Replacing MR11 (halogen) with MR16 LED's?

Greetings All,
Just after moving in to our new home i started replacing the old lights with LED's unfortunately I bought MR16's instead of 11's but they will fit into the wiring (if not the fittings exactly). I tried one or two at first but have now plugged them all in and everything seems ok. I have seen the transformer under the floorboards but can't remember its range now, however there wasn't any flickering. Well not straight away, after about 10mins or so some flickering did start but then it seems to come and go. I guess I will likely have to replace the transformers..although access is not easy. That aside from that are there any other issues with me leaving the set-up as it is (assuming flickering is transient/controllable) ?

Cheers...Chris

As they are ELV lamps then they almost certainly will have GX5.3 bases. Had they been LV, with GU10 bases, then it would be fair to say that if the lamps will push and twist into place then the contact they are making must be fine.

But with GX5.3 I don't see how you can be sure that a lamp which is too large for the light fitting must necessarily be making a good contact.

Plus it must look pretty cack.

The contacts seem fine but I'm swapping out the lamp holders so it will look ok.

Gogs33 said:

The contacts seem fine but I'm swapping out the lamp holders so it will look ok.

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In that case, buy GU10 fiittings and GU10 LEDs for them - no transformers required and far greater choice for the LED lamps.

ban-all-sheds said:

As they are ELV lamps then they almost certainly will have GX5.3 bases.

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Mr 11 lamps I thought used G4 bases and had thinner pins.
Some fittings use Universal lampholders that take both G4 and G5.3 lamps as they have slots rather than holes

333rocky333 said:

Mr 11 lamps I thought used G4 bases and had thinner pins.

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There is no relationship between base size and type and envelope size and type.

There is some information and a comparison photo here.

Here's another photo - an MR11 with a GU10 base.

As already said the base, the reflector, and the voltage are three separate items. The link talks about MR-compatible LED lamps and the point is many LED lamps don't have a multifaceted reflector so are technically not MR.

But using a high frequency power supply with a LED lamp means your in the lap of the gods as to if it will work, and if so for how long, and with the electronics in the lamp will it cause EMC problems? Many electronic transformers state maximum length of cables because of EMC putting capacitors and diodes in the circuit could do all sorts of weird things.

Also the spikes caused by the switching of the switch mode power supply can damage the LED. The power supply was not designed for LED's so there was no reason to worry about spikes.

Even with a simple toroidal transformer LED's can fail. I used some very cheap LED's with mine and they worked but only for about 4 ~ 6 months which is well below what one would expect. The 230 volt GU10 version had no problems.

So either you need a DC supply or move to low voltage GU10. Be careful many lamp manufacturers call the DC power supplies drivers, both for current and voltage regulated. Really only current regulated should be called drivers, but seems some are also calling the voltage regulated units drivers as well. You want a voltage regulated DC power supply 12VDC do ensure it's fixed at 12 volt not a 3 ~ 12 volt which will likely be fixed at 320 mA.

ban-all-sheds said:

333rocky333 said:

Mr 11 lamps I thought used G4 bases and had thinner pins.

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There is no relationship between base size and type and envelope size and type.

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I appreciate that, but as we both know, he is talking about ELV lamps.
I am saying theres a chance that he has forced a lamp with larger pins 5.3mm apart into a lampholder made to take smaller pins spaced 4mm apart

333rocky333 said:

I appreciate that, but as we both know, he is talking about ELV lamps.

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That's what I said:

As they are ELV lamps

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333rocky333 said:

I am saying theres a chance that he has forced a lamp with larger pins 5.3mm apart into a lampholder made to take smaller pins spaced 4mm apart

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OK.