Energy Saving Light Bulbs

gromituk

Yes, I've been using Luxeon (single LED) 3W MR16 LED lamps in my hall for about a year. They are designed as a replacement for 12V halogens (and you can get GU10 mains versions as well now). I don't get as much light as from a 20W halogen bulb, and the beam is very focussed, but I am using more of them (still far less power consumption than using halogens though) and they produce nice pools of light on the strip flooring. The light is quite cold, but warm white ones are becoming available now. I got mine from https://www.initiallights.co.uk - there are other suppliers too.

I am also using a couple of GU10 multi-LED lamps in a cabinet, but that's not for general illumination of course. They only consume about 2W each.

These things are getting better all the time - I am an early adopter.

roses

The Philips energy savers are still 49p each in John Lewis, I bought some this afternoon.

Lstclair55

Not sure if anyone has covered this before, but B&Q are selling a three pack of spotlights for £9.99 and they include three GU10 Energy Saving lightbulbs as well (not the LED version). This seems a good deal for three of these type bulbs?

pcg2001

roses wrote: »

The Philips energy savers are still 49p each in John Lewis, I bought some this afternoon.

Is that instore or online?
Thanks.

zappomatic

In store only. They were removed from the website to stop people buying bulk quantities to sell on eBay, car boots etc.

katskorner

Morrisons are selling them instore for 39p each.

Mary_Hartnell

Has anyone experience of replacing the above flood lights (They look like old fashioned round car headlights).

I think it is probably possible to get a cluster of LED's inside the shape BUT my limited experience of LED is that the light is too blue and it is impossible to cluster enough LED's in the same area to get a similar amount of light.

The other alternative would be small coiled mercury vapour tubes, inside the glass round faced cone BUT previous experience of 60watt spot lights a few years ago, demonstrated that the manufacturers had not yet mastered the new technology. The bulbs failed after only a few months and I went back to tungsten coil for these similar Edison Screw lamps.

Any thoughts?

Mary.

gromituk

You can get "warm white" LEDs now, and there are high power single LEDs (such as Luxeon and Cree), but you won't get anything approaching the equivalent of 80W incandescent output.

I guess the fluorescent ones are more reliable now, but who can say? Perhaps if Megaman make them you should get some - this company seems to have a good reputation (though I only have experience of two golf ball low energy bulbs from Megaman, bought because they are shorter than the alternatives).

Mary_Hartnell

Today I replaced four PAR38 80W lamps, lighting my living room, with 18W dimmable equivalents, made by Megaman.

The mercury vapour takes 30 – 60 seconds to warm up completely. The light is then brighter and “yellower” than before. The existing dimmer reduces the light output to 10% of the full-on value. The reduction starts with a step down of About 20%, which is a little annoying as the light goes from rather too bright to somewhat too gloomy, but the system is still suitable for chilling out or TV watching. The energy consumption only goes down by a half.

There are maximum and minimum ratings required of the dimmer switch, but my old one qualified and works OK.

The new bulbs are 4 times as expensive as the old tungsten ones, so let us hope they will save money as well as carbon. The old bulbs lasted about 13 months, I will let you know how long the Megaman ones last (if Martin can keep the threads going that long)

Mary.

PS The supplier was gogreenlighting.com They had to sort out a lost initial bulb during the postal strike, but since then I have had two deliveries via Post Office and a courier, so good service there.

gromituk

Mary_Hartnell wrote: »

The energy consumption only goes down by a half.

Just to clarify what I think you're meaning - the energy consumption when dimmed goes down by a half compared with those lamps at full brightness. The energy consumption compared with the tungsten ones is much less than a half of course!