LED Light Bulbs

atlantis187

I am looking at replacing our light bulbs in the house mainly in the living room and kitchen.

I am a proper novice in these matters so please be patient,

At present I think the bulbs in the kitchen are the GU10 make and in the LR they are the small screw edison edition i think. I bought some cheap make standard bulbs from ebay about 1 years ago and they seem to be blowing every other month.

Are LED the best way to go?
How long do LED bulbs last?
Could u please post me a few links with reccomendation where I could buy these 2 particular bulbs from cheaply.

At the moment the standard bulbs I am using are 40W and 60W. Does the LED bulbs need to be the same or can I use 2W or 3W bulbs for example?

Thank You

Andy_WSM

LED bulbs are much more economical to run than standard bulbs or even compact flourescent. Last year I replaced the 9 * 60W ES Floodlights in my living room which are recessed into the ceiling with 9 * 6W LED bulbs from eBay, which cost me about £5 each. A £45 "investment", but I have little doubt that it will be paid back in full soon, if not already. The light output is comparable and I haven't had a bulb blow yet.

When you are looking around for them you really need to balance appearance with price and find a suitable match for yourself as there are so many different ones on the market.

[Deleted User]

http://www.ledhut.co.uk/gu10-smd-led-220-lumens-45-watts-equiv-best-internet-price.html

Used this co a few times with great results.

penrhyn

I've used an number of these from the long life lamp company, work very well, no duds yet and pleasant colour temperature.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Life-Lamp-Company-replacements/dp/B006UR5IUY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372233208&sr=8-1&keywords=5watt+gu10

Buzby

You need to watch for a few things if purchasing online:

(1) check the voltage - cheap ones may be advertised as 100-240v, however this is NOT enough for the UK. You need ones that claim to work up to 260v. This is because they will work initially, but burn out in short order, often within weeks.

(2) check the colour - they can be 'cool' white or 'warm' white. For domestic use you will find the cool bulbs have a blue cast and are quite unpleasant.

(3) LED bulbs are old hat. Look for SMD versions, which use little square panels as they have a wide dispersal and are brighter in comparison.

rogerblack

atlantis187 wrote: »

Could u please post me a few links with reccomendation where I could buy these 2 particular bulbs from cheaply.

A couple of problems.
Firstly - light is not measured in watts!
While light from incandescent lights is - pretty much - reasonably measured in watts - with bulbs not varying much in their light output per watt - this is not the case for LED!

LED light can vary about five-fold in efficiency.
To get the same light output as a 50W halogen light (about 800 lumens) - you want about 6-20W or so, depending on efficiency.

One example would be http://www.ledbulbs.co.uk/megaman+4.5w+par16+gu10+led+-+warm+white+%2838%b0%29/311828215
This claims to have an output 'eqivalent to' 40W halogen.
A 40W halogen will produce around 600lumens (a measure of total light output).
The above claims 300 lumens.
This can only be as bright if the area illuminated by the light is considerably smaller.

Do _NOT_ buy any LED lamp that does not quote an actual lumen number.

http://www.ledbulbs.co.uk/products/GU10+LED+Bulbs/High+Output+GU10+LEDs/Megaman+Modo+7W+PAR16+GU10+LED+Reflector+-+Cool+White+%28LAST+300+IN+STOCK%29/2638521392 - is an example of 'watts is not important'.
The above 7W lamp produces 2/3 of the actual light output (lumens) as the 4.5W model mentioned above.

If buying bulbs offering guarantee periods - make sure that either the vendor is an established company - or the manufacturer has a UK presence.

While buying from ebay or similar outlets may be tempting - if it fails in 3 months, the sellers only response is likely to be 'do you want to buy another?'

JohalaReewi

atlantis187 wrote: »

At the moment the standard bulbs I am using are 40W and 60W. Does the LED bulbs need to be the same or can I use 2W or 3W bulbs for example?

The '50W equivalent' and suchlike claims made by LED bulb sellers are only a rough guide and are usually optimistic. As has been said, you need to pay a lot more attention to the luminous flux (amount of light) and the colour temperature (how 'white' the light is).

If replacing halogens or filament lamps, you probably want a 'warm white' with a colour temperature around 3000 Kelvin.

For the amount of light, check the luminous flux figure (lumens). If you can, find out the figure for your current bulbs for comparison.

Check the bulb's beam angle as well. Halogen bulbs tend to be focused (like spotlights) which means the light is concentrated in one place. LEDs tend to be more spread out so the light is not as concentrated and so will appear to be 'not as bright'.

Check that the LED bulbs will physically fit. They will have the correct fitting (like GU10) but they might be slightly longer or fatter.

While the LED bulbs may last for a long time, mains LED bulbs have some electronics in them to convert the mains voltage into LED suitable voltage. These electronics might not last as long as the LED bulb. Having a decent warranty and a supplier with a returns process that works is very useful.

Cheap LED bulbs are usually cheap for a reason, but expensive ones can be just as 'cheap' on quality. If you can find consumer reviews, read them (like on Amazon).

matelodave

We wanted to change out some of our lighting to LED to save a few bob but decided to be a bit selective about it and only changed out rooms where it would make a significant difference (ie where we used the lighting a lot)

The 10 x 50w GU10 in the kitchen were changed for 10 x 4 watt LED GU10s from LEDhut, thus saving 460watts for every hour that they are on - a great success, the light is better and more evenly spread and as the lights are used quite a lot especially in the winter there is a significant saving in electricty cost - I estimate they'll save their cost in just over 12 months
.
Likewise in the study the 4 x 50watt GU10s changed for 4 x 4 watts saving 180 watts an hour as it's a room where the lights are on for several hours a day. Probably pay back in two years

The bathroom has 5 x 35watts = 175watts, but as we only use it for a hour or less a day. I don't believe that the saving in electricity justiifes changing them to LED so they can stay as halogens. Payback is about 8 years

We've already got CFLs in the lounge and hall so the saving of 3-5 watts by changing to LEDs isn't worth it.

The 500watt outside floodlight is now 2x 10watt LEDs which again give a better spread of light and saves 480watts for every hour that they are on, so probably cost effective although the illumination is better

So changing existing lamps just for the sake of changing may not be cost effective, but working out where you'll get the best value can be.

ChumpusRex

LEDs vary a lot in quality. There are DRAMATIC differences in all of the following factors:
- Light colour (some are a sickly blue, some are "pure white", some are yellowy, roughly matching normal filament bulbs)
- Colour quality (some give very good colour accuracy - red things like clothes and flowers look right; some have terrible colour accuracy - caucasian skin looks washed out and people look like corpses, red flowers look dull and grey)
- Flicker (cheap ones can flicker horribly)
- Life span (Top quality ones "should" last 25 years in normal home use - but the tech hasn't been around for that long, so it's just a guess by the manufacturers; I bought a bunch of direct-from-China ones from ebay at £5 each. One week later, 3 had died and were just flashing dimly and 1 had caught fire destroying the light fitting)
- Energy efficiency - there are big variations in energy efficiency (some use more energy than the equivalent fluorescent, some use as little as 75% of the equivalent fluorescent)
- DImmability - some are dimmable, some are not
- Beam shape - Cheap ones often have super narrow "pencil thin" beams, so they can quote high "candle power" numbers. Some are a better match to conventional bulbs (either normal or halogen)

The best bulbs are probably made by Philips - but you pay a hefty price premium for them. If you can find their industrial grade ones, they are often of better quality still, and available in multiple hues of white, beam patters, etc. - but again, industrial quality tends to command a higher price.

However, there are a number of companies that source and manufacture decent quality ones. I picked up a couple from Asda that were on special offer at £3 each, and they were surprisingly good, but not really Philips quality (but at less than one third the price, I wasn't complaining).

Be very careful of ebay. The ones I bought were advertised at 4W (35W equivalent). They were not, they were less than 20W equivalent. They had an uneven colour (blue at the centre of the beam, sickly yellow at the edge), flickered. And they were death-traps because they had a tendency to burst into flames.

If you are buying an unfamiliar brand, buy one or 2 samples, so you get a feel for the quality. Don't just buy a bulk pack.

Pugliese

Just a quicky. Kitted my whole house out with LED's - went with Megaman 6W, 410 lumens, dimmables with 35 degree spread. Warm white in majority of house and cool white in bathrooms.

Can't speak for longevity yet, but light quality is excellent. Not cheap but this is a long term investment and have a UK company standing behind the guarantee.

atlantis187

I bought a 12 pack of these for around £13.40 they seem decent to me:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/new-12-x-GU10-LED-spot-light-bulb-WARM-WHITE-in-UK-/271230310001?pt=UK_Light_Bulbs&hash=item3f26961671