Bloody 240v halogen lights

[NiceCupOfTea]

They are so utterly crap. My house has hundreds of the bloody things thanks to the previous owners thinking they're trendy (OK, they do look nice).

Let's ignore the fact that they're expensive and they blow every five minutes - my main issue is how hot they get! You walk underneath them and it's like having a laser beam emanating from the ceiling! They're OK in upstairs rooms as long as you clear the insulation 10 feet around them and put a ceramic flowerpot over them, but in downstairs rooms they get so hot that when you come to change the lamps (like I just did) the bulbholder just crumbles to dust! What a complete bloody shambles

[Nolar Dog]

Never had a problem with them to be honest.

[mickk]

Get a lamp with a smaller wattage, they shoudnt be damaging the lampholder


And its 230V not 240V, please go and stand at the back of the class

Edited by mickk on Sunday 26th October 12:42

[NiceCupOfTea]

TBH never seen any other wattages, just the 50w ones.

[V12Les]

try 11w ones, softer light and cheap to run.

[tomtom]

I have six in my living room and three of them have blown in the past week. Must be something in the air.

[Oilchange]

turn the lights on and then look at your meter spinning like a mad thing, then turn them off and see how much elastic trickery it uses.

I changed mine for LED/Fluorescent jobs and cut the wattage down to about one eighth. Much more affordable and they last a long time.

( I had 9 x 50w in the kitchen, now I have 9 x 7w instead so significantly less power required)

Edited by Oilchange on Sunday 26th October 12:47

[Matt p]

20w and 35w lamps are available to, but i find the 11w lamps are just a little to dull.

But the good point is they cost fk all to run though.

Matt

[grumbas]

Put them on a dimmer switch - they go pop far less often being turned on gradually.

Plus it could operate as some form of crude manual thermostat!

[Parrot of Doom]

mickk said:

Get a lamp with a smaller wattage, they shoudnt be damaging the lampholder


And its 230V not 240V, please go and stand at the back of the class

Edited by mickk on Sunday 26th October 12:42

You'll find they will work over a range of voltages, including 240VAC. Please remove yourself to the back of the classroom.

[V12Les]

Matt p said:

20w and 35w lamps are available to, but i find the 11w lamps are just a little to dull.

But the good point is they cost fk all to run though.

Matt

Also it will depend what distance you have them apart. At 11w you can afford to put an extra couple in a room. There's more than enough light when spaced at 800 centers (600 off the wall) for a kitchen.

[mickk]

Parrot of Doom said:

mickk said:

Get a lamp with a smaller wattage, they shoudnt be damaging the lampholder


And its 230V not 240V, please go and stand at the back of the class

Edited by mickk on Sunday 26th October 12:42

You'll find they will work over a range of voltages, including 240VAC. Please remove yourself to the back of the classroom.

OK

[speedy_thrills]

NiceCupOfTea said:

they get so hot that when you come to change the lamps (like I just did) the bulbholder just crumbles to dust! What a complete bloody shambles

GU-10 type:

?

You can buy longlife versions with better ceramic bases, if it's the fitting itself find another downlight unit with the same cutout and buy a decent one (Not the cheapest). Good ones should last for years.

You can also buy "cool beam" versions which emit less UV by using a dichroic material to reflect UV spectrum back into the bulb. Using the wider angle bulbs (60 degree rather than the more common and often IMO mis-sold 38 degree bulbs) would help as well, it'll say on the bulbs what beam angle you are using.

HTH

[Scraggles]

got the same things, but low voltage ones, 3 for the kitchen and 3 for the living room, both need a good 30-60 seconds to warm up, other than that they are great

[V12Les]

fk me they must be small rooms!

[dhutch]

We haev GU10's in the kitchen and a strip of four in the end of the living room.
- The living room is a long room, and they add a daylight feel at the back, kitches just nice bright.

The kitchen is typical running 35w's and the living room the full five-0.

However they are good quality ceramic fittings, and open pods, rather than down lighters.

No problems however


Daniel

[Plotloss]

It would be a proper arse ache of a job but long term you're best off switching over to MR16s with high quality (Mode/Lutron) transformers.

Much nicer light, much longer lasting.

Its what I'd do but then I do have a pathological hatred of GU10s.

[mybrainhurts]

grumbas said:

Put them on a dimmer switch - they go pop far less often being turned on gradually.

...Be with you in 20 minutes, just turning the light on...

[speedy_thrills]

dhutch said:

full five-0.

75w max. for normal sized GU-10s but most places only sell the 75w as the bigger physical sizes though. Not many fittings use them though.

Edited by speedy_thrills on Sunday 26th October 13:55

[dhutch]

grumbas said:

Put them on a dimmer switch - they go pop far less often being turned on gradually.

What you want is a filiment preheat!

speedy_thrills said:

dhutch said:

full five-0.

75w max. for normal sized GU-10s but most places only sell the 75w as the bigger physical sizes though. Not many fittings use them though.

Fair enough. Cant say i;ve studied them very long. I tend to work more with 1200w HIDs!


Daniel