Replacing bulbs in downlighters/recessed lights

[andemz]

Hi all,

Just been doing a little experimenting. The house that we are currently in is slowly but surely being added to and knocked around, but for the time been the previous owner installed 3 low voltage downlights in the kitchen cupboards which now light up our jasper wedgewood ware (looks quite nice) the guy obviously couldn't be bothered to wire up properly and has just attached the 3 lights to a plug there obviously is a transformer invloved.

Putting this aside i'm looking at the issue of practical maintence. We are considering having recessed mains lights in the living room and if i feel confident at the time i'm going to do the job. Anyway in the kitchen the bloke has done nice neat holes in the cabinet and the light fitting can be priced gently down this way you are able to change the bulbs etc.

does anybody have any tips on fitting these lights and when it comes to changing the bulbs are they pretty easy as accses as it seems a bit iffy to me. Is it just like changing a bulb on an ordinary light (sorry to be basic)?

It looks like from diagrams that i've seen that the clips grab either side of the plasterboard from stop it coming down, well what about when you may need to undertake maintence on it i.e. to check connections etc?

Any advice or website info welcome cheers

 

[TexMex]

The physical fitting of these into a plasterboard ceiling is a doddle. The hole you make has to be neat and of the right size. A core drill of the right size is easiest method.

Watch out for Joists, cabling sitting on top of the board etc.. The fittings have spring type fixings on. You litterally just push them into the hole and the springs then snap them into their final position.

If you ever need to take the fittings out again, you just pry them away, and they just pop out.

Most have screw type bulbs. Can be slightly tricky getting a grip to put in/take out, but nothing to worry about unless you have accute arthritus, (or a few missing digits).

If you want help with cabling, I suggest you post again with any specific problems you may have in this area.

 

[securespark]

Tex, mate, I think they are SELV, with transformer, so they will probably be 2 pin push fit like this: http://cirrus.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main...ndex/Lamps_and_Tubes_Index/Halogen/index.html

They will be held in by either a black serrated circular spring clip or a silver wire one.

 

[TexMex]

Ademz
To clarify my previous post. The lights in your kitchen are probably the SELV jobs that SS has kindly given the link to.
You do go on to say:

Putting this aside ... We are considering having recessed mains lights in the living room

I get the impression here, that you just want standard 240v recessed spots in your living room. These are the ones I was describing. There is a difference in light quality between these and the Halogens. You payes your money and takes your choice.

Thanks to SecureSpark for pointing out the possibly misleading nature of my previous post.

 

[andemz]

Thanks for that TexMex & SS. our mind is made up we are going for mains in the living room. So what i did next is phone TLC up i wanted to know that if i purchased a mains downlighter whether i could whatever watt bulb in there. I don't particularly want to go for 50w as i will need about 10-12 lights, they won't be the main lights in the living room but moreover an additional lighting efftect. TLC guy said that he didn't think that you could just any watt bulb with any mains downlight and he stated that he didn't know what watt bulbs they did. Decided to call it a day there.

Can i have any watt bulb upto 50w in any mains downlights as long as they are mains bulbs.

What watt do the bulbs start at for mains bulbs because 50w seems a bit to much for me as secondary lighting.

I now have the understanding of the wiring from reading other threads and posts on this forum.

 

[breezer]

it depends on what the fitting is desiged for as to what watt you can use, but you can go lower no problem

they start at 35 watt (tlc website)
thing is although bright, they only have a 25 degree angle of spread, you could always dim them

better to have high watt and dim it 'cos you cant turn a low watt up

also 12v halogens do last longer than mains (look at lasting time, compare the two, look at screwfix)

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You can't necessarily use any sort of lamp in any sort of luminaire based purely on the wattage.

Halogens run a lot hotter than normal incandescents, and the dichroic ones are designed to reflect most of the heat backwards out of the lamp. Given that you can get halogen replacements for many lamp types, you might find that if you stick a 50W or 75W halogen into a recessed fitting that's designed to take a 100W non-halogen you overheat it.

Choose your luminaires and lamps together - look beyond the sheds, seek advice from proper lighting suppliers, and include "professional" products (i.e. those aimed at shops and hotels etc) in your search.

 

[breezer]

you are right, i wasnt clear enough, i was only thinking of any type of halogen, mind you be interesting to fit an son lamp into a down light

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Even with halogen luminaires you still need to be careful.

There are 2 common types of mains halogen lamp bases, GZ10 and GU10.

GZ10 lamps are the dichroic (cool beam) type, where a lot of heat comes out of the back, and GU10s have internal reflectors (the lamps are also known as PARxx - Parabolic Aluminium Reflector) where the heat comes out forwards.

If you look you'll see that you can put a GU10 lamp in a GZ10 fitting, but not the other way around. This was done so that you couldn't put a dichroic lamp into a luminaire designed for PAR lamps, as the rearward-reflected heat would damage it.

Well guess what - people have now started making dichroic GU10s

If a luminaire has a GU10 base, then unless the instructions explicitly say otherwise, you must only use PAR GU10s in it, not dichroic.

 

[andemz]

Just been around to a friends house who has recessed lights in his bathroom. I asked him how would he change the bulbs. He stated that he can access them from the loft, but stated that there are tools pretty similar to a rubber plunge that can grip onto the light to get them out.

Has anybody ever heard of anything like this?

 

[securespark]

Yeah, they're a pain in the Yaris!

 

[andemz]

is that the VVT-i or the verso... get your drift, think when i install mine i'll just have to prise them down as you stated and jsut try and make the hole nice and neat.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Just been around to a friends house who has recessed lights in his bathroom. I asked him how would he change the bulbs. He stated that he can access them from the loft, but stated that there are tools pretty similar to a rubber plunge that can grip onto the light to get them out.

Has anybody ever heard of anything like this?

A pair of Marigolds can often help....

 

[securespark]

They can indeed, Ban, but what about when changing lamps??

 

[ban-all-sheds]