LEDs

[Gnome]

I recently bought a Watt Meter on eBay. Long story short, lights consume most of my electricity, easily!

1 x GU10 spotlight = 48watt, a single room bedroom typically has 5-8 of these lights. Living area around 15.

I have approx. 40 GU10 spotlights in the house. That is serious power usage for just light!

So I've done some investigating and the cheapest relative quality LEDs you can buy in SA are approx. R100 (Ellies). 4.5w (instead of 48watt).

However I've started experimenting by buying LEDs from eBay. From eBay you can get LEDs for R29

I've bought a few different brands and I want to share my experience and in turn get some of the other peoples experiences!

The brands I've bought in SA:
Ellies (4w): Quality is acceptable, Light output is average, cost is intermediate.
Qualico (4w): Quality is good and light output is good but cost is very high

From eBay:
SmarTop LEDs (labelled 6w/9w but it is 3w): Quality is excellent and light output is average, cost is lower than Ellies.
Cheapo no-name 4w LEDs: I'm still waiting on these but they cost R29 for a single LED, so cost is incredibly low.

Yes this isn't an exhaustive list but I'm hoping to expand it.

Anyone else want to contribute your experiences?

 

[FNfal]

I am very interested in this subject and keen to buy LEDs thanks for the post ( never bought any before )

 

[Gnome]

If you are new to LEDs:

Regarding LEDs:

The short is, yes LEDs are as bright, if not brighter, than your standard lights. However their lights are much more focused (like spotlights). Typically the angle is 45 degrees. You might need more of them if your room is large with few lights.

Typically in a house fitted with GU10, the lights are fitted in close configuration anyway, so going with LEDs will save you electricity and increase your light output. (I can elaborate on why later)

The 2 most popular light fittings in SA are probably currently B22, commonly referred to as Bayonet and e27 commonly referred to as Edison Screw.

GU10 is being used in most newer homes being built.

These are the most common LED fittings (any other will cost you much more than just replacing your fixture or getting a converter):

e27
MR16 (12 volt)
GU10
e17 (rare)

There are converters from one fixture to the other. If you have B22 I recommend you convert to e27.

If you have the time you may even consider removing your current light fixtures and going GU10. For LEDs they are IMHO the best because LEDs are more geared toward spotlights. There are lights that are not spots (LEDs) but they really don't compare to spot lights in terms of light output per watt.

As to eBay:

I've bought many an item from eBay, if you need some advice I'll happily elaborate but you simply CANNOT beat the LED prices on eBay. Yes, you have to wait 2-3 weeks before it arrives from China but the cost savings are worth it.

You really don't have much to worry about, any purchase made on eBay using PayPal will be covered by a 40 day buyer protection (if it doesn't arrive, money back, if it is broken, money back, etc.)

PayPal is a finance company owned by eBay, together their revenue was $15 bn last year, that is more than Absa made last year (R42 bn). They really have no reason to steal your money. They debit your credit card and on R1000 converted to dollars you pay about R40. You cannot beat the conversion rate and their service is excellent. Especially if someone didn't deliver.

Once you start using PayPal it gets addictive to use it because no-one can steal your Credit Card information.

 

[bdt]

There are other parameters besides the cost of the GU10 LED replacements you're looking at:

• colour temp: usually warm or cool white but also quoted in K
• wattage of course, but how many lumens do you get out for that 5W you're burning?
• beamwidth: I've seen the cheap Ellies ones are 30° where, it seems normal halogen 50-watters are 40° at least. And I've had the 30° rejected by the in-house admin as being blinding
• dimming: don't let people tell you that 1. they can't be dimmed or b. you have to buy the (usually) more expensive dimmable ones; they can be dimmed, it just takes doing the right way.

Or at least, that's how I go about it. Info I found while replying: SimplyLED-UK, Aeon Lighting (carried/punted by Frontier-Electronics) and utter geek-gasm info at Osram. Oh, and Aurora LED lights (found at Lite-Glo in Randburg).

I'm not saying buy these, just be aware of what you have to know before buying a bucketload of lights and end up ..less.. than happy.

 

[rrh]

I have 125 MR16's - each with their own transformer - controlled by a Clipsal C-Bus system. The C-Bus system incorporates a leading-edge dimmer for each globe.

When I last looked - a couple of years back - I didn't have much success in finding a [leading-edge] dimmable LED to replace the MR16's.

Can anyone tell me if things have changed ?

Many thanks

 

[Gnome]

To continue what you are saying bdt. The angle can be more narrow, once again why I recommend GU10 which is generally very closely configured.

Using the Lumens ratings are useless. Manufacturers all claim different values which cannot be trusted. You really need to have a look and see. As bdt said LEDs can be very bright. So don't guy buying a large 9W LED bulb, it will be incredibly intense.

I just want to warn about the first link:
http://www.simplyled.co.uk/GU10-Nxt...50-390-Lumens-50-watts-equiv_A11B6Q.aspx?nh=0

Those are really the old LEDs (the kind with 100s of little LEDs in it). Newer LEDs have 2 or 3 chips LEDs in them and are much brighter.

The most popular LED chips for quality are:
Cree
Philips Lumileds
Epistar
Osram Opto

The best of these are currently Cree. FYI, LED Lenser LED torches use 1x Cree LEDs (many stores stock them if you want to see how bright those LEDs can get). However Cree simply make the LED chip. The rest of the package depend on the brand.

The rest of the package is heat sink and regulator (control the current to the LEDs).

However the difference in brand isn't generally easily noticeable IMHO. You will easily pay R100+ for a Cree based LED when you can buy Epistar for R70 which will only last half as long (4 years VS 6 years) but not really noticeable less bright.

All the LED brands I mentioned above use 1 to 3 very powerful chips. Again if you have more than 3-5 chips on a GU10 fitting for example it is probably the old LED lights that have very poor light (IMHO).

Lastly, LEDs don't die, only bad quality LEDs will die. LED death consists of the LED getting less bright with age. So when they say it will last 4 years that means in 4 years it will have 80% of it's original brightness at which point replacement is recommended (thereafter the brightness goes down fairly quickly).

Any quality LED will last many years, even the cheap kind.

EDIT: These are my opinions based on research and observation (in terms of angle/brightness), please post if you feel different!

 

[Alastairo]

My experience with Leds is that the phosphor that is energised by a blue light is very important. Manufacturers like Osram, Cree, Phillips and Nichia have very good experience with phosphors. With cheaper suppliers, the lights will gradually fade and not work as well after a period of time. It is best to use a good brand, to get the best out of your led lights.