Energy saving spotlights

grahamc2003

Dave_Fowler wrote: »

I have now done some experiments with the LED bulbs and my spotlights.

I replaced the LED bulbs with an equivalent 4W resistive load (used several resistor values between 47 Ohm and 24 Ohm). There was no interference on FM. I next replaced the spotlight power supply with a 12V DC supply and fitted the LED bulbs. Again no interference on FM.

So the problem appears to be an interaction between the LED bulbs and the power supply fitted to the spotlights.

Dave F

When I replaced a 12V 20W bulb with a 1W led in a reading lamp, it worked great but gave a really bad power factor, meaning the transformer was pumping energy back up the line each cycle. Fortunately, I was assured it's the supplier's loss and not mine - but I wondered whether your tranformers are doing the same under such a light load, which may cause the interference. I'd be tempted to drive all the leds in parallel from one transformer, to give it a bit more load, and see what happens.

In any case, FM doesn't have much longer anyhow, so I'd be more concerned if there's interference on the frequencies used for digital transmissions. No interference on anything from my various 240v and 12v leds.

Or you could do away with all your 12V spots and install 240V spots instead. (I've never understood why most go for 12V spots - seems to be the only advantage is for the easier installation, at a cost of higher running costs).

jamesingram

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I've never understood why most go for 12V spots - seems to be the only advantage is for the easier installation, at a cost of higher running costs).

I was under the impression you got more lumens/watt with 12v spots compaired to gu10s
Be happy for this to be rubbished or someone explain why this is the case.

Personally I've always fit 240V gu10 if it has to be spots , to me with the 12v you've just got an extra component to go wrong , the transformer.

To my mind stick with pendants and table lamps , cheaper/more light for less cost/energy consumed and more reliable

LEDs dont like getting hot in downlights, that why the GU10s have the big heat sinks. Perhaps thats not the best place for them. already had a quite a few lamp failures in this situation in the last 2 years

Watch out for GU10 CFL dimmerable from MM, had lots of trouble with short life.

good little review of LEDs here http://www.earth.org.uk/LED-lighting.htm

re. chp
been one in the middle of Slough estate since the 20s now run partly on biomas .
http://www.cospp.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-1/project-profile/biomass-chp-plant-serves-uk-trading-estate-mixed-wood-waste-fuel-sourced-locally.html
they've just built 3 large data centers on the estate , I presume due to the additional energy security of the location ?

Ben84

jamesingram wrote: »

Watch out for GU10 CFL dimmerable from MM, had lots of trouble with short life.

Megaman are in my opinion one of the better compact fluorescent bulb manufacturers, I use a number of their bulbs, they have good light and they last well. However, the dimmerable bulbs (I used the bayonet ones) didn't go well for me either, they just burn out after a few months I find.

Phillips' new LED bulbs are much better for dimming, in fact I like them better on all points except upfront cost right now. Failing that, the halogen GLS bulbs are a good compromise between bulb cost and energy savings.

GeorgleJungle

Ive been buying them from 2-3 suppliers on ebay, all UK suppliers. I won;t buy from China. I'm an Electronics Engineer of 20 years.

eBay half the price of tesco. Ive got it down to less than £4 per bulb.

This supplier has been pretty good to me:

(link not allowed, but if you use best match you cannot go much wrong)

On amazon, about 6 quid per bulb:


I have to say I am very pleased with the bulb I have bought and I have made really significant inroads into cutting our electricity bills. I have changed over 40 bulbs now , mainly 12v MR16 types and GU10 50w ones.

Some tips:

- Choose your colour temp carefully, the first ones I bought were white and the colour seems a but harsh in the bathroom. A but like a flourescant. Layer ones, I went for "warm white" which have little yellow bits of glass over the LED's.

- The 60 LED ones are equally bright as 50w halogens they replace! You really would not know the difference
- The MR16 ones with 3 leds are a little bit dim for my liking, the 4 led ones are much better. Thats 4 watts instead of 50.
- You can buy adapters for around £2 that will adapt the GU10 socket bulb to the traditional E27 ES type (bought 2 adapters for the lights outside the front of the house).
- We have a child who likes to sleep with the light on , so I changed them in order of usage.
- I have noticed an immediate and substantial drop in our electricity usage. I reckon I have reduced my annual bill from £1600 to around £1100 or less with a very short pay back period.

- The bad reputation of low energy bulbs being "dim" simply isnt true any more if you buy the LED ones.

I can't comment on how long they will last, they are billed as lasting 10,000 hours against a conventional 1000 ,however too soon to say. If true, based on 8 hours per day thats the difference between lasting 4 months and lasting 40 months.

Overall very very pleased with my project and would recommend the time and investment.

zeupater

GeorgleJungle wrote: »

Ive been buying them from 2-3 suppliers on ebay, all UK suppliers. I won;t buy from China. I'm an Electronics Engineer of 20 years.

eBay half the price of tesco. Ive got it down to less than £4 per bulb.

This supplier has been pretty good to me:

(link not allowed, but if you use best match you cannot go much wrong)

On amazon, about 6 quid per bulb:


I have to say I am very pleased with the bulb I have bought and I have made really significant inroads into cutting our electricity bills. I have changed over 40 bulbs now , mainly 12v MR16 types and GU10 50w ones.

Some tips:

- Choose your colour temp carefully, the first ones I bought were white and the colour seems a but harsh in the bathroom. A but like a flourescant. Layer ones, I went for "warm white" which have little yellow bits of glass over the LED's.

- The 60 LED ones are equally bright as 50w halogens they replace! You really would not know the difference
- The MR16 ones with 3 leds are a little bit dim for my liking, the 4 led ones are much better. Thats 4 watts instead of 50.
- You can buy adapters for around £2 that will adapt the GU10 socket bulb to the traditional E27 ES type (bought 2 adapters for the lights outside the front of the house).
- We have a child who likes to sleep with the light on , so I changed them in order of usage.
- I have noticed an immediate and substantial drop in our electricity usage. I reckon I have reduced my annual bill from £1600 to around £1100 or less with a very short pay back period.

- The bad reputation of low energy bulbs being "dim" simply isnt true any more if you buy the LED ones.

I can't comment on how long they will last, they are billed as lasting 10,000 hours against a conventional 1000 ,however too soon to say. If true, based on 8 hours per day thats the difference between lasting 4 months and lasting 40 months.

Overall very very pleased with my project and would recommend the time and investment.

Hi

A £500/year saving on lighting is pretty steep ... probably far too steep for most with an enquiring mind to readily accept without details.

For example ... 1W of domestic electricity consumed 24x7x52 will cost around £1, therefore £500 saving represents a background continuous lighting saving of 500W ... let's say that the average unit is illuminated for 6Hrs/day, that represents a 6Hr continuous saving of 2kW .... to save 2kW, you would need to replace ~45 (2000/(50-6)) 50W halogen bulbs with 6W LED equivalents .... (or, before required lumens discussions breakout, ~41 if 1W LED equivalent, so not much difference) ....

.... and everyone would need to be on for a quarter of the day, everyday, without exception - that's Summer as well as Winter ...

We have LEDs in specific areas where direct bright lighting is required or there's a need for very low level light and they're really good, however, I'd reckon that the average one is on for <1Hr/day .... all other lights are CFL, which makes total sense because they provide ~20% more light per watt and cost far less to purchase .... moving from existing CFLs to LEDs on a moneysaving basis alone makes absolutely no sense at all .... what's more - any electronics engineer should know that ...

HTH
Z

GordonGowk

Hi,
I tried out a few different LED GU10 spotlight bulbs last year and agree, they are very variable in quality, intensity and price.
Firstly tried a Phiilips GU10 (forget which kind) from Homebase at about £17 then. It wouldn't fit in the bulb holder as it's neck was too wide.
Then I got a 5W bulb from simple lighting co uk - "5w GU10 LED Bulb - 27 LED's - White or Warm White - Wide Beam Angle" was £10 at the time, now £7.50. It was great - recommend this to anyone - in cool white it's far brighter then the original halogen 50W bulbs.
I decided to convert my stock-room to LED lighting using cheap 3-spot light fittings, and ordered much cheaper 3.5W (50W equivalent) multi LED bulbs from E-bay (chinese sellers). These were £3.50 each in bulk quantities and seemed ok in the stockroom at first.
Converted my shop lights to the same fittings, but meanwhile about 1/3 of the cheap LED's failed. Moved the remaining bulbs to the front shop and the customers objected to the light quality because it was dull and poor. We had replaced 3 x 58W flourescents with 18 x 3.5W LED's. Rapidly ordered 18 good quality LED's from simplelighting and we now have excellent lighting, very, very bright, using half the electricity we used to - will take about 2 years to pay back, but well worth it.
In summary - quality LEDs are worth the money, so long as the lights are used a lot, cheap ones are probably a waste of money. The price is coming down rapidly, so be selective - it's worth paying more to use a reputable uk company even if all the bulbs are made in China anyway.