Swapping in LED bulbs to replace halogen - switching themselves off

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Hi,

I have a pendant light with 7 independent G4 bulbs, each labelled as "G4 10W 12V". I thought I'd try replacing these with LED equivalents and found some 1.2W ones on Amazon. I latterly realised I'd bought a pack of 6 when I needed 7...which may be a factor here.

The lights are equivalent in brightness to the halogen Philips bulbs I was replacing, I currently have 6 installed, plus a dead halogen as I await a further delivery. However, I'm finding that all the bulbs randomly switch off by themselves - not sure of time range, but at least 30min - 2hrs+ after being switched on. Going to the wall switch and immediately toggling it off and on again brings them back to life, so it doesn't appear to be any form of heat cutout on the bulbs.

*edit* I've just experienced repeated cutout's when power cycling which leads me to suspect overheating. Might just be these being cheap Amazon bulbs, but think I'll simply swap back to halogen *edit*

I wondered if there might not be enough current draw through the DC transformer which must be in the base of the light.

An annoying problem, which I could easily solve by swapping back to halogen, but thought I'd check here for any insights/suggestions first

Thanks
 
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As you say the low load is usually the cause, however a lot of them G4 multi lamp fittings used torroidal transformers and they did not care about a minimum load, maybe your unfortunate and have an Electronic transformer.
Sadly you will need to look in the base to see what you have, unless you have the instructions from when it was new.
 
You can try leaving one halogen bulb in and the other 6 LED, this may be enough of a minimum load for the transformer not to cut out.
 
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DC transformer
Not sure why it would be DC? The power supply for lights is often regulated, either current or voltage, and often between limits 20 - 60 VA or Watts is common. I was lucky mine used a toroidal transformer which has no regulation, but output is same Hz as input, and will still give around 12 volt RMS from 0 to 300 VA of its rating. But these went out in the 90's so are rare.

The new breed of electronic transformer can go zero to rated voltage, the problem is normally finding one which will physical fit.
 

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