Incandescent Downlights to LED

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#1971430 8-Mar-2018 21:31

Hey all, all great commentary and advice, thanks!

BlueShift:

We're just about finished replacing all the incandescent downlights in our place with Lons from Lighting Direct. They are the same same size as the existing holes, and take literally 5 minutes to swap out and pop in. the first ones we install in our lounge nearly two years ago and they are still strong and bright. They give far more light than the 100W bulbs that were in there previously and use about 10% of the power. For less than $20 per light including driver when on sale, its been a no-brainer.

Next is replacing the halogens in the kitchen, that's trickier as the holes are a different size, so I need to do some drilling, and also crawl into the roofspace to remove the transformers and connect them up.

@Blueshift, do you have a link for the models you're talking about here? Were your cutouts ~120mm?

Aredwood

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#1971480 8-Mar-2018 23:00

How important is it that the dimming works works properly? As using phase angle dimmers on LEDs is almost always a kludge.

Far better are systems where the dimming commands are sent to the drivers. Instead of trying to vary the power going to the drivers.

BlueShift

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#1971512 9-Mar-2018 08:31

scottr: Hey all, all great commentary and advice, thanks!

BlueShift:

We're just about finished replacing all the incandescent downlights in our place with Lons from Lighting Direct. They are the same same size as the existing holes, and take literally 5 minutes to swap out and pop in. the first ones we install in our lounge nearly two years ago and they are still strong and bright. They give far more light than the 100W bulbs that were in there previously and use about 10% of the power. For less than $20 per light including driver when on sale, its been a no-brainer.

Next is replacing the halogens in the kitchen, that's trickier as the holes are a different size, so I need to do some drilling, and also crawl into the roofspace to remove the transformers and connect them up.

@Blueshift, do you have a link for the models you're talking about here? Were your cutouts ~120mm?

The ones in the lounge are these from Lighting Plus (not Lighting Direct, who can tell them apart?). They are a 125mm cutout. We got smaller ones of the same thing to replace the kitchen halogens, they have a 85mm cutout.

scottr

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#1972145 9-Mar-2018 20:55

Aredwood: How important is it that the dimming works works properly? As using phase angle dimmers on LEDs is almost always a kludge.

Far better are systems where the dimming commands are sent to the drivers. Instead of trying to vary the power going to the drivers.

Hi, fairly important at the moment. we're up with a baby several times a night so it's great to be able to have the lights down very low while feeding.

keen to get a dimmer that works with home automation (fibaro or aeotec) so suspect that takes a dimming driver out of the picture.

timmmay

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#1972167 9-Mar-2018 22:06

With a baby I suggest night lights and lamps. Only turn the main light on for nappy changes and cleaning up the various messes they create.

webwat

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#1972592 11-Mar-2018 00:58

I picked up some very cheap 800lumen warm-white LEDs a while ago, turned out to be very much brighter than the supposed CFL equivalent. Enough to light a bedroom that would usually be at least 75W. Dont think I will ever go back to incandescent!

Time to find a new industry!

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richms

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#1972594 11-Mar-2018 01:13

I got some cheap osram LEDs from bunnings for $4 each, only available in orange or blue and they really are awesome for the price. No flicker so a proper power supply in them and silent, unlike some others I have had which have a nasty 10+kHz squeal to them. Not game on the "click" branded ones yet, had some in the past that flickered like a CRT TV.

Richard rich.ms

scottr

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#1972873 11-Mar-2018 22:20

Suspect with all the light going down as opposed to everywhere else that a lower amount of lumens are OK.

Have come across these, 15w at 120 lumens, dimmable, and will fit the current downlight hole without any adapters or re-cutting of the whole.

http://ledx.co.nz/product/15w-led-downlight-120/

Only 22.90 so I might grab one, give it a blast, and if all goes well potentially grab a few more. Anyone come across these or this company in their travels?

shk292

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#1972960 12-Mar-2018 09:26

scottr: Suspect with all the light going down as opposed to everywhere else that a lower amount of lumens are OK.

Have come across these, 15w at 120 lumens, dimmable, and will fit the current downlight hole without any adapters or re-cutting of the whole.

http://ledx.co.nz/product/15w-led-downlight-120/

Only 22.90 so I might grab one, give it a blast, and if all goes well potentially grab a few more. Anyone come across these or this company in their travels?

I was going to say, don't touch them because 120 lumens is far too dim. But they're actually 1200 lumens which is a nice bright light

scottr

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#1973328 12-Mar-2018 15:57

shk292:
scottr: Suspect with all the light going down as opposed to everywhere else that a lower amount of lumens are OK.

Have come across these, 15w at 120 lumens, dimmable, and will fit the current downlight hole without any adapters or re-cutting of the whole.

http://ledx.co.nz/product/15w-led-downlight-120/

Only 22.90 so I might grab one, give it a blast, and if all goes well potentially grab a few more. Anyone come across these or this company in their travels?

I was going to say, don't touch them because 120 lumens is far too dim. But they're actually 1200 lumens which is a nice bright light

Ah yeah typo, meant to be 1200!

mattwnz

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#1973378 12-Mar-2018 16:01

richms:

I got some cheap osram LEDs from bunnings for $4 each, only available in orange or blue and they really are awesome for the price. No flicker so a proper power supply in them and silent, unlike some others I have had which have a nasty 10+kHz squeal to them. Not game on the "click" branded ones yet, had some in the past that flickered like a CRT TV.

Osram seem to be a good brand, and I have found them to be good. I have some CFLs which were installed in about 2000, and quite a lot are still running. They were expensive back then though, probably over $15 each, and think they were made in europe, rather than china. Although they may do different grades of bulbs. eg a more expensive commercial model, and then a cheap consumer model.

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BadBadBadMonkey

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#1973384 12-Mar-2018 16:05

scottr: Hey all, I'm looking to replace a bunch of ~20 year old downlights with LED downlights. This will be a full housing replacement, not just switching out to LED bulbs.

Most of the house's bulbs have been replaced with CFL other than the lounge which is on a dimmer switch. In the lounge I've got an array of 6 downlights with 100w bulbs which have the level of brightness I'm happy with. Apparently 100w bulbs sit around 1300-1600 lumens however most of the LED downlights I've seen seem to hit 900-1000 lumens at best. These are apparently 100w equivalents although I'm not convinced as I've had a poor experience with CFL 100w equivalents in the past.

Keen to hear anyone's experience of going from 100w downlights to led downlights, what the lumen output was of the LEDs they'd replaced them with, and how the brightness compared with the 100w incandescent bulbs.

Thanks in advance!

100W x 6 is a lot of light. You say you're happy but for a lounge as opposed to an industrial workshop that sounds rather overkill. People tend to wastefully over-light interior spaces when left to their own devices (your eyes can adjust!).

Anyway, LEDs are typically efficient vs incandescent to a ratio of about 10:1, depending on the quality of the LED. Therefore a properly designed good quality 10 W downlight will replace your incandescent bulbs, and may in fact look brighter depending on how well implemented the previous reflector housing was, because as others have mentioned you will get 100% of the light in a usable down-fire. The increased size of the light source (the disk) will also improve ambience by reducing the harshness of shadows.

There has been mention of up to 20 W LED above, this is nuts. Really that's the equivalent of a 200 W incandescent light. It will be way too powerful. I just bought a 30 W work light and that thing will light up my entire front yard, never mind my living room. If you are going to go to such powerful LEDs for some reason, you will absolutely have to use dimmers on all of them just to get comfortable light levels in normal use.

The other factors to look to are the rated CRI and of course the color. Your incandescent bulbs are 2700K warm/yellow and they go warmer (lower temp) as you dim them.

Poor quality CRI will give 'anemic' light that might be technically bright but will 'feel' weak and illuminate colored things poorly. I'd say most are ok nowadays but still Chinese cheapies should probably be avoided.
White LEDs are typically based on blue LEDs, turned white with a phosphor coating, which means that cold (bluish) LEDs are cheaper and more power efficient - which creates a tendency for manufacturers to produce even what they call "warm white" LEDs at a CCT more like 3000 K. (Even some name brands like Philips do this). This is a whiter harsher light closer to a halogen than a traditional incandescent. Worse, especially the Chinese brands just bin their chips all in one dump and will only promise you a range of tolerance, meaning you might get 3000 K, you might get 3300 K, and they could all be different. And when you mix-and-match between brands it becomes difficult to color match exactly. It's a PITA.
Finally, LEDs do not change their color as you dim them! So you will get totally different dimmed color to what you are accustomed to, unless you buy multi-color LEDs that can emulate this behavior.

So watch those things.

mattwnz

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#1973675 13-Mar-2018 00:34

BadBadBadMonkey:

3. Finally, LEDs do not change their color as you dim them! So you will get totally different dimmed color to what you are accustomed to, unless you buy multi-color LEDs that can emulate this behavior.

So watch those things.

Is 3 an error? Is it supposed to say LEDs 'do' change their colour as you dim them? If they don't change colour as you dim them, then I can't see what the issue would be with that? I am not a fan of dimmers myself. I would prefer with LEDs, that steps down the number of individual LEDs in bulb, rather than dimming each one.

richms

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#1973676 13-Mar-2018 00:41

Incandesents go more orange when dimmed, fluros tend to go towards the cooler end when dimmed a little but the CRI gets messed up badly on them.

LEDs mostly keep outputting the same colour but less of it. Some people like the orange glow that gets more orange when old lamps are dimmed, but some people also like burning candles like cavepeople and think its "romantic" and stuff. If you want things orange when dimmed, then there are some LEDs that do that either in 3 steps or from a phase angle dimmer but they all start off really orange already so only useful if you like that.

Richard rich.ms

mattwnz

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#1973677 13-Mar-2018 00:52

richms:

Incandesents go more orange when dimmed, fluros tend to go towards the cooler end when dimmed a little but the CRI gets messed up badly on them.

LEDs mostly keep outputting the same colour but less of it. Some people like the orange glow that gets more orange when old lamps are dimmed, but some people also like burning candles like cavepeople and think its "romantic" and stuff. If you want things orange when dimmed, then there are some LEDs that do that either in 3 steps or from a phase angle dimmer but they all start off really orange already so only useful if you like that.

That makes sense. The big benefit I see with dimmers and LEDs, is that if you overspec on the lighting, and you find that you are getting far more light than you need, that you can dim them down. Otherwise you have to replace the entire fitting with a fitting and bulb that has a lower lumen rating.

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