Which dimmable LED downlight for home office?

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timmmay

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#195389 19-Apr-2016 07:55

My rather expensive 5 year old CFL downlights are fading, and one has failed, so it's time to replace all four with insulation cover rated LED downlights. The office is smallish, 4.5 x 2.5 meters, so I'm looking for a dimmer or dimmable LED downlight so it doesn't make it starkly bright. The ceiling cavity is quite small, there's just insulation framing and building paper before the roof, so I need something compact. I need insulation cover rating, and I'd like to keep costs down of course.

Mitre ten have the Ecolux LED downlight, no photo but it looks like this one. Has anyone tried them? There's no CRI on the web page. Price is pretty good at $34.

I have LED Lucci downlights from Lighting Direct in my bathroom. They look good, the light looks good, and they have a very wide angle so there's no hot spots. They don't sell that model any more, but that have the LEDLux Ciba which is probably similar, CRI of 84, 800LM, but $50 each. The infinity has a CRI of 90 but is quite a bit more expensive, $62, more than I want to pay.

Lighting Plus have the 8W Lons with CRI of > 82 for $30, but 280lm is probably quite dim. Their 10W is 585LM, also quite dim, which suggests low efficiency. Probably why they're so cheap. I don't use these lights constantly so power use isn't an issue, unless they burn out or heat up the ceiling cavity. There's also this one, 11W and 650LM, which might work for my room - $33.

Lucci say "compatible with clipsal dimmers". Anyone know what they are, or what they cost?

Anyone have any of these with comments, or others I should consider? Probably going to buy today or on the weekend.

***** NOTE - the original question has been answered. The latest version is in the post "which dimmer should I get?"

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#1535310 19-Apr-2016 08:04

Orbit is one of the CDB brands, so I wouldnt go there.

Lons from lighting direct are without drivers, And they are not supplied with a plug and socket on the 2 parts like most separate driver LEDs, so you have more hassle hooking that up. The biggest annoyance I had with them was the stupid little input terminals on them.

Richard rich.ms

timmmay

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#1535316 19-Apr-2016 08:15

Ah ok, so an extra $10 - $13 per light for a driver there. So a small saving means more expensive electrician labour.

You referenced Orbit, I didn't mention them, unless they have another name?

richms

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#1535318 19-Apr-2016 08:20

timmmay:

Ah ok, so an extra $10 - $13 per light for a driver there. So a small saving means more expensive electrician labour.

Yes, and the drivers have to be not covered, some of the halogen ones come with a stalk to hold them above the insulation, otherwise most spakys just seem to pop them up thru the hole and hope for the best.

timmmay:

You referenced Orbit, I didn't mention them, unless they have another name?

That's the ecolux.

Richard rich.ms

BlueShift

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#1535321 19-Apr-2016 08:38

richms:

Lons from lighting direct are without drivers, And they are not supplied with a plug and socket on the 2 parts like most separate driver LEDs, so you have more hassle hooking that up. The biggest annoyance I had with them was the stupid little input terminals on them.

I got 4 of the Lons 10.5W ones and installed them in my lounge over the weekend. The driver is separate, but that gives you the option of the dimmable or non-dimmable (cheaper) driver. They do have plug & socket between the lamp and driver, which, as you say, makes a big difference in their ease of installation.

They were on special, 30% off over the weekend, which made the whole unit about $30, I'm pretty happy with $120 to do one room. It took me literally 5 minutes per light to install (luckily my existing ugly downlights have the same sized hole). And yes, I chucked the driver up on top of the insulation. At some point I'll need to crawl up into the ceiling and fluff the insulation over the top of the light, but even now, its completely blocking the hole, so is no longer a vent directly into the roof-space.

We got the 4000K daylight white lamps, and are very happy with the huge difference in light level in the room compared with the CFLs that we had before. Plus, 42 Watts to light the room, compared to 400W for incandescents or 80Wish for CFLs is nice too.

I haven't had any experience with any other brands, so I have nothing to compare with, but so far I like these. My only concern is the life-span of the unit, I have no idea how long an LED lamp or driver will last in my actual real-life house. And going on past experience with advertised and actual life-spans for CFLs, I'm pretty much ignoring whatever the advertised life is, because they pretty much just make that number up.

timmmay

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#1535323 19-Apr-2016 08:43

richms:

timmmay:

Ah ok, so an extra $10 - $13 per light for a driver there. So a small saving means more expensive electrician labour.

Yes, and the drivers have to be not covered, some of the halogen ones come with a stalk to hold them above the insulation, otherwise most spakys just seem to pop them up thru the hole and hope for the best.

timmmay:

You referenced Orbit, I didn't mention them, unless they have another name?

That's the ecolux.

Thanks Rich. Not sure I have the space to have a platform - it's a really tiny roof cavity. I guess it will be insulation covered, the driver can poke up above the insulation.

timmmay

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#1535324 19-Apr-2016 08:46

BlueShift:

I got 4 of the Lons 10.5W ones and installed them in my lounge over the weekend. The driver is separate, but that gives you the option of the dimmable or non-dimmable (cheaper) driver. They do have plug & socket between the lamp and driver, which, as you say, makes a big difference in their ease of installation.

They were on special, 30% off over the weekend, which made the whole unit about $30, I'm pretty happy with $120 to do one room. It took me literally 5 minutes per light to install (luckily my existing ugly downlights have the same sized hole). And yes, I chucked the driver up on top of the insulation. At some point I'll need to crawl up into the ceiling and fluff the insulation over the top of the light, but even now, its completely blocking the hole, so is no longer a vent directly into the roof-space.

We got the 4000K daylight white lamps, and are very happy with the huge difference in light level in the room compared with the CFLs that we had before. Plus, 42 Watts to light the room, compared to 400W for incandescents or 80Wish for CFLs is nice too.

I haven't had any experience with any other brands, so I have nothing to compare with, but so far I like these. My only concern is the life-span of the unit, I have no idea how long an LED lamp or driver will last in my actual real-life house. And going on past experience with advertised and actual life-spans for CFLs, I'm pretty much ignoring whatever the advertised life is, because they pretty much just make that number up.

That's really useful, thanks. I'd probably go for 3000K warm white, I'm used to them, and I mostly use them at night where warm is better. Are the 4000K a really harsh white? One odd thing, in photography terms inside Adobe products daylight is 5500K, cloudy days are 6500K.

So they're cheap, easy to install, and the light looks good. They're probably a pretty good option I think :) May go have a look on the way home today.

richms

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#1535326 19-Apr-2016 08:50

Only remains to see if they fill with small insects.

I dont really like those slim ones with a translucent panel on the front of a large PCB full of LEDs, they seem to have more glare than the ones with a reflector and a single COB led in the middle.

Richard rich.ms

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timmmay

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#1535327 19-Apr-2016 08:52

richms:

Only remains to see if they fill with small insects.

I dont really like those slim ones with a translucent panel on the front of a large PCB full of LEDs, they seem to have more glare than the ones with a reflector and a single COB led in the middle.

I really like the translucent panels, have them in the bathroom. The light seems more diffused and spread.

Not sure about the insect comment, what do you mean?

richms

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#1535328 19-Apr-2016 08:54

BlueShift:

I got 4 of the Lons 10.5W ones and installed them in my lounge over the weekend. The driver is separate, but that gives you the option of the dimmable or non-dimmable (cheaper) driver. They do have plug & socket between the lamp and driver, which, as you say, makes a big difference in their ease of installation.

Thats werid, the one I got to try out had a wire and plug on the fitting, but the dimmable driver was just 2 terminals on the end of it. Perhaps some vulture took the wire from the box before I bought it or something.

Typical crap driver tho, 2 small terminals so nowhere to join the earth, and means you have exposed single core hanging out its pathetic terminal area. And forget putting 3 wires in one, 2 is a squeeze and needs them perfectly twisted together with nothing crossing over.

Richard rich.ms

shk292

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#1535329 19-Apr-2016 08:54

I fitted quite a few of these to my house about 18 months ago and am very pleased with them:

http://www.switch-lighting.co.nz/product/e-lightz/

Dimming works well with a standard PDL (I think) dimmer

All available via JA Russell

BlueShift

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#1535330 19-Apr-2016 08:55

timmmay:

That's really useful, thanks. I'd probably go for 3000K warm white, I'm used to them, and I mostly use them at night where warm is better. Are the 4000K a really harsh white? One odd thing, in photography terms inside Adobe products daylight is 5500K, cloudy days are 6500K.

So they're cheap, easy to install, and the light looks good. They're probably a pretty good option I think :) May go have a look on the way home today.

The light is noticeably white compared to the incandescents and CFLs in the house, it is very close to the light from a nice sunny day. We went with the white light as the mrs does a lot of crafting and I read, so this will be very good for our eyesight. We have a couple of lamps in the room with warm orangey bulbs in, so when we're watching a movie or whatever, we turn off the overheads and just have the mood lighting on.

richms

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#1535331 19-Apr-2016 08:55

timmmay:

Not sure about the insect comment, what do you mean?

Unless they are totally sealed, as in with goop around the wire hole and where the diffuser meets the metal etc, you will have small inscects go into the lamp and die, leaving black dots across the diffuser.

Richard rich.ms

timmmay

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#1535368 19-Apr-2016 09:45

shk292:

I fitted quite a few of these to my house about 18 months ago and am very pleased with them:

http://www.switch-lighting.co.nz/product/e-lightz/

Dimming works well with a standard PDL (I think) dimmer

All available via JA Russell

Looks good, but $52 each makes them on the expensive side.

Adamanski

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#1535422 19-Apr-2016 10:49

One good resource we found was ledbenchmark (Australian review site) for independent reviews and recommendations, particularly check out the flicker for the model you're looking at.

We changed all our halogens out last year, and found an Australian wholesaler that ships to NZ, pricing best I found and shipped in 3-4 days.

We went for the Lanx Australis 13w warm white dimmable, and landed for < NZ$25 (NZ$23 from memory). Since we had to patch and paint the ceiling I got my sparkie to install surface mount sockets so I could plug then in and easily work around them. Really happy with these lights, good smooth dimming and no flicker, its a nice warm light and reasonably low profile.

timmmay

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#1535432 19-Apr-2016 11:10

Those Lanx lights look good.

My best guess is my current 13W CFL bulbs put out around 500lm each, which is plenty. A 11W LED will put out about twice that light. Dimming LEDs may increase flickering, so I probably want a lower wattage bulb. This calculator says 600LM each.

Lons 10W is looking like the current leading candidate at 585LM. They're insulation cover rated too.

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