Down lights-Fluro V LED [Archive]

Stringy

29th April 2007, 08:47 PM

advice required to help decide which type of light to install on the verandah, I will need about 30 downlights to cover the area.

I have 6 low voltage dimable downlights in the kithchen which use about 70w each and want to use either 240v fluro or led non dimable lights on the verandah due to their low power consumption. Ebay has these for about $21ea which seems reasonable (the 12v's in the kitchen cost $8.50ea).

Does anyone have any experience with the 240v fluro's and led's and are there any differences in the light output. Not concerned about bulb life as by the time they die the price will have changed to who knows what.

Thanks,

doug1

29th April 2007, 09:00 PM

Not sure of the area you intend to light or spacing but aI have just installed 15W CFL downlights about 2.5 M apart on a walk way and am very happy with it. LED lamps may not give enough light
What dimensions are you intending, length,width, spacing, any idea of how much light you want?

Doug

Stringy

29th April 2007, 09:58 PM

Doug1,

The verandah floor area is 30m long x 3m wide with an 2.4m ceiling.

from your post I assume that the fluro (9watt) emits more light than led (?watt)?

OBBob

30th April 2007, 08:16 AM

I think the LEDs are still quite a bit more expensive than the CFLs. Both of them still have trouble getting the warm colour of a halogen, however the CFLs seem to be further advanced in this.

Grunt

30th April 2007, 08:43 AM

If you want to do your bit to reduce green house gas emissions do not get conventional downlights. 30 x 50 or 70 watts will give you a killer electric bill.

Checkout either Envirolux or Fozz lighting from the Beacon Lighting website. http://www.beaconlighting.com.au/

There are other alternatives around too.

SilentButDeadly

30th April 2007, 04:55 PM

Stringy,

10 of those Megaman www.megaman.cc (http://www.megaman.cc) compact fluorescent GU10 downlights (same size as 12V halogen) from www.cosmoluce.com.au (http://www.cosmoluce.com.au) will do the deed. Choice of 11 Watt or 7 Watt globe and a dimmable version is available.

http://www.megaman.cc/var/images/global/products/products/c1/s4/br0711i.jpg

Cost per globe and fitting is about $40.

http://www.cosmoluce.com.au/pdfs/cosmoluceProductsMegamanGreenEco.pdf

The other choice is the more powerful G24 type of compact fluorescent downlights with PL style globes that you commonly see in commercial applications
http://www.megaman.cc/var/images/global/products/products/c1/s16/t3g24q218.jpg

http://www.cosmoluce.com.au/pdfs/cosmoluceProductsCommercial.pdf

My other favorite is the 20 watt PAR38 lamp to replace those energy hungry outdoor floodlights - this one is a ripper....

http://www.megaman.cc/var/images/global/products/products/c1/s4/br0623.jpg

Stringy

2nd May 2007, 02:40 PM

Thanks for the replies folks.

Though I am still after some feedback on the LED's, might see if I can buy a couple of each and trial them side by side:rolleyes:.

namtrak

2nd May 2007, 02:56 PM

.........Does anyone have any experience with the 240v fluro's and led's and are there any differences in the light output. .......

I have talked about this in our reno thread, however for convenience sake. We bought about 40 of the NECO flouro downlights for our house. And they are NOT bright enough to light working areas. We had 7 of them in the kitchen in area, about 3m by 4m (more than the recommended) and they were way too dim. We replaced them with normal halogens. We are now using the Fluoros in transit areas and areas where we don't need the light to be so bright. Eg Hallway, Entrance, Under eaves down the side of the house and wait for it - Verandah. I think they would be ideally suited for your verandah, however I would also make sure I had some brighter lights available where I needed them.

We have also installed some LED's in the deck itself, and they push out a surprising amount of light. However from what the sparky says, he doesn't believe they are quite up to scratch just yet (he thinks a couple more years and everything will be LED's)

Stringy

2nd May 2007, 04:51 PM

namtrak, Thanks.

I looked at your reno site on the weekend, and found your comments and pictures of value.

I have 12v dimable downlights in the kitchen and have looked at replacing these with dimable fluros but at the moment they are $50 a bulb and dim:(, so I will wait for the price to come down and technology to improve. I need to keep them anyway so I can blame the wife for our power bill due to the great lighting in her kitchen.

As for the verandah I have not purchased the lights yet and came across the LED's at the same price of CFL. The major lighting retailers are 2hours drive away and it is hard to compare in a showroom.

The CFL's you replaced due to inconsistent colour would not matter on my verandah but is a dissapointing result.

More feedback on the LED's will be greatly appreciated.

Sir Stinkalot

2nd May 2007, 10:51 PM

We are looking at replacing some lighting around the place. I am in a lucky situation to be able to contact reps from lighting companies directly and get honest advice and lighting designs.

When I mentioned that we were looking at LED down lights in our lounge area I was told that they still don't have a great output and tend to give off a washy light. They have been recomended for feature uplights, especially in pavers and decks. As for the advise above they may well be the future but they need some further development.

We are looking at recessed fluorescent down lights, 1x 18W. As they are recessed I was told that the lighting output would be slightly lower than an upwards facing fixture. As such I was told 4 fittings for a 3 x 3 m area. I was also told to run the globes on a dimmer to increase bulb life.

At the moment we are running 5x CFL in a horrible external fitting and they give out plenty of light. I expect that we will need 6 with the recessed option. The light is very white as we went with the cool white globes years ago, but you get used to it. The lighting consultant mentioned that the new CFL globes are getting much closer to the halogens if that is what you are after.

Hope this is of some help.

bennylaird

2nd May 2007, 11:06 PM

Lots of powerful leds around, check out Altronics, Jaycar, etc.

bennylaird

2nd May 2007, 11:15 PM

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ST3885&CATID=&keywords=leds&SPECIAL=&form=KEYWORD&ProdCodeOnly=&Keyword1=&Keyword2=&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID=

Harry72

2nd May 2007, 11:20 PM

What about those Luxeon LED thingys? anyone tried them?

bennylaird

2nd May 2007, 11:23 PM

Good power but need special supplies which make them expensive

bennylaird

2nd May 2007, 11:25 PM

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ZD0320&CATID=&keywords=leds&SPECIAL=&form=KEYWORD&ProdCodeOnly=&Keyword1=&Keyword2=&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID=

Halogen replacements

bennylaird

2nd May 2007, 11:28 PM

Luxeon info here.
http://www.jaycar.com.au/images_uploaded/ZD040X.pdf

doug1

3rd May 2007, 09:45 PM

The CFLs I have used are Nelson Alladin 15W Warm white they dont specify colour temp

Given that SWMBO HATES flouresent and she accepts these they maybe what you need

Doug

built4thrashing

11th May 2007, 09:42 PM

you can use 1watt MR16 LED globes in a standard 12v downlight but you need to use the old iron core transformers. Electronic trannys need a minimum load to fire. Iron core trannys will also allow you to dim the LEDs and you can run up to 40 led downlights of the 1 transformer

seth

17th May 2007, 02:04 PM

I tried some CFL down lights but I was very dissapointed with there performance especially their colour. Take a look here:

http://www.heavydutymedia.com/OurRenovations/CFL%20Downlights.html

Shame really cause I really wanted to do my thing for the environment.

I've ended up going with 35 watt Halogens instead. The type I obtained claim to be as bright as a 50 standard down light.

I'll try and reduce my energy consumptions through the use of a lamp when I want lower lights and other energy efficient measures in my house.

seth

23rd May 2007, 11:21 PM

I've had the 35 watt ones installed now, they are fantastic!

patty

30th June 2007, 01:27 AM

patty

30th June 2007, 01:34 AM

stringy mate go for the fluros any day of the week especially for a verandah but if you have money to burn go ahead with the leds but you will not get anywhere near the amount of light or the actual spread from leds compared to fluros you can get some nice diffused 2x4 foot fluros i dont know how big your verandah is but 4 x 2x40 w diffused fluros will adequatley cover the average sized double garage spacing them correctly they might not look as cool as recessed downlights but it depends how cool your verandah is and how big your wallet is also mate

patty

30th June 2007, 01:41 AM

stringy to cover the area of a double sized garage in leds and get sufficient light output i think you would have to have a mininum of 24 lamps $20 a lamp not including the fitting round about $6 i rekon you would spend about $600 min on light fitting to cover the area duck into your local wholesaler and check prices on 2 x 40 w diffused fluro I think you would pay about $40 each i hope this helps

patty

30th June 2007, 01:48 AM

stringy check out led shop online The local wholesaler will charge like a wounded bull for leds but beware there is some cheap and nasty led lamps on line as well... they have some new 5 w leds out now and from what i am led to believe they are the GO also i would suggest to go for daylight instead of warm white colour warm white is a yellowy colour where daylight is more white also look at the 6500k 5 w they look good

patty

1st July 2007, 04:37 PM

stringy
I have just replaced 3 x 50 w halogen lights in my hallway and converted them to 1.5w isotronic led lamps which have 18 led per lamp each... I decided on putting them in the hallway as lighting is not so critical and the result.... ablsolute crap look good but... dont even bother changing over you dead set get more light out of a dolphin torch I am contemplating about using some 5 - 7 w versions I saw on e bay and giving them a try the brand of the led lamps is "invironment" but they are $100 bucks each plus some there is also another crew I think called ixl lights and they have a 5 watt version for $27.00 ea... so unless you want to sit on your verandah by moonlight because that is the light ouput i have in my hallway at the moment... dont even worry about changing over in the kitchen you need to have good light ion kitchens

zathras

1st July 2007, 07:24 PM

The latest Cree XR-E LEDs are now matching light output of flouro lighting.
80 lumens / watt.
This is about 4 times better than the luxeon can do.

These are 3W LED's, so to compare apples with apples, you'd need a 3W flouro.
I honestly think for mainstream lighting, stick with compact flouro, in a warm white until the LED's begin to really go beyond flouro efficiency and also the price falls to a better match against flouro.

The LED light output efficiency improvements will happen soon I'd suspect, but the pricing will still be at least 4x the flouro I'd suspect.

Stringy

23rd July 2007, 04:39 PM

Finally :- got to a lighting showroom and compared the CFL's to Luxeon LED, the Luxeon LED's are deffinetly the way to go but price is prohibitive.

Halogen; 70w, $8.50per fitting, 1000hour life.

Luxeon LED; 3w, 60 to 70% output of Halogen downlight, Narrow beam. $60per fitting. 40 to 50,000 hour life.

CFL's; 15w, 30% output of Halogen downlight, $30 per fitting/meggabux if I want them dimmable $70per bulb, 10,000 hour life. Electrical wholesaler/lighting showroom had lots of complaints about these and were not keen to recommend them.

To light up my verandah will cost $1800 with the LED's. I will have to wait untill the price becomes realistic, although looking at bulb life, value is prettey good:rolleyes:.

the verandah is going to be wired to accept downlights in the future, but at the moment I will have second hand fluro battons $0, fitted. At this price I can afford to have a few broken from the kids playing.

SilentButDeadly

23rd July 2007, 06:51 PM

Stringy........with respect, I think you've been misquoted.

Fitting cost for the GU10 240V CFL downlight is the same as that for a GU10 240V halogen downlight......about $8.50. It's the same bloody thing!!!

And the dimmable CFL's are about $35 to $40 per bulb......not $70!!!!

You also forgot to mention that the CFL downlights have a 110 degree wide beam compared to the typically 35 to 75 degree beam of halogen....which tends to make the CFLs seem dim by comparison. However, there are reflector fittings available for the CFLs to narrow the angle.....

Bear in mind that the Luxeon Stars (actually Phillips LumiLEDS) are the ducks nuts of ultra bright LEDS to date but there's a transformer or two (these ones http://www.luxeonstar.com/item.php?id=507&link_str=240::242&partno=913700181903 ) behind those unlike the halogens and CFLs.......oh and I personally don't believe the hour rating unless there's the mother of all heatsinks attached to LEDS themselves......it'd be more like 1,500 to 5,000 hours if they aren't allowed to dissapate the tonne of heat they generate......

If you like the Luxeons so much and have some fluro fittings then why not the best of both worlds.....the Luxeon fluro http://www.luxeonstar.com/sub_category.php?id=1429&link_str=1429 AU$180 straight from Luxeon

zathras

23rd July 2007, 07:58 PM

Luxeons are now about 3 years old.

In the meantime CREE have outstripped them in efficiency, and also the O-star is a similar performance to the CREE.

When these better LEDs do start appearing in mainstream fittings the luxeon will fall away very quickly.

Heat is a problem with ALL light fittings, halogen being the hottest.
Poor efficiency is directly related to wasted heat energy. The aim is to produce light with minimal heat. A filament burning a several hundred degrees C is far from being efficient, a lot of energy is simply wasted as heat. Certainly far more than the LED produces.
The "tonne of heat" from the LED is insignificant to that of the halogen!

Most halogens too are driven by transformers, electronic or iron core.

Unfortunately I do agree though that LED's are simply not price effective at the moment, and probably not in the foreseeable future either.
Good to play with for camping etc, but for domestic use everyday, not really practical to fit the house out with.

bennylaird

24th July 2007, 05:28 PM

"Osram has developed a light-emitting diode (LED) spotlight that achieves an output of more than 1000 lumens. That’s brighter than a 50W halogen lamp, making the device suitable for a broad range of general lighting applications. The Ostar Lighting LED, scheduled for release within months, can provide sufficient light for a desk from a height of two metres, for example. Its small size also enables the creation of completely new lamp shapes."

Silicon Chip Mag.