Low energy Halogen light bulbs

gromituk

That price is a rip-off: for instance http://www.ebulbshop.com/acatalog/GU10.html is £13.50 incl. postage (which becomes free for orders > £25, i.e. 3 bulbs, and 10% off 5+ bulbs). I used this company recently: slightly slow (about 5 days) but otherwise fine.

[Deleted User]

Two luxeon 3 watt led bulbs now in cloakroom and two in dressing room. They are fine. We can see ok. The light is blue and cooler but there is enough light to see by and my DH says to read while on the loo. No good for makeup but a bright makeup light will sort that. I am buying 6 next time and will try all of them in the kitchen. Shocking waste of heat when the 6 GU10s are on. I shall still need another 6 but a bit at a time as we need to get used to them

tin

Can anyone answer this one. With a very basic knowledge of physics I make 5x 20w bulbs at 12v a damn sight less watts at 240v. Is that right, or am I really cocking up my calculations?

If that was the case then the transformer based halogens are much better on the electricity while still providing decent warm light. It seems however most of the shops are ridding themselves of transformer based ones, for the ones that take GU10s at 50w a piece. Including Ikea - who are normally bigging up the energy saving massive.

Anyone shed any light on this? :-P

gromituk

Watts is watts regardless of the voltage - I don't quite know what you mean. You can get 5 x 20W bulbs for 12V (which take about 8.3 amps) and 5 x 20W bulbs for 240V (which take about 0.4 amps) and they will both consume the same power. Transformers don't change the number of watts (apart from a small loss); they just change the ratio of volts to amps. 12 volt halogens are apparently more efficient than mains ones, though, so this might offset the loss in the transformer.

eilz

luxeon, 7w CFL, 11w GU10?Sorry, a little confused. What is the brightest and cheapest LED bulb to buy? Is it cheaper to buy these bulbs with or without transformers?

[Deleted User]

Just to let you know how I am getting on with the luxeon GU10 lights. I tried 4 first, 2 in downstairs loo and 2 in a dressing room. At first the blue light was a shock in that it was totally different but we liked them and after a week decided to get another 15 lights for around the house. The lights themselves look very smart

We have replaced the 6 in the kitchen. Be aware that it isn`t the right light for cooking but at the moment all my cooking or baking is done by 7pm. In winter I will have to use the under cabinet lights for prep
We had people for a meal in our kitchen/diner and we had the luxeon lights on together with the light from a table lamp sitting on a rad cover, that lamp had a normal `yellow glow` energy bulb. Both systems together looked great and two candles on the table made the whole set up look cosy and inviting

We are stll doing a bit at a time as we are waiting for the builder to snag in dark areas first. There is a noticeable difference in the ambient temperature when the bulbs are on and there should be a noticeable difference in the electricity bill over the year: 57 watts v 950 watts


PS re the downstairs loo. It is light enough to read but not light enough for makeup

gromituk

Just a bit of saving!! I'm glad you're enjoying the Luxeon GU10s. Unfortunately they've had a production problem with the MR16s (12V instead of mains) - the wrong component had been used in the driver circuit, as I discovered when several of mine died. That's why they're unavailable at the moment, but more are expected in a week or two. Had the GU10s been available earlier I'd have bought them, but now I've bought 12V fittings so I'm waiting for the MR16s to be replaced. I very much doubt the GU10s have a problem - the fault with the MR16s looked like human error to me.

mark2_2

I bought some LED spotlights from a previous link on this forum a while ago. No problems with them. I recently looked at the website that I bought them from and they have a new product which is a flourescent energy saving bulb, but it is in a mr16 and gu10 housing apparently gives 50w output and 4w power comsumption. they are not available till october but i am thinking of ordering some when they are in stock. here is the link for anyone who is interested.

http://www.initiallights.co.uk/newEnergySavingSpotLights.php

Has anyone seen any like this before? thought they looked pretty smart.

Kup

Grade_A_Reject wrote:

I've taken the GU10 CFL bulbs out of my kitchen light fitting as I couldn't bear the light output.

...

I've seen LED ones described as "warm white" which I may try but I'm reluctant to spend more money on something I'm not going to use.

I'm currently in the process of planning the renovation of my bathroom. It's very small, measuring just 6ft x 6ft. At the moment there is a single energy saving bulb in the middle of the room. My plan was to replace this with these four recessed CFLs from megaman.

I've already ruled out LEDs due to the blueish light, but now Grade_A_Reject has got me worried about the CFLs too.

Are they really that bad? They are warmwhite. Does it make much of a difference :huh:

Grade_A_Reject

Kup wrote:

Are they really that bad? They are warmwhite. Does it make much of a difference :huh:

The ones I had were too bulky to fit in a recessed downlighter too, but fit ok in my exposed spotlight type kitchen fitting.

The light output was bright enough but was horribly blue/green, I found it depressing. I've tried putting them back up a couple of times but just can't get used to them

I don't think mine were described as "warm" white.