LED Bulb Thread

Soldato
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They will be GU5.3 MR16s. They are low voltage Halogens, whereas GU10s are mains voltage halogens.

It will, unfortunately, make finding a good quality LED option a bit harder.

LedHut have five or six MR16 Led lamps, & offer a hassle free 30 days return, so you could try a couple of them & see what they are like.

Go through Quidco, you'll get a voucher & cash back.
 
Soldato
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location, location
LedHut have five or six MR16 Led lamps, & offer a hassle free 30 days return, so you could try a couple of them & see what they are like.

Go through Quidco, you'll get a voucher & cash back.

Read the review on page 28 of issue 9 of Lux Magazine, where they've tested and reported on some of the best halogen retrofits: http://luxmagazine.co.uk/#!/issue/9/page/28
 
Associate
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Each to their own and it depends largely on what you want the lighting for and what type of room you're lighting with them.

I would find a room that was originally lit with 20W halogens extremely dim when those were replaced with 2W LEDs. Costa Coffee was a very early adopter of LED lighting and it was a massive mistake for them. The shops they had converted looked dark and uninviting, and difficult to see well in once inside.

TBH I don't know what the old bulbs were, I'll check tonight. It'll be a good test to see what the old ones were. I'm fairly new to the game, but I've been experimenting, so I do have some thoughts, but as you said, to each their own, it seems from this thread that LED bulbs are not "one size fits all".
 
Soldato
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Each to their own and it depends largely on what you want the lighting for and what type of room you're lighting with them.

I would find a room that was originally lit with 20W halogens extremely dim when those were replaced with 2W LEDs. Costa Coffee was a very early adopter of LED lighting and it was a massive mistake for them. The shops they had converted looked dark and uninviting, and difficult to see well in once inside.

I've replaced 4 50W halogens with 4 2W Philips LED's in a circular fitting and you're correct it isn't quite as bright but it's marginal, the difference in energy consumption however is massive. I have another fitting in the other half of the kitchen so I'll do the same there, I didn't want to jump in with both feet until I saw the difference. :) Just to clarify, the Philips LED's in Tesco are £5 each but it's currently 3 for 2. This offer has been on and off quite often over the last few weeks in my local store so it's worth keeping an eye out for the offer. ;)
 
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Soldato
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Looking at going LED next and then that's me done for the house bar finishing off the bathroom.... and replacing sink... and... :o

But which ones do I go for? You say 2w light bulbs up there but what would be enough for a reasonable sized room in a 2 bed semi?

Living room and landing I have one bulb but in bedroom/bathroom/kitchen I have 2 or 3.
 
Soldato
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I'm not 100% sure this belongs here, but I've just bought a couple of these http://lightpack.tv/

My two main TVs in the house are Philips Ambilight models and I love them. Thought I'd try it out on the PC monitors, seeing as Philips stubbornly refuse to bring the same technology to their own monitor range.
 
Associate
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Hi folks,
I've got lots of downlighters at the moment that I want to swap for LED builds, but I have a few challenges. Firstly the fittings are GU10, but the units they sit in have a decorative cover that effectively sits over the front of the bulb (clips over the rim) this is no problem for many bulbs, but the next challenge is that the where the bulbs are connected to the gu10 plug, they sit inside a plastic cage which is quite tall so a standard gu10 bulb doesn't seem to be tall enough.
At the moment we have 'energy saving' CFL bulbs that run at 11w each, but when you've got 6 tied together, there's still quite a saving to be had by running LEDs.
So my question is, are there any 'tall' GU10 fitting LED bulbs, or any bright ideas on how to get normal ones to fit, bearing in mind that access to each fitting is limited and the cage barely drops out of the hole left in the ceiling :(
 
Soldato
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A photo of the actual light fitting would useful.

Some GU10 fittings have a adjustable lamp holder, you can actually slide the bulb holder forward, by using a different set of fixing holes.
 
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Associate
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Chaps, have you got any recommendations for LED replacement halogen G9 bulbs? I'm struggling to find any dimmable ones, and not sure where to look...


Cannon ya big nobba, didn't realise it was you (EndlessSky? wots that all about) - long time no speak - see my link above - I have had a few G4 leds from UltraLeds and they have been good.
 
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