Incandescent Downlights to LED

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#1973678 13-Mar-2018 01:17

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?

@scottr Check what type of dimmer you need. As older dimmers tend to be leading edge. While LEDs and other lights with drivers tend to require trailing edge dimmers. Also remove the bulbs from the other lights on the dimmer while testing. As having a filament lamp connected to the dimmer helps the dimmer to work better with LEDs.

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timmmay

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#1973690 13-Mar-2018 06:09

@Ardewood can you recommend a specific dimmer that works well with LEDs? I have four in my office, my electrician tried two but none worked well.

richms

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#1973752 13-Mar-2018 09:13

Matching them up is something that only experiance will tell you. Newer dimmers have a microcontroller in them and may even need a certain version of firmware to work properly with some lights and have the right amount of extra brightness added at power on to actually get the power supplies to start up.

I have tried many and none have provided an adiquite ability to turn on at almost nothing and bring it up if needed. If you have clipsal style plates there are way more options to choose from than if you have the PDL wall plates.

Richard rich.ms

Fred99

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#1973766 13-Mar-2018 09:33

richms:

Matching them up is something that only experiance will tell you. Newer dimmers have a microcontroller in them and may even need a certain version of firmware to work properly with some lights and have the right amount of extra brightness added at power on to actually get the power supplies to start up.

I have tried many and none have provided an adiquite ability to turn on at almost nothing and bring it up if needed. If you have clipsal style plates there are way more options to choose from than if you have the PDL wall plates.

I've had a different experience after also trying many. No problems with Philips dimmable lamps and LEDLux Clipsal type dimmer inserts. Strangely perhaps, the Philips bulbs work better than the LEDLux brand bulbs (3 x 14w E27s on the circuit) I've got using the LEDLux brand dimmer (even with adjustment of the dimmer trim-pot, I can't get minimum brightness of the LEDLux lamps down to close to zero).

Philips have added a "gold" dimmable logo/icon to their lamp range sold in Europe:

That seems like a very good idea in principle - whether it works in practice is another matter.

It would be a safer bet to go with the gold logo - if they're available here - regardless of dimmer brand.

They have PDFs available of tests conducted of an assortment of dimmers sold in the the European market with their lamps. Probably not a hell of a lot of use here - as the dimmer models might be unavailable. But reading that gives a pretty good indication of the kind of mess the dimmer/lamp compatibility thing has become.

scottr

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#1973893 13-Mar-2018 11:39

I’ll be replacing the current dimmer (20 years old and 1000w) with either a fibaro or aeotec one. They’re both universal so should be ok.

It’ll be running 6 lights so hopefully that’s enough load for it to operate successfully.

I was leaning towards the fibaro one as it supports a seperate on/up and off/down button configuration. Just weighing up whether that’s worth the extra 40 or so bucks

Fred99

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#1974154 13-Mar-2018 17:47

Can't edit the above post. I was at my local Mitre 10 Mega who stock quite a few Philips dimmable LEDS, none had the "gold" dimmer icon as above, only the plain/silver icon.

dolsen

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#2024778 29-May-2018 13:36

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?

@scottr

How did you get on with this? Did you buy from this site in the end? If so, what was the light like?

scottr

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#2024866 29-May-2018 14:52

Hi @dolsen, no i didn't by from the site. The guy offered to send SDOCs etc for the lights but when I asked for them + any other material he stopped responding, even after a follow up reminder email. Didn't bode well so I've decided to go elsewhere.

I'm down to potentially these ones here based on the physical size of my cutouts https://light.co.nz/products/geo-led-15w-downlight-ip44-dimmable?nosto=frontpage-nosto-1 although the cost is higher than I want given i'll need to buy 6 to do my lounge. Other option is these here http://www.switch-lighting.co.nz/product/e-lightz/ although they're a little smaller edge-to-edge (130mm), and more expensive (~100bucks each).

I'm going to take a punt on the philips G2's at bunnings at less than half the cost (~30) https://www.bunnings.co.nz/philips-10w-800lm-125mm-downlight-warm-white_p00022797 and if they're no good brightness-wise i'll move them to the bedrooms and try again.

have ordered an aeotec dimmer and PDL push buttons for my switches, so just need the LEDs now.

dolsen

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#2024890 29-May-2018 15:12

scottr: Hi @dolsen, no i didn't by from the site. The guy offered to send SDOCs etc for the lights but when I asked for them + any other material he stopped responding, even after a follow up reminder email. Didn't bode well so I've decided to go elsewhere.

I'm down to potentially these ones here based on the physical size of my cutouts https://light.co.nz/products/geo-led-15w-downlight-ip44-dimmable?nosto=frontpage-nosto-1 although the cost is higher than I want given i'll need to buy 6 to do my lounge. Other option is these here http://www.switch-lighting.co.nz/product/e-lightz/ although they're a little smaller edge-to-edge (130mm), and more expensive (~100bucks each).

Ok. A shame as they looked quite good.

Have you seen these ones?

scottr

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#2025046 29-May-2018 18:31

Yes I did, that was another one I was considering. Outer ring’s a bit smaller than the 150 of my current ones though.

I’m unsure about the cri as some things say 80 and other stuff says less than 80 https://www.halcyonlights.co.nz/assets/LinksImported/R755-KWWUDL/1527516339_r755.pdf Also the SDoc was issued in 2011 so the design’s at least 7 years old, which could explain the potentially lower cri.

The 766 by the same guys is the fit for mine but similar concerns re: Cri.

I will ping them actually to confirm what it is, I prefer the recessed style to the flat ones I’m considering instead.

richms

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#2025120 29-May-2018 20:31

CRI comes down to what leds they put into it, nothing to do with the design of it. People usually focus on lumans per watt, not CRI so that is what they select them based on.

Older fitting designs would usually have better heatsinking and a nicer design since there is a huge race to the bottom with LED lighting. Just look at some of the cheapies that seem to have almost nothing to get rid of the heat. Run the LEDs hotter and they have worse efficiancy and shorter life.

Richard rich.ms

spronkey

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#2026411 31-May-2018 17:36

For integrated downlights, I went through Rexel, DETA, LEDx, Arlec, and Ledlux fixtures with PDL 654TM, Legrand 400w push button, and now Kiwi 005U dimmers.

None of the above combinations worked correctly. I've said this before, but I would hesitate to use any LED fixture that doesn't have a dimmer compatibility list specifically including Australian and NZ dimmers.

What I recommend is the Switch series. Specifically I like the E-Lightz Professional model, which have 90+CRI, and an NZ-designed and manufactured driver. They're about $85 a piece, but:

they have a much longer L70 lifespan (60,000 hours) than the typical cheap downlight (20-30k hours), so they may last twice as long
they actually do meet their 1000 lumen and 110 degree beam angle ratings (unlike the cheaper lights), and switch provide measurements to back it up (you can download IES files on their website - steer clear of any vendor that won't provide these). I've seen plenty of "120 degree" lights actually only make 90 degree usable beams
they have a 7 year / 5 year warranty on light/driver
they have 0mm clearances, unlike some other IC-F lights whose heatsinks aren't supposed to touch timber
if you know someone who can get trade prices you can get a pretty decent discount on them
they work well with the Kiwi 005U dimmer and will dim reliably to just above zero with no flicker. They also work reasonably well with the PDL 654TM, but won't go to zero.

Other than Switch, which are somewhat expensive, I would look in to Visionary Technologies' downlights (EVE and Iris series) which again have proper dimmer compatibility tests and NZ-designed drivers. I would recommend avoiding lights with integrated drivers, as it's best for driver lifespan to put the driver above your insulation (it will run cooler).

Plenty of the other brands are relabelled imports from a number of Chinese vendors, whose lights often won't meet their specs. You can go on Alibaba, DHGate and other websites and find their luminaires, drivers etc, often for a few USD each at bulk rates.

mattwnz

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#2026441 31-May-2018 18:53

richms:

CRI comes down to what leds they put into it, nothing to do with the design of it. People usually focus on lumans per watt, not CRI so that is what they select them based on.

Older fitting designs would usually have better heatsinking and a nicer design since there is a huge race to the bottom with LED lighting. Just look at some of the cheapies that seem to have almost nothing to get rid of the heat. Run the LEDs hotter and they have worse efficiancy and shorter life.

I wonder if it is race to the bottom, or just that the technology is getting cheaper. The problem is though, if they are getting made cheaper, is the reliability of the ones in inbuilt fittings going down as well? Many are advertised to last many thousands of hours, (eg a decade or more) but I have had many bulbs die after just a few months, to under a year. So the problem is that if they were in a combined fitting, I may end up with downlights not matching in the room due to old models being replaced. In which case I would need to replace all the fittings in that room so they match.

scottr

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#2028018 3-Jun-2018 21:47

So went out and bought a pile of the cheaper Philips led downlights as we bought a trial one yesterday and installed it and it was perfectly fine WRT fitting, lighting output and colour.

Have answered my own own original question which is great. The 800lumen downlights are brighter than 100w incandescent bulbs, and brighter than the 1400lumen cfl’s I had in other parts of the house. Ther’s no need from my point of view to go higher than that if you’re looking to replace standard 100w bulbs in downlights.

Something of interest - the lights I ended up getting don’t have the big heat sinks attached to the rear however there’s no heat issues as the luminaire and driver are barely even warm to the touch.

BadBadBadMonkey

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#2028056 4-Jun-2018 01:20

Have answered my own own original question which is great. The 800lumen downlights ... brighter than the 1400lumen cfl’s

By definition that's not correct. But the down-lights are probably projecting more light downward and giving greater lux underneath them.

The other thing with the cheap Philips I believe is they're whiter @ 3000 K rather than 2700 K (correct me if wrong) which many people may perceive incorrectly as brighter in comparison.

Something of interest - the lights I ended up getting don’t have the big heat sinks attached to the rear however there’s no heat issues as the luminaire and driver are barely even warm to the touch.

An 8 W LED in a ceiling fitting doesn't need a heatsink. It's just a bunch of SMDs scattered over a disk.

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