Recessed Halogen Downlights - Always Blowing & Expensive

Hi ya guys & gals ,
We are re-doing our kitchen and hallway, we have fitted Recessed Halogen downlighters (mains voltage I'm told).
But they are always blowing and we are constantly needing to change them, plus there is quite a few and they aren't cheap to run.

We've heard about converting the bulbs to LED bulbs, But there it is such a minefield out there, Just wondering have any of you guys done it or are consdiering doing it ?

We did try some before from Ebay, they were like 3 LED's with a lens... They were crap. Please could anyone tell us if they've used decent ones or is the technology not there yet
Jen x

Hi Jen,
I can sympathise, We used to have quite a few of the halogen downlighters and they was expensive to run and got very very hot.
We too tried some LED bulbs ( From amazon) cheap and nasty lol, so again I can feel your pain !.
What we went for in the End was a surfaced mounted LED bulb, We didn't replace the fittings, we used the old ones just with a good clean.
The ones we found are very bright, nice light colour - not blue like some LEDs, plus as we was buying quite a few 30ish, they were the only company we found that offered a 3 year garentee.

LOL at least now we both know the joys of online shopping .
Where did you get yours from dave, they sound like what we are after ?

jenny84xx said:

We did try some before from Ebay, they were like 3 LED's with a lens... They were crap. Please could anyone tell us if they've used decent ones or is the technology not there yet
Jen x

Click to expand...

Pretty much says it all. In my opinion the claims hype is years ahead of the reality.
You would be better off returning to standard pendant type light fittings with either cfl or incandescent lights.

LOL, Yea I like mine, I got them from a Finnish company called Finbright, TBH never heard of them before, but the quality was spot on, I think they do a few but these are my ones, http://www.finbright.com/led-light-bulbs/finbright-gu10-pro.html
Dave

Alternatively try the Interlux 5 watt GU10 available on Amazon. They have a higher lumen rating than the Finbright bulb. However if you have recessed downlights you may find the wider beam angle offered by these LED bulbs is negated as the bulb sits higher inside the fitting.

These are very good :-

http://www.diamondledlighting.co.uk/

Jenny - recessed lighting can be OK, but only in large sizes.

The little 2" diameter ones came out of the retail display market, where they were designed to throw small pools of light onto individual items. Ever noticed how a common term for them is spotlights?

They are actually specifically designed to not be any good for providing general room illumination.

I often refer to them as torches, and if you look at the business end of a Maglite you'll see a marked similarity to an MR16 lamp.

In places like kitchens, bathrooms, WCs, possibly hallways and landings where you just want unobtrusive efficient lighting that just gets on and does the job, something like this is ideal:





Or, for kitchens in particular, there's a lot to recommend good old tried and trusted fluorescent strip lights. They don't have to look like this:




For example the top right one here:




or these:





And these are all from one maker.


Fluourescent lights can be dimmed. If you find one you like which isn't dimmable, look to see how easy it would be to replace the ballast with a dimmable one (which you can often find on fleaBay).



But you wouldn't want any of the above in living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms. Back to looking in lighting shops and websites - cast your net wider than the limited range of cr*p they have in the sheds. As the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And if all you do is look in DIY sheds everything that isn't hideous looks like a downlighter.


In terms of basic technology, as well as fluorescent and LED, look into magnetic induction lamps, dielectric barrier discharge lighting (Osram have been sitting on their Planon technology for b****y years, which is a shame), and Electron stimulated luminescence.


Think if you could use cold cathode neons:



here's an example of that in a domestic kitchen showing that it isn't only suitable for nightclubs and hotel foyers:

ban-all-sheds said:

here's an example of that in a domestic kitchen showing that it isn't only suitable for nightclubs and hotel foyers:

Untitled

• slup
• 31 Jan 2009
• 16

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You like that one? ... what are all those little white circles on the ceiling, I have to ask?

Kind Regards, John.

The use of the photo is to show concealed neon lighting in a domestic house.

ban-all-sheds said:

The use of the photo is to show concealed neon lighting in a domestic house.

Click to expand...

I realise that, but whoever designed the system seemed to feel the need for at least 9 (probably a good few more) downlighters in the same room!

Kind Regards, John.

I think some people believe that they are mandatory.

ban-all-sheds said:

I think some people believe that they are mandatory.

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Seems that way ...but I was surprised to see you (probably unwittingly) promoting them

Kind Regards, John.

Replaced my 20w LV downlighters with 5w leds, same light output, very happy with them .

JohnW2 said:

Seems that way ...but I was surprised to see you (probably unwittingly) promoting them

Click to expand...

[shrug]I also think that stainless steel appliances and polished black worktops are stupid things to have in a kitchen, as they will always look sh** because of fingerprints.[/shrug]