Halogen Bulbs help

[Gareth135R]

Seems the guy who built my house loved halogen spotlights.
They're everywhere; bathrooms, bedrooms, hallway and kitchen.

The ones in the hallway and kitchen are forever blowing.
I'm no sparky so hoping someone can advise.

Hallway is quite large and at either end there's an on/off switch which operates 7 x 50w halogen spot lights.

Kitchen is a decent size and also has two on/off switches operating 8 x 50w halogen spot lights.

I guess I'm overloading the circuit.
Using lower volatage bulbs help?

Any advice?

TIA
G

[Redmax]

Why do you think you're overloading the circuit?

[m3jappa]

halogen lights just don't last long.

Either keep replacing or change to led bulbs although you will notice a big drop in output

[E36GUY]

Don't bother with LED bulbs. As Jappa says there will be a big drop off in light output as they are not up to the job yet . With LED you need a complete fitting with a powerful light source. Such as I make. I have now sold hundreds to PHers with no complaints so far!


ETA - ignore the web price. Special PH price if you contact me directly!

[anonymous-user]

The latest CFL ones I have are instantly bright & would last much longer. 6400K colour temp available from CPC.

[E36GUY]

Dave_ST220 said:

The latest CFL ones I have are instantly bright & would last much longer. 6400K colour temp available from CPC.

Why would anyone want 6400k colour temp in their homes. That's practically going blue!

[Roy E6]

LED bulbs are now as bright as halogen, dimmable, and can be used in your existing fittings. Downside is they are £30 per bulb.

[E36GUY]

Roy E6 said:

LED bulbs are now as bright as halogen, dimmable, and can be used in your existing fittings. Downside is they are £30 per bulb.

DON'T USE BULBS! There are no bulbs on the market up to the job of a halogen yet.

Do a search for my exhaustive post re LED types.

And my ZEP1s are well below £30. To PHers anyway.

[Roy E6]

E36GUY said:

There are no bulbs on the market up to the job of a halogen yet.

Yes there are, they have them in my local wholesalers, Eyre and Elliston will find out who make them tomorrow and post a link up.

[E36GUY]

Roy E6 said:

Yes there are, they have them in my local wholesalers, Eyre and Elliston will find out who make them tomorrow and post a link up.

With respect Roy, E&E are not a specialist lighting company nor is there anything LED in the catalogue. They are a wholesaler who will sell whatever they can make a margin.

But I look forward to seeing what you come up with

[Roy E6]

E36GUY said:

With respect Roy, E&E are not a specialist lighting company nor is there anything LED in the catalogue. They are a wholesaler who will sell whatever they can make a margin.

But I look forward to seeing what you come up with

your right there is nothing in the catalogue, but they had them on display on the counter when I was there this morning. Dimmable LED GU10 replacements £40 with fitting £30 for just the bulb.

[nokio]

I have Philips LEDs in my house and they are as good as halogens and working for a lighting wholesaler I have the choice of LEDs to fit, my boss also has them fitted in his house.

I also looked at what Halers had to offer but why would you fit a complete light fitting when in 2-3 years it may develop a fault and no longer be in production, resulting in having to possibly redecorate just because the "light bulb has blown"

[anonymous-user]

E36GUY said:

Why would anyone want 6400k colour temp in their homes. That's practically going blue!

Nope, closest to daylight.

[E36GUY]

Dave_ST220 said:

Nope, closest to daylight.

Perhaps but in lamp terms, it will still be bluey so again, why would anyone want that type of light in the home. Unless you want your home to be lit like an office is.

[anonymous-user]

E36GUY said:

Perhaps but in lamp terms, it will still be bluey so again, why would anyone want that type of light in the home. Unless you want your home to be lit like an office is.

In a kitchen I find it MUCH nicer to have light that resembles daylight rather than a yellowish light. Personal preference I guess.

[blueg33]

E36GUY said:

Don't bother with LED bulbs. As Jappa says there will be a big drop off in light output as they are not up to the job yet . With LED you need a complete fitting with a powerful light source. Such as I make. I have now sold hundreds to PHers with no complaints so far!


ETA - ignore the web price. Special PH price if you contact me directly!

Do you do bulbs for G10 fittings?

[E36GUY]

Dave_ST220 said:

In a kitchen I find it MUCH nicer to have light that resembles daylight rather than a yellowish light. Personal preference I guess.

There is no right or wrong answer for sure Dave. It is preference for sure but the majority out there prefer closer to 3200K. But that's what we've become used to. I just don't think that high colour temp does much to make a kitchen, usually the most focal point of a house, particularly cosy. But that is an opinion also!

blueg33 said:

Do you do bulbs for G10 fittings?

No sorry, we don't do bulbs full stop. I might have a light engine that will fit but I'd need to see a pic of your fitting to assess that.

Roy E6 said:

your right there is nothing in the catalogue, but they had them on display on the counter when I was there this morning. Dimmable LED GU10 replacements £40 with fitting £30 for just the bulb.

Just beacuase a company is selling them and has given you the sales patter does not mean they are suited to the job. And this is the problem with the LED market as a whole. Too much unsuitable rubbish being touted about by people buying cheap rubbish in China and polishing it up for the UK market. It is endemic.

If the GU10s you refer to have more than a 200 lumen output then I will be amazed. Also, mains voltage and dimmable. Ok. But you are taking circutory that normally comes in a box the size of a ten pack of fags built into a GU10 cap. So basically a transformer and dimming circutory in an area with a similar size to 7 one penny pieces in a small stack? So where is the heat management? It doesn't exist and these lamps will not last, nor will they have effective heat sinking ability as there is no surface area on the lamp for such equipment and thus, no such effective 'bulb' exists. We are an OEM manufacturer of absolutely cutting edge LED technology. If we could make, or buy and resell a 'bulb' that did the job we would. And will when the technology to heat sink (on a bulb platform) the powerful LED needed for proper illumination becomes available.

I refer to you a post that I wrote on PH some time back.

Kevp said:

B&Q actually do 3watt (approx 40watt equivalent) LED GU10 £15 each, including lamp holder (for those that want to replace LV units). This is actually a very good price. Not sure if they are dimmable.

probably the next best option is to change for Halers units (7.5 watt IIRC) guaranteed for 7 years & as bright as a 50watt LV.

Sorry but incorrect I'm afraid. Snotrag is closer to the truth of it but LED is ready for the home if you know who makes the good kit. There are so many lies being told by people selling LED it is ridiculous and the problem is that there is a lot of licence seemingly allowed to make output claims. A manufacturer may be allowed to claim the same output as 50W by measuring the output at 1 inch off the glass. The Halers are nowhere near 50W halogen at a comparable colour temperature. Spread across a whole room the story will be quite different. I will explain as quickly as possible but take a deep breath and try to stay awake!

First of all, people need to stop relating an LED bulb's output in terms of Watts. The wattage of a lamp is irrelevent. For example, a 50W Halogen bulb dimmed to 50% is still using 50W power regardless of the light output. The wattage of an LED bulb is the load it runs on and has no relation to the light output. The cooler an LED runs the higher the output. Similarly, the cooler the colour temperature then the higher the light output. Typically, you guys will be interested in Warm White which is closest to Halogen and would be 2700 to 3200 Kelvin. Cool White will be 4000K-5000k and at 5000K, you are seeing a much more bluey light. So, for the purposes of this I will stick to lumen levels of Warm White as that's what we typically want for the home.

The LED that you find in a lamp at B&Q is a traditional, low power 5mm LED and thus is never going to compete. Modern LED is an entirely different animal. See pic below.




So, one needs to look mainly at the LUMEN output and put aside the wattage as a measure of light when talking LED. There are Lux levels as well but I won't bore you with that too!

A Halogen Lamp, depending on the quality, will typically put out around 12-14 Lumens per Watt. So, a 50W Halogen will be 500-700 lumens depending on the quality of the product. A cheapy in a multi-pack from the local store which most of us will use will be around 500.

B&Q's 3W bulb is not an equivalent to a 40W. Not a chance. Info on their website states it has an output of just 10.4 lumen which is appauling. Their highest output LED bulb is actually a 1W product which has a 32 lumen output. So that would be some 90% down on a 40W halogen and illustrates my point about Wattage does not equal output.

Halers are nowhere near as bright as a 50W. Closer but still around two thirds actually. A Halers in Cold White achieves a claimed 400ish lumens. Warm White will be significantly lower but suprise suprise, that figure is not published. We also heard from the Halers rep that they don't know where the LEDs actually come from which means you risk colour variation if you are looking to replace a large quanitity of lights.

LED quality varies hugely according to its "binning" on manufacture. Bin 1 being the best and so on down the line. In our business manufacturing LED light fittings and lighting design consultancy, we have chose Bridgelux LED which is one of the best in the world and is very tight on the binning so we know that if a hotel buys 500 lamps, they will all be the same colour. One must therefore, never buy LED on the basis of the best price. If it's too cheap there is a damn good reason! Any idiot with half a brain can import cheap tat from China and pass it off as quality with a fancy website and good language.

Finally, LED bulbs will not rival 50W halogen until the issue of cooling is settled. One cannot put the modern, powerful LED onto a bulb platform as there is no surface area for the heat-sink. It is a misconception that LED runs cool. It's certainly cool compared with Halogen but one can easily see 130degrees inside an LED if it's not heat-sinked. Whilst it would fit size wise, the LED that I use in the ZEP1 ECOLED down light would not cool well and would therefore not last. My suspicion is that this is what is happening in the Philips lamps if my wholesale sources are correct. Pic below shows you a heat sink and explains how we can acheive a huge 420 lumen output in Warm White from just 5 Watts of power.

Comparison:

Halogen - 50W - 500-700 Lumen (Warm White) (depending on lamp quality).
B&Q - 3watt - 10.4 Lumen (Cool White)
Philips 7Watt - 250 Lumen (Warm White)
Halers - 7.4 Watt - 420 Lumen (Cool White (Claimed - most likely 300lumen at Warm White)
PhotonStar - 7x1Watt - 350 Lumen (Warm White)
EcoLED (me) ZEP1 - 5Watt - 420 Lumen (Warm White)
ZEP2 - 10Watt - 840 Lumen (Warm White) (coming soon)

Conclusion - if you want to go LED and really want usable light, replace the whole fitting not just the bulb! Full trade discount to PHers if you contact me directly. Several already have and are delighted.

I hope you find this useful if you are still awake!

Edited by E36GUY on Friday 4th March 09:42

[indi pearl]

Had the same problem with halogens. Finaly fixed it(from very helpfull posts in this forum a year or two ago)with Megaman soft white GU10 compact flourescents. 11w bulbs give very good output and cost about £8 each. I have yet to have one fail (out of twenty) after 2 years.

[anonymous-user]

indi pearl said:

Had the same problem with halogens. Finaly fixed it(from very helpfull posts in this forum a year or two ago)with Megaman soft white GU10 compact flourescents. 11w bulbs give very good output and cost about £8 each. I have yet to have one fail (out of twenty) after 2 years.

The ones CPC sell are £2.42 each, been in 12 months now & none have failed. That was the older type, I've only just got the new ones that come on instantly bright-VERY bright at that! They also do the warm white if cold white is not yout thing.

[hairyben]

Gareth135R said:

Seems the guy who built my house loved halogen spotlights.
They're everywhere; bathrooms, bedrooms, hallway and kitchen.

The ones in the hallway and kitchen are forever blowing.
I'm no sparky so hoping someone can advise.

Hallway is quite large and at either end there's an on/off switch which operates 7 x 50w halogen spot lights.

Kitchen is a decent size and also has two on/off switches operating 8 x 50w halogen spot lights.

I guess I'm overloading the circuit.
Using lower volatage bulbs help?

Any advice?

TIA
G

Are they mains (GU10/ bayonet toggles) or low voltage (pins)?

If mains, they can blow all the time for many people - probably poor electricity supply (spikes surges etc) Using electronic/IQ dimmers helps- the dimmer "soft starts" the cold lamp instead of the surge that normally kills them.

If low voltage, and the same fittings keep going, you probably need the clips (lamp connector) replacing- quite a simple job and about a £1 or so each, each clip handles over 4 amps at over 200c so is a bit of a weak point, sometimes you'll see them charred. Also look inside the fittings- if they're tightly enclosed metal can fittings use only "HEAT FORWARD" or "ALUMINIUM REFLECTOR" lamps- these fittings are prone to overheating with standard cool beam lamps.