LED bulbs for interior lighting? Worth it or big rip off?

IvorBiggun

Got some 18 watt Philips master led bulbs. Pricey but worth it for the brightness.

albert_s

IvorBiggun wrote: »

Got some 18 watt Philips master led bulbs. Pricey but worth it for the brightness.

jeez, they must be bright.!!!!!!
Ive never myself ever needed to fit anything more than 7w LED to get a better lumens output than a 50w halogen, and that was in warm white,
in general any decent 5w LED will get 400lumens output, which is equivalent to a 50w halogen, and in cool white, 4000k, or daylight, 6000k, will appear much brighter than a halogen, with a better colour spectrum,

CharlieBilly

The majority of lights I have are led and were installed 3 years ago not one has failed and I have quite a few on dimmers but I did get a dimmer that took led's and has some sort of soft start. Most or mine are Megaman candle, Philips candle, Ledlam (Par 30 outside security light) and Aurora gu10 kitchen

jk0

I'm wondering if the led bulbs are set up for 220 volts that they have on the continent? Here in Reading we are at nearly 250 volts.

The bulbs are ostensibly set up for either voltage. However, leds have a fairly constant forward voltage, so if there are say 110 two volt leds in series, they will be getting overrun at 250 volts.

Am I mistaken about there being lots of leds in series, or is there some voltage dropper circuit which allows for different supplies?

silverwhistle

jack_pott wrote: »

I use a 4' fluorescent striplight in the kitchen, which has been replaced once in 30 years.

I replaced my fluorescent stip with an LED strip. Good quality light, comes on immediately, no flicker and no buzz and worth it for that alone. A simple like for like replacement and it's halved the consumption of one of the most used rooms in the house - I did calculate the payback time and it wasn't that long.

cyclonebri1

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

I have had the whole house running on LED bulbs for around 18 months now and so far not one bulb has failed. The vast majority of these are B&Qs own brand (Diall).

Unfortunately I've got to go out and buy 5 more as the new ceiling light I have on order takes small Eddison screws and the existing fitting are bayonet.

You don't need to, there are adaptors available from say ebay. They convert down fom BC to E14 and add virtually no extra height to the bulb.

You can get these in almost any other configuration, not just BC to Screw.

Just re read and you have the opposite issue I had so unsure without checking if there is a E14 to BC adaptor, plus that would add extra length to the combination.
Left it up here as it may help spme one else, the bonus being you can keep 1 type of bulb for replacement of almost all bouls in the house.

Just another thought, I much prefer the cool white type over the warm. It can however be a little harsh for some rooms. My preference was simply to stick with cool white bit get lower wattage bulbs to lessen the harshness and to save on energy.
Warm white seems almost "dirty" now in comparison to cool in my eyes

edinburgher

Oddly enough, I found that some of the dearer bulbs lasted the shortest amount of time. We were early adopters and had an ongoing saga of returning Philips candle and golf ball bulbs to Am@zon (something like 15 failures in a year)!

Not very scientific, but we found that every bulb that died was SES, so we try and avoid too many light fittings with these sorts of bulbs. Our GU50 downlights on the other hand, are fantastic and have never died.

We're now 100% LED (including external lights) and touch wood, things are running smoothly. Also a fan of Philips master, Aurora have been good for us as well.

Very cheap electricity bills.

bouncydog1

We've replaced pretty much all of our bulbs with LED's and have really noticed a difference in the electricity bill. Our electrician fitted them all for us and they were purchased from the electrical wholesalers. We pay the discounted cost for them and they were around £5 each. Not sure of the make - one did fail and was speedily replaced free.

fluffpot

edinburgher wrote: »

Not very scientific, but we found that every bulb that died was SES, so we try and avoid too many light fittings with these sorts of bulbs. Our GU50 downlights on the other hand, are fantastic and have never died.

.

I bet you that the problem with the SES was that they were not screwed in tight enough.... you need to go much more than you think or you don't get a good connection, which leads to arcing/overheating and bulb death.
Of course you don't get this problem with GU10s or bayonet bulbs

keith969

jk0 wrote: »

I'm wondering if the led bulbs are set up for 220 volts that they have on the continent? Here in Reading we are at nearly 250 volts.

The bulbs are ostensibly set up for either voltage. However, leds have a fairly constant forward voltage, so if there are say 110 two volt leds in series, they will be getting overrun at 250 volts.

Am I mistaken about there being lots of leds in series, or is there some voltage dropper circuit which allows for different supplies?

They use a switch mode converter which takes AC mains and converts to low voltage DC (about 3V) for the LED. The converter can handle a range of input voltage, sometimes as much as 100-250V. Cheap components are probably the cause of failure.