Led Bulbs

datlex

Has anyone used these? I am thinking of changing my CFLs over to these as the price of them has gone down recently. I am also not sure if I can use two different wattages off the same switch (I have two lights in my lounge off 1 switch) ideally I would have one brighter than the other due to room layout.

CashStrapped

What type of bulbs are they.

It sounds like you are describing standard bayonet or Edison screw bulbs.

If they just run directly from the mains, as do your CFLs, then it is just a straight swap. Different wattages do not make a difference. Mix and match as much as you wish.

I would not bother swapping out all the CFLs until they actually fail, unless you find their output/light quality poor.

The savings made by jumping from CFL to LED is quite small. It is more to do with the light quality, but, again this depends on the quality of the LED bulb you purchase.

What makes it more complicated (as per everything these days) is that there can be huge variations in quality, light output, colour, type of LED that can affect how good a lightbulb is at doings it's job.

I have often found this a good guide:

https://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/31/shrink-footprints-ultimate-guide-light-bulbs/

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This does not apply to any bulb or light-fitting that has a transformer i.e low voltage halogen lights. These will not be compatible with low voltage LEDs. Those LEDs require a different type of transformer called a driver.

ASavvyBuyer

datlex wrote: »

Has anyone used these? I am thinking of changing my CFLs over to these as the price of them has gone down recently. I am also not sure if I can use two different wattages off the same switch (I have two lights in my lounge off 1 switch) ideally I would have one brighter than the other due to room layout.

Have a look in the Green & Ethical sub board, there is a lot of discussion and advice there abouts LED lamps.
No problem with having different wattage leds on the same switch (or any other lamps).

System

If you have a nice pendant light which uses the standard bayonet bulbs you can get a small converter to enable small screw led candle bulbs to be used. My two pendants used 8 bayonet bulbs at 50 watts each, totalling 400 watts now use just 40 watts. The candle bulbs themselves are nice enough to use without covers and are available at only £1 each from Poundworld.So far all 8 are working fine after 6 months. Screwfix sell GU 10, 5 watt leds which are used in spotlights and have bulbs as bright as 5.8 watts for around £3.50 each. I don t think the 3w and 4 w leds in gu10 are quite bright enough and recommend the brighter over 5 watt bulbs

matelodave

You can get LED candle bulbs with bayonet fittings, you dont need adapters. Just get bulbs with bases to fit the fittings.

The caveats about LEDs are that some don't like dimmers, so if you've got dimmers, get dimmable LEDs but eventhen some cheap dimmers may need replacing.

12v LEDs dont always work with standard transfomers and can flicker so you may need to change the transformers for proper LED drivers if that's a problem.

Virtually all of our bulbs are now LED, we started with the kitchen where 500watts of halogen downlighters were changed for 40watts of LED. The lights in the lounge were around 400watts, now about 25, the bathrrom was 250, now 20 and we've slowly worked through the rest of the house swapping them out when convenient.

The 2x200 watt floodlights have been changed to 2 x 10 watts.

Raxiel

As others have said, there's no issue swapping them.

I've recently gone round swapping my remaining compact fluorescents for Filament LED's. I swapped them because they are instant on, they look nicer (IMO), and don't contain mercury (Toddler almost broke one) so although they do use less power (about half as much as the CFL's they replaced) the cost is half of almost nothing, so they may never pay for themselves in terms of electricity, it's just a bonus.

One thing to be aware of is that you can't really rely on the wattage to gauge brightness any more, you need to look at the lumens. I have a 13w Ikea LED lamp from 2014 in my daughters room that puts out 1000 lumens (about equivalent to a 75w incandescent) but the filament lamp I just put in the bathroom uses just 8w for about the same amount of light.

Filaments are a bit more expensive than the older style lamps with discrete LED's. As HM says you can get basic lamps from the pound shop, although personally I don't rate Pound World's offerings, go to Pound Land instead, there is a difference.

dogshome

It's getting to the point where CFL bulbs are disappearing from the shops, so LED's will soon be the only easily available option.

As already posted, the energy cost saving is quite small when swapping from CFL's to LED's, so the payback period on LED's is lengthy and particularly so if it is replacing a working CFL.

The upside of LED's is the instant bright light, so swapping CFL's to LED on an ill-lit staircase makes sense, as does changing any exterior lighting that is on Dusk to Dawn auto-switching

Cardew

There can still be an issue when replacing some MR16 halogen spot lamps(not to be confused with GU10 spots) with MR16LED spots.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SuperLEDTM-MR16-SPOT-LIGHT-WHITE/dp/B008U8X7PY

The MR16 are 12 volt(the GU10 are 240 volts). MR16 use transformers to reduce the voltage from mains 240v to 12v. The problem is some MR16 have individual transformers and some have transformers connecting several MR16s. Without getting too technical in some cases LED lamps, with their lower wattage, do not put sufficient electrical load on the transformer and hence the LED will flicker or not work at all.

System

matelodave wrote: »

You can get LED candle bulbs with bayonet fittings, you dont need adapters. Just get bulbs with bases to fit the fittings.

The caveats about LEDs are that some don't like dimmers, so if you've got dimmers, get dimmable LEDs but eventhen some cheap dimmers may need replacing.

12v LEDs dont always work with standard transfomers and can flicker so you may need to change the transformers for proper LED drivers if that's a problem.

Virtually all of our bulbs are now LED, we started with the kitchen where 500watts of halogen downlighters were changed for 40watts of LED. The lights in the lounge were around 400watts, now about 25, the bathrrom was 250, now 20 and we've slowly worked through the rest of the house swapping them out when convenient.

The 2x200 watt floodlights have been changed to 2 x 10 watts.

Yes you can get candle leds in b22 and b15 but Poundworld(or Poundland even ! ) sell the cheap £1 each candle leds in small screw. I ve seen the b15 candles occasionally in Poundworld but not the larger ones.