LED light bulbs

Steve_xx

elstimpo wrote: »

I consistently buy and test LED lighting products sold all over the world. This includes ebay, UK sellers and sellers based in Asia.

The guys selling on ebay offer incredibly cheap products, but they are cheap for a reason. Cheap R+D, cheap materials, cheap chip sets, poor heat dissipation (loss of energy you have paid to create and won't be used), non existent testing, made up lumen figures and a product that could quite frankly break at any time.

I have eight 3w GU10's that arrived yesterday from Hong Kong for a price of £30. They have gone in for testing and 3 have failed within 10 hours. Their claimed lumen output of 300 for warm white is also very wide of the truth. I wonder how they come up with this figure as the machine that can accurately show lumen levels costs a huge amount.

You get what you pay for.

I accept all of the points you mentioned. But your final sentence is a very well-worn cliche. Sometimes you do get a bargain and it is not necessarily the most expensive product that is the best. For example, Hoover is a tried and tested name, though today it is not necessarily the best. Singer are renowned for their sewing machines, though today there are other manufacturers that produce sewing products that may every bit as good or better than Singer do.

Sometimes the 'name' comes at an expensive premium. Though as I say I accept your points.

elstimpo

madget wrote: »

Which brand would you recommend, elstimpo?

Well firstly i own an LED company and cannot promote it or it's products on this site.

All i would say is stay well away from the big boys and the brand names. They are purely in it for margin. I know exactly which factory produces who's bulbs for nearly every LED company.

There are some seriously good value LED Bulbs available right now available at specialist LED retailers. Properly built spot lights, with good quality chip sets and materials, accurate figures with good build quality from top level manufacturers are still expensive. This is down to many reasons, the rising costs and availability of raw materials being a big one. Also these companies tend to actually pay their workers a wage they can actually feed themselves and their children off. The never ending crusade for the cheapest products the western world can buy angers me as consumers don't understand what the cost is to someone else for that cheap product.

We have been developing our products for several years, with two Asian based companies. The first batch of finished products left Asia yesterday to head to our testing facility. I am very excited about the potential of these MR16 and GU10 spots. They are significantly cheaper than anything else i have ever seen at the same level of quality.

No idea when or if they will be ready for sale in the UK.

My advice is speak to a specialist LED retailer and take advice, be careful who you listen to.

Dan_Iggulden

The 50 Watt equivalents that I purchased worked out at £7.25 per bulb and so far I am delighted with them. Wider angle of light than the Halogens which is exactly what I wanted.

There are so many variables when comparing the bulbs, angle of light can give completely different results on a lux meter.

I read on another forum that some suppliers are overloading the bulbs so that they give around 310 lumens brightness from a 3 Watt bulb, they are upping the ampage which although improves the brightness of the bulb, massively limits the life expectancy of the bulb, probably why some suppliers only give 6 month warranty.

Simple advice is buy from reputable companies that have a good feedback record, make sure you get a 12 month warranty, and if in doubt, ring the company and sound them out, you can always get a good feel for a company by picking up the phone.

elstimpo

Steve_xx wrote: »

I accept all of the points you mentioned. But your final sentence is a very well-worn cliche. Sometimes you do get a bargain and it is not necessarily the most expensive product that is the best. For example, Hoover is a tried and tested name, though today it is not necessarily the best. Singer are renowned for their sewing machines, though today there are other manufacturers that produce sewing products that may every bit as good or better than Singer do.

Sometimes the 'name' comes at an expensive premium. Though as I say I accept your points.

My comment 'you get what you pay for' were specifically about the LED world. The cost of quality raw materials, quality chip sets, proper research and development, technology for testing products and then factory and staffing costs means it's not possible to produce a quality product cheaply. The companies that products the best materials are controlling the supply to make sure prices stay high. Cree are the biggest player in the chip set world and their capacity to produce is far higher than they are releasing. They want sky high prices for the products and they are getting them.

If you don't want a quality product then yes, you have lots of cheaper options. You will notice that nearly all of the cheap products that appear on ebay are 3w spot lights. Thats because they don't have the materials, budget, R+D or expertise to properly dissipate heat at 4w, 5w, 6w or 7w. If you do see a cheap product with a high wattage, chances are it will run hot and the point of buying an LED is mostly lost.

elstimpo

Dan_Iggulden wrote: »

The 50 Watt equivalents that I purchased worked out at £7.25 per bulb and so far I am delighted with them. Wider angle of light than the Halogens which is exactly what I wanted.

There are so many variables when comparing the bulbs, angle of light can give completely different results on a lux meter.

I read on another forum that some suppliers are overloading the bulbs so that they give around 310 lumens brightness from a 3 Watt bulb, they are upping the ampage which although improves the brightness of the bulb, massively limits the life expectancy of the bulb, probably why some suppliers only give 6 month warranty.

Simple advice is buy from reputable companies that have a good feedback record, make sure you get a 12 month warranty, and if in doubt, ring the company and sound them out, you can always get a good feel for a company by picking up the phone.

You'd be amazed at the amount of products we buy for testing that when you open them up, the actual wattage of the bulb is not what is says on the box. They just want that lumens figure as high as possible as that is what will sell their product. About 10% of LED manufacturers worldwide actually have the right equipment to be able to accurately test lumens output. All the others make numbers up or use strange and weird techniques that have no relevance.

Beam angle does play a big part in it and it totally depends on usage. You could have a spot with huge lumens but a very focused and narrow beam angle, which isn't going to do much good in a kitchen. A spot with lower lumens, larger beam angle is more appropriate.

One thing to remember is that lumens is the measure of light as perceived by the human eye. Well thats not so helpful when every single eye see's light differently.

Please feel free to pm me if anyone has an questions relating to LED.

kabayiri

I must admit I understand Elstimpo's point of view well.

I have just received a batch of Halers EvoLED and these are going into a new vaulted ceiling. Each of these units cost me over £40, but I can honestly say they are high quality.

These are rated at 425 lumens, they seem subjectively as bright as a 50W halogen, but only time and experience will truly tell.

I'd be interested to know the views and experience of people using the Philips Master bulb series. I will need quite a few more lights and these look interesting.

elstimpo

kabayiri wrote: »

I must admit I understand Elstimpo's point of view well.

I have just received a batch of Halers EvoLED and these are going into a new vaulted ceiling. Each of these units cost me over £40, but I can honestly say they are high quality.

These are rated at 425 lumens, they seem subjectively as bright as a 50W halogen, but only time and experience will truly tell.

I'd be interested to know the views and experience of people using the Philips Master bulb series. I will need quite a few more lights and these look interesting.

When it comes to LED products the big boys look for the product that will give them the best margin and thats pretty much it. The Phillips products are not value for money and don't have performance levels which are even at average industry level.

For example below is a comparison of The Phillips 7w GU10 and its performance and price, to other products.

Phillips master 7w GU10 270 lumens warm white lumens (around £28)
7w GU10 520 Warm White Lumens (over £30)
6w GU10 480 warm White Lumens (around £15)
6w GU10 420 Warm White Lumens (around £15)
4w GU10 360 warm White Lumens (around £15)

grizzly1911

Thanks.

I have tried a "similar" bulb 60 LED, 3.6W, 270lumen, 90 degree beam daylight bulb.

They were in 2X2 units in my kitchen. They were quite a harsh white light and gave a surreal artic feel to the room. IMO they did not provide the same degree of light as previous halogen. My OH couldn't take to them.

So back to halogen for now. I have some T4 (thin FL tubes) under the cupboards so I switch to those if not in demanding use 12w for 2.

I think I might look at the GU10 9w CFLs any views?

I have CFLs in most light fittings around the house including some R50SES bulbs and R63ES (from Tesco) at a good price £2 per bulb and am quite happy with them.

I also have 3x40 incandescent in the dining room and lounge both on dimmers which reduces the wattage.

foomanchu

I've finally rid my house of incandescent bulbs with a mix of CFL & LED, including a bathroom that's completely LED lit.

LED 'equivalent' brightness's seem to be overstated – some are bright but only in a narrow focused area so don't flood a room well. In my experience if you take the LED wattage and multiply by 3 you get the approximate equivalent brightness. This is less than CFL which can be 5 times the wattage (though I find fade a bit over time). In my small bathroom for example there is 40W of LED. My kitchen has remote controlled multicolour strips (about 20m in length!) for a wow effect mood lighting & 4x13W GU10 daylight CFL for when you need to work.

I've used lots of different LED tech from powerful singles to LED cluster, currently the best bang for your money are the SMD clusters. Search eBay for '9w smd gu10' and you'll see them for less than a fiver – this kind of output cost me over £30 a couple of years ago! Bear in mind these are about 30w equivalent so you'll still need more bulbs than standard 50w halogens. You can get more powerful LEDs but they cost big money – a 15W megaman GU10 LED is over £100!

The other consideration is colour temperature you want 'warm white' if you are mixing with standard bulbs or supermarket CFLs, but I've since moved to 'cool white' or 'daylight' (4500-6500K temperature in CFL) once I'd done a couple of rooms I had to do the whole house as my old bulbs started looking very yellow... IMHO you cannot mix colour temperature in the same room it is offputting.

Dan_Iggulden

Definately agree about mixing colour temps, a definate no no.

Brightness completed depends on what you expect from the bulb, angle of light is just as important as brightness. A 250 Lumen bulb that has a 60 degree angle of light will not flood a room with light, however, a 250 lumen bulb with 120 degree angle of light will do nicely, this is what I use in my kitchen.
As mentioned on an earlier post, the bulbs I use are 2.3 Watt bulbs and I feel they are slightly brighter than my old 50 W halogens, so foomanchu, looks like you have had bad luck with bulbs if think you times the LED wattage by 3 to get a halogen equivalent... that was maybe the case 2 or 3 years ago, but LED's have moved on massively since then.

I am very happy with the LED's I am using and owuld happily reccomend them to anyone as a main source of lighting. There is no longer any need to be buying halogen bulbs.