LED Lighting

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482 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1375463 28-Aug-2015 00:46

Niel: I've changed to dedicated fittings from Quality LED Lighting in Wellington, been running great for longer than the pay-back period. And love the colour temperature I could specify myself. And the light spread with no shadows.

Exactly which ones did you go for and what colour temp?

richms

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#1375469 28-Aug-2015 06:35

One thing that has me worried about downlights and dimmable drivers is there is very little information on what ones cheap out and use PWM directly to the output vs having a true smoothed constant current output for the dimming.

With a downlight where you have all the LED chips in series, there isn;t the concern of uneven current sharing at low currents like there is with series/parallel arrays of LEDs like in LED strip or the cheap COB leds. So no justification for PWM other than being cheap and not wanting to spend a few cents more on the inductor and other constant current parts.

Richard rich.ms

Niel

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#1375471 28-Aug-2015 06:47

I'll answer both of the above in 1 reply. I've bought one of the 12W slimline round ones to try out in the default warm white that the guy stocks, then when I said I want to (special) order a quantity of 4000k he said he is just about to get 14W slimline fittings so I went for that. The only reason for trying slimline instead of others, was that it uses the same non-standard hole size as what I've already had and I did not want to cut 40 holes larger. This guy in Wellington is an electrician that (long ago) got frustrated with the crap quality of LED fittings/drivers available in NZ so he sourced it from China and got the drivers locally certified and supply you with a DoC and they are properly dimmable (I have not dimmed them, but he knows about the difference between "dimming" and dimming). If you are not sure, buy one and try it.
http://www.qualityledlighting.co.nz/gallery/Slimline%2BRange/slimline-14w/276407

You can never have enough Volvos!

richms

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#1375474 28-Aug-2015 07:08

The page only lists 20% as the minimum for dimming. That's hopeless. I want 1% at worst, preferably dim to nothing, which I understand can cause popcorning of the lights on turn on but if you are putting enough lighting in to get the place bright enough for daytime, then even 20% of that is too much at night.

Richard rich.ms

Disrespective

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#1375507 28-Aug-2015 08:35

spacedog:
Niel: I've changed to dedicated fittings from Quality LED Lighting in Wellington, been running great for longer than the pay-back period. And love the colour temperature I could specify myself. And the light spread with no shadows.

Exactly which ones did you go for and what colour temp?

Totally off-topic, your avatar threw me a little... ;)

Niel

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#1375830 28-Aug-2015 17:15

richms: The page only lists 20% as the minimum for dimming. That's hopeless. I want 1% at worst, preferably dim to nothing, which I understand can cause popcorning of the lights on turn on but if you are putting enough lighting in to get the place bright enough for daytime, then even 20% of that is too much at night.

So you want an LED driver that will operate over the range of 240V to 2.4V? I suspect that 20% of 240V = 48V is the minimum required for the constant current buck driver and hopefully equates to close to 0% light output (but I don't know and have not read up yet).

To meet your requirements, you need to run DC with a DC controller.

But the problem with dimming down to very close to 0% is that there is a good chance that often you will not notice when the LEDs are accidentally switched on. Not that it matter for you as a single end user, but it does matter when billions of customer do it (and thus the drive for energy efficiency, it is not about the end user).

You can never have enough Volvos!

richms

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#1375836 28-Aug-2015 17:27

The 0% isn't at 0% input voltage. Most are well above an incandescent lamps dimming curve for where they cut off.

Richard rich.ms

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Niel

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#1375844 28-Aug-2015 17:56

Send the guy an e-mail, he is an electrician and will understand your technical requirements. It is not a shop with cheap labour. Or buy one and test it. Or run different circuits after the dimmer so that you can switch in as many/few light as you want. PDL dimmers come with an adjustable end stop for setting the minimum voltage.

You can never have enough Volvos!

jnimmo

1097 posts

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#1375917 28-Aug-2015 21:15

Are they nice & instant on? I got some Panasonic LED bulbs one and there was quite a noticeable delay if you put a Philips in one room and Panasonic in the other, so returned and swapped.
Will be soon lighting a new build so trying to decide on the downlights to select

Niel

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#1375925 28-Aug-2015 21:40

I would strongly recommend Quality LED Lighting. Instant on, almost flush fitting, you can (special) order any colour temperature you want (I'd suggest 4000K or a little higher), easy to install, no hassles. We have 2x 14W in a standard double sized bedroom and is about right for making sure the kids wake up in the morning. We should have put more in living spaces, but 4 is good enough (for now). At some point I might simply upgrade them to higher power fittings, or perhaps the issue is just that our living space has a 3m stud height and it would have been fine if it was a standard ceiling. The rumpus room is 4mx4m with 4 fittings and it is nice and bright. Walls are painted Arctic white which also helps. Light from the fittings spread very well, with a wall about 1m away from the fitting the shadow on the wall is only about 5cm from the ceiling (the height of large architraves). If you want to buy one to try though, he only stocks warm white. Anything else is a special order. And no, I have absolutely no connection with the company other than being a happy customer. As for CRI, I don't have experience with the difference but I'm happy with the lights. And the construction (I've opened one, I'm an electronic engineer). Contact me if you are in East Auckland and would like to see what the lights look like.

I've just had a search through e-mails, the first 10 I've installed at the end of January 2014 and the remaining 15 installed mid May 2014. I can't see any difference between ones that we use lots and ones in the spare bedroom which are used very seldom.

EDIT: The second batch was bought in May 2014, not 2015.

You can never have enough Volvos!

jnimmo

1097 posts

Uber Geek

#1375933 28-Aug-2015 22:06

Cool will flick them an email and maybe buy one to try (in the wrong island unfortunately!)
Also considering putting occupancy sensors in the bathrooms, maybe hallway, probably the only places that need it

CybJaffe

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#1392381 23-Sep-2015 04:41

It is a good idea to use LED instead of CFL. Although they consume very less power but their intensity is also less. As the matter of 8W LED ofcourse it will not work same as 100W but almost 50 watt LED can give you the same result as 100W giving.

Niel

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#1392383 23-Sep-2015 06:25

CybJaffe: It is a good idea to use LED instead of CFL. Although they consume very less power but their intensity is also less. As the matter of 8W LED ofcourse it will not work same as 100W but almost 50 watt LED can give you the same result as 100W giving.

You are talking about Chinese spec 50W? LEDs use approximately half the power of CCFL to produce the same amount of light. Around 12W is equivalent to a 100W incandescent. But that is 12 true Watt. I've seen many cheap lamps where either the rating is overstated or it is the maximum that the LEDs can handle while the lamp is running at a lower power. In Europe it is legislation that you have to specify the light output of LED lamps rather than just the power used, so you will find that e.g. Philips lamps have the true light output printed on them.

You can never have enough Volvos!

UHD

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Ultimate Geek
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#1414538 27-Oct-2015 11:57

Has anyone used this product? I am looking for some LED bulbs (previous owners took the old incandescent ones 0_o) and they seem pretty decent. The 11 pack works out to be 13.64 per bulb which isn't bad. All of the light fittings at my place are the old bayonet ones and it looks like those are standard bayonet caps. Anything else to look out for or other recommendations?

wellygary

8312 posts

Uber Geek

#1414570 27-Oct-2015 12:27

UHD: Has anyone used this product? I am looking for some LED bulbs (previous owners took the old incandescent ones 0_o) and they seem pretty decent. The 11 pack works out to be 13.64 per bulb which isn't bad. All of the light fittings at my place are the old bayonet ones and it looks like those are standard bayonet caps. Anything else to look out for or other recommendations?

According to the specs they are ~900 lumens, thats equivilent to about a 60W incandescent,

A bog standard 100W incandescent is about 1600 lumen,

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