GU10 vs Low Voltage?

[planemad]

I have just spent £50 on 9 watt GU10 bulbs from screwfix from the well known manufacturer Sylvania Lighting.

I have a house that 15 x 50w GU10s, if they were all on this would pull 750watts.

If I had them all on now they would pull 135 watts.

OK I won't have them all on at once but it does show a good comparison.

The downside is that they are dimmer for the first 20 seconds then i feel that they reach a light intensity of about 80% of the 50w GU10.
I will also say that I prefer the light colour and lower intensity of the 9 watt GU10 as they are a more softer lights and create a more homely feel.
You cannot use a dimmer switch with this lightbulb type.

 

[ELZ4742]

megaman do a dimmable gu10 cfl

 

[ericmark]

I also found lighting a problem. Swapped florescent for low bay and in one building with roof 25 foot worked great other with roof 10 foot failure.

And although we are talking about a house ceiling height still makes a huge difference when lighting.

The other problem is lamps being dim when switched on. Does not matter if huge metal halide low bay lamp or 8w bulb in a house the dim light on switching on does present problems.

Also there is a problem with colour. Nearly all bulbs either absorb light at certain colours or only make light at certain colours and although the coating help as soon as you use a camera one will realise how distorted the colour is. Some people with erling sysdrum are very dependent on light colour others can adjust. As a result what one family will consider good lighting another will consider as rubbish.

I swapped my two three bulb fittings (normally 3 x 40w) for two 5 bulb fittings and so the room has 10 x 8w CFU bulbs. Yet it does not seem as bright as with two 60w bulbs as fitted by builders when we moved in. But since I use a camera I know the light level is actually higher. It is the soft start that makes one think they are dim. But still there are three lamps powered from sockets to read with.

This is of course a problem with a kitchen. You can hardly use standard lamps you need to rely on main lighting and colour is important with food. Although they do not look pretty I still use florescent tubes in the kitchen. It is after all a work room. Spots look pretty but really useless to get the even light required to judge if the colour is showing the food to be cooked. Total of 180W of florescent light and still not really bright. But in my mothers kitchen with larger window compared with size of room and higher ceiling plus lights on the extractor and she has only 22W of light again discharge (2D) and it is ample. And this is point. It is near impossible to give a general answer on how to light a room.

To be fair the question was not how to light but difference between GU10 and MR16 or any other 50mm spot lamp. And the answer is still the same.
The GU10 is cheaper to install and can be used with discharge lamps.
The 12v version give out more light per watt and should be cheaper to run.
However running costs depend on bulbs used and local voltage variations so in some cases people will find the GU10 is cheaper to run than the 12v version.
Also one needs room for transformers and often this is a problem especial if you need to keep them cool. So in the main I would use GU10 unless there is a large local voltage fluctuation.

 

[LiamPope]

60 degrees? Meh. I got some 120 degree beam angle LED GU10s. Very happy with their 'evenly spread room illumination'.

 

[stgeli]

60 degrees? Meh. I got some 120 degree beam angle LED GU10s. Very happy with their 'evenly spread room illumination'.

Bought a load of 120 degree spread ones over the summer as a way of reducing the cost of my 50 odd downlights. Very pleased with the light output but I've started experiencing bulb failures which is a worry given the cost and their supposed lifetime.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

FYI - the "lifetime" quoted for lamps is the time by which 50% of them will have failed.