaced some G9s recently, side by side with the old halogen I can’t tell the difference.

They were cheapies from Amazon… go by the reviews and you might get lucky. Otherwise Osram are a decent “known” brand (RS sell them). Or Philips, obviously.

UPDATE.

In the light of day, it seems that the new bulb isn’t a LED as I first thought. Just a very small bulb. I can see the twirly wire (filament?). Can’t for the life of me work out how to get it out for a closer look though.

Edit: got it out, but no markings or information printed on the bulb. Dammit.

It’s a halogen. Just pull it out to remove it.
EDIT to your EDIT: just replace it with a 3-4W 2700K warm white LED.

Thanks!

Kelvin is a measurement of temperature, equivalent in increments to Celsius, although starting at absolute zero. That I get.
What I don’t get is that when the colour goes UP the Kelvin scale, temperature increasing, the light gets bluer/colder. Surely that’s the opposite to what it should be. Is it some kind of inverse Kelvin?

Counterintuitive, isn’t it. Think about what happens when you heat up metal – what colour does it turn first?

Most bulbs are available in different Kelvin colours, often described as warm and cool on the box

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I made the mistake of getting some kitchen lights in a cool temperature and it looked like an operating theatre. Lesson learned.

What I don’t get is that when the colour goes UP the Kelvin scale, temperature increasing, the light gets bluer/colder. Surely that’s the opposite to what it should be. Is it some kind of inverse Kelvin?

If you want the actual answer its to do with a physical process called “black body radiation”

Its called a “black body” because its only radiating light because of its temperature not due to anything else (like being on fire!)

If you take something with a really high melting point and heat it to 600-700K it will give off dull red glow then a strong red – orange glow at about 1000k then shifting through yellow to white and blue as it gets hotter. if you could keep heating it eventually it would only be giving off light in UV and wouldn’t really glow at all.

Astronomers classify stars this way, their colour tells you their temperature. Blue stars are much hotter than yellow ones

LED lamp manufacturers have adopted this Kelvin colour scale as a standard way of describing the colour of their lamps / emitters but in the case of LEDs it actually has nothing to do with temperature

Ref colour temperature – I fought for some time to have all the T5 tubes to be changed in our office for correctly chosen and binned, matched colours. It was horrendous previously.

Remember also to look up Colour Rendering Index ( CRI or sometimes Colour Quality ) when buying your LED products. This is very important in making sure things ‘look’ right – it was a key factor when designing lighting schemes in shops etc to make sure the clothes look correct and as they would when under natural sunlight.

A lamp with poor CRI may seem to emit the same colour light as one with a high CRI, however due to ‘gaps’ in the spectrum it can affect the things your looking at – just like the old sodium street lamps dont light up Red cars parked on the street.

You want CRIs of high 80s or 90s for things to look right. Dont buy LED products where this information is not available.

(Ex commerical lighting designer!).

Every day’s a school day! Ta VM
{Goes away and Googles Black Body Radiation}

On top of all that – remember that if you use a dimmer, you can’t necessarily just buy a dimmable LED & expect it to work. If you se a normal dimmer (that works with incandescent bulbs) you will either end up with a really flickery, erratic LED or it just won’t work. We had to swap the dimmer switch in our living room & are about to buy some G9 dimmable LEDs for the living room & will probably have to swap the dimmer there too.

Some info here:

https://blog.lightbulbs-direct.com/dimming-for-dummies/

Oh ffs. Sod it, where’s the candles.

🙂