LED kitchen/dining lighting

dollydolittle_2

I'm going to knock through my kitchen into the dining room. Ceilings are low and it can be very dark on winter afternoons.

I was wondering about insetting halogen lights in the ceiling, but my experience is that they get very hot, are expensive to run and the bulbs need replacing all the time. So now I am thinking about LED instead. LED lights appear to be very expensive to buy and install, but I'm thinking over time the low energy use and infrequent bulb replacement would offset this initial cost?

Does anyone have any experience of LED light in this kind of setting? Can you achieve a pleasant ambient light? Can they be dimmed? Any other thoughts?

Many thanks in advance

avantra

You can get the GU10 LED equivalent to 35w halogens for about £15-20 (marked ae 3.7w to 4w).
B&Q got them and so is other.

You are talking £25-35 for the 50w equivilent so make your choices.
In terms of longevity even if the LED's will last half of the 25 years claimed on some you are still quids in.

They run cold and at 3.7w should be very cheap to run.

samtheman1k

LEDs lights are not as bright as halogens (for an angular spread), so you would need a lot more of them to light the same space. You could try 20w halogens as they seem to provide enough light I think and last much longer than the 50Ws. Within a few years, LED sized halogens will plumet in price and get brighter and you can then change the bulbs.

themacster

Yes, you can achieve a pleasant ambient light, but you won't get the same lux levels as you would with halogens - if you just want decent background lighting I can recommend the smd leds, we use the 20 SMD ones with the glass fronts - £12 or so each - in the kitchen and bathroom. Not dimmable though. They have a 120 degree angle of spread and give a very good overall spread of light.

Most halogens are around 38 degrees so are more concentrated and illuminate surfaces better where the light falls. We found they gave too much variance in light - bright over its designed spread, then a dimmer area outside that that often didn't illuminate what we wanted illuminated adequately - the SMD ones give a more even light and we really don't miss the halogens.

Even the best £30 leds only give out as much light as a 20W halogen (around 355 lumens for warm white, a 50W halogen is about 900 lumens), so the claims of "50W equivalent" are very misleading and factually incorrect. I would stick with warm white too, we found the cool white ones to be far too stark.

I wouldn't have any hesitation using leds, but you might want the odd halogen if you need targeted lighting.

alexlyne

i got my gu10 leds off ebay, around £4.50 each, 120 deg beam, light comparable to 40W (ish), crates a much flatter light to halogens though slightly colder, but still homely. search 'gu10 jdr 60led' there's a few sellers. I'm not convinced by the maths that a 300lm led is not the same as a 900lm halogen. The only way to decide is to get some in and try them for yourself.
and why the diy shops don't sell decent led lights at decent prices I don't know...

GrechAndGrech

When using LED's, check the colour that you are purchasing. White is usually offered in either cool white, or warm white, both will give different effects. Cool white has a slight blue tint to it and the warm white has an orange tint (much like street lights). We would usually use warm within traditional styles as it is a bit softer, and use the cool white in modern design where you want things to be crisper.

themacster

alexlyne wrote: »

i got my gu10 leds off ebay, around £4.50 each, 120 deg beam, light comparable to 40W (ish), crates a much flatter light to halogens though slightly colder, but still homely. search 'gu10 jdr 60led' there's a few sellers. I'm not convinced by the maths that a 300lm led is not the same as a 900lm halogen. The only way to decide is to get some in and try them for yourself.
and why the diy shops don't sell decent led lights at decent prices I don't know...

The maths is incontrovertible. A 900 lumen 50W halogen with a 38 degree beam gives 2629 lux at a distance of 1metre; a 290 lumen SMD led with a 120 degree beam gives 92 lux at a distance of 1 metre - thats 28 times less. What is important is ones perception of the light level. Looking directly at my 20SMD leds and a 35W halogen, the leds look just as bright or brighter, but the lux levels (light actually measured over a given area) is demonstrably lower although you may not be clearly aware of it as your eyes and brain adjust to the different light levels.

I gouged my hand on Saturday evening and tried to look at it closely in the bathroom - looking at it directly under the led and then the 35W halogen, the halogen was way, way brighter in terms of its ability to light a surface - the led didn't illuminate my hand well enough, but I'm quite happy enough with its ability to give a useful general light, especially at a tenth of the electricity cost of the 35W halogen!

fluffpot

You can get good quality dimmable LED's with a warm white light, but expect to pay around £60 per fitting, plus extra for the dimming driver. Also if you don't have many lights on the circuit you'll need to get a low load dimmer. Otherwise it either won't work or will buzz

Fluff

Scoobs72

Good to see some sense being posted at last about LEDs. There is nothing yet available on the market (GU10s) to replace a 35w Halogen and give the same light output and colour rating (i.e. warm white). You need c.600 lumens @ c. 2900k for that and it doesn't exist yet. 520 lumens is about the best you can get, which is equivalent to about 30 watts. Give it another year and there should be a genuine 35W GU10 replacement available.

fluffpot

here's the link to the fittings I have in my bathroom -

http://www.mr-resistor.co.uk/item.aspx?&g=10&t=518&r=829&i=7531

light output and colour is very good

dollydolittle_2

That's all very informative! Thanks.

But I'm a bit confused, when I googled to find out about LED lighting I found this site which compares LED to Halogen.

From your posts above I get the impression that some of you are able to use the same fitting for halogen and LED and just buy different bulbs, but this site shows the need for a specific LED fitting. Have I misunderstood? Also this site is quoting £65 for the light and I can't see a price for a bulb.

It could well be many months before we get to the point where I have to buy the lights so maybe the technology will improve, but the builder advised that I should think about all this sort of thing well in advance. I love the thought of having what would amount to a dimmable starcloth on my ceiling, but looking at the prices on that site that many lights would be astronomical in more ways than one!

Also, if they are so energy efficient and don't involve mercury or a long warm up time, then I don't understand why this technology hasn't been pursued in preference to trying to switch us all over to energy saving lightbulbs. Is warm white LED light just as yellow and dim as energy saving bulb light?