LED Lighting

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Reply # 619136 3-May-2012 23:56

richms: G9 bases are supposed to be line voltage, as those lamps you linked to are. While there are many dumb lamps available out of asia like gu5.3 based mr16s that run on 230, I wouldnt go rewiring the fixture based on a possibly unavailable in the future lamp

My mistake, I thought I read 12v in that link.

Niel

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Reply # 619170 4-May-2012 06:08

My wife was playing Age of Empires all night, I could not post. I've managed to open a Viribright lamp. They are well/solid designed and do have a proper heat sink (2 actually) filling most of the plastic case. The LEDs are also done the right way, it is blue (colour unconfirmed, but based on knowledge) LEDs lighting up phosphor cap which then shines white. This is much more efficient and consistent than trying to use while LEDs, and also explains the afterglow when you switch them off. I'm now even more happy with them and will be buying more.

I'll post photos of the internals this afternoon when my wife is at work ;-).

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morrisk

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Reply # 619179 4-May-2012 06:54

Oubadah:
morrisk: Yes I have used these to replace halogen lamps in all the main living areas - about 16 in all. In the kitchen area I used the cool white ones as they give a good light to work under. The arm white ones look the same as the halogen they replaced and when looked at side by side it was difficult to see the difference. Unfortunately I also has to replace the transformers to get them to work but they claim they work with 80% of halogen transformers.

I have had them for a couple of months now and I am very pleased with them.

What transformer did you put in? Do you use a dimmer, and if so, how well do they work with dimming?

The transformer is a HUGO TRANS070. I do not use any dimmers so can't comment on that.

Niel

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Reply # 619620 4-May-2012 15:43

morrisk: The transformer is a HUGO TRANS070. I do not use any dimmers so can't comment on that.

http://www.hugolighting.com/Product%20pages/TRANS070.html
Supposed to be dimmable. The web page says 12V AC, the spec sheet says 12V DC, wonder which it is.

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Niel

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Reply # 619645 4-May-2012 16:14

Viribright 8W insides, note the heat sink. It is not a piece of thin aluminium, it is solid/heavy like the heat sinks used in car electronic fan speed controllers. Between the upper heat sink and the lower heat sink there are solid metal nipples like features acting as heat pipes.

Pealing away one of the phosphorous rubber caps you can see the LEDs which are clearly not warm white. The is a technology developed by Philips which I've seen demo'ed about 3 years ago. I was told it was very hard to develop blue LEDs, but once the got it going it was a very pure blue as opposed to other colours which are made with various contaminants. Then Philips, with their knowledge of CRTs, developed a phosphorous sheet that would illuminate whatever colour you want when radiated with a specific, pure colour. This is normally done inside an LED, but the only way to control the colour consistency and create a light presence rather than a pin source is to have a distance between the LED and the phosphor.

The plastic cover is solvent welded (glued) on all along the rim. It takes time squeezing the cap to break most of the weld, and a few fine flat screwdrivers to wedge the clips open. Once inside, there is a screw in the middle holding the 2 heavy heat sinks together. Each LED board has a single screw holding it to the top heat sink. Screws are well tightened and sufficient heat sink compound used. If you take the top heat sink off you can get to 3 more screws to remove the lower heat sink, but I did not go that far. It would require desoldering the 2 wires that go down to the power supply, and I did not want to spend more time on it at work and at home I do not have fine screwdrivers to take the cap off again... And the bulb is in a 3m high ceiling with no ladder...

From what I saw I would classify it as an automotive quality assembly, still recommend it. But not the older 11W bulb which has less output anyway. That bulb has different LEDs in it and an NZ review on it (compared with Philips and Osram) was updated with a failure after 5 month. The review also mentioned nasty harmonics and poor power factor so I suspect he had a faulty bulb. (http://www.axino-tech.co.nz/documents/Testing%20LED%20lamps.html)

Today I've tested a Philips 100W Softone incandescent used in the previous photos for comparison and it came up as 89W. The equipment I use is a digitally programmable AC power source which I trust (i.e. not a $10 power meter). The Viribright came up as 7.5W and 0.76 power factor which is average for a switch mode with minimal passive power factor correction.

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Kraven

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Reply # 619653 4-May-2012 16:26

Impressed! Pretty sure my recessed downlights look the same as yours (mine take R80 bulbs) and I've been looking for a better solution than crappy CFL's. Might pop into Bunnings on the weekend and grab a couple of 8W Viribright's to try.

Niel

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Reply # 619717 4-May-2012 18:09

The Viribright lamps are fat, but in my fittings it means they screw hard up against the reflector and mostly seals off the opening to the ceiling. Any air flow you get is through the lamp heat sink itself. This weekend I'm fitting a few in the "high use" living area.

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timmmay

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Reply # 619745 4-May-2012 18:56

You realise warm air rises right, and draws the warm air already in the house up into the ceiling cavity, probably replacing it with cold air from outside right?

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Niel

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Reply # 619783 4-May-2012 19:45

You realise a fully sealed house will be warm and also cause suffocation... You (and your house) need to breath. With building aircon systems you typically replace 10% of the air every hour.

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timmmay

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Reply # 619843 4-May-2012 21:48

There's that too. I have an old house, it leaks a little air, plus I have a ventilation system but I typically only run that during the day unless there's more than two people around.

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richms

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Reply # 620355 6-May-2012 10:11

I saw they had viribright MR16 replacements at bunnings today too, unfortunatly the cool white was only in a GU10 base, and warm white in a GU5.3 12v.

The 12v is labled not dimmable which is strange as usually the low voltage ones are dimmable and the mains ones are not. The GU10 is listed as dimmable. Picked up one of each and will have a play with them a little later today (still feeling a bit crap)

edit: Of course, I meant yesterday when I went to bunnings.

Anyway, I picked up a couple of the lower wattage ones (5 I think?) to try in some hallway lights that the 8 is too bright for - been running 8w cfl's in them in the past and the LEDs crap all over them for brightness in the hallway and no warmup time on the sensor like the CFLs make it even more noticible.

Richard rich.ms

Skolink

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Reply # 620665 6-May-2012 20:39

Skolink: I have just bought four of these lights to replace halogens in my parents' kitchen, which I will install in a couple of weeks. I've tested one in my hand and it is fairly bright, but certainly not as bright as a 50W halogen. I think the claimed 700 lumen is an exaggeration - I'm guessing it's theoretical and they never actually measured it. More info on the Ecobob forums.

I installed these lights this weekend. They are definitely not warm white, more like neutral white, not quite 'daylight' though.
Also probably not 700 lm comparing to the 50 W halogens installed at the same time. Much tighter beam too with quite a visible spot, as opposed to the halogens which light much more of the room. I took a photo, but it doesn't really show.

Oubadah

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Reply # 620671 6-May-2012 20:47

I have one of the 8w viribright bayonets now. So far it's been either too bulky or to dim (or both) for 85% of my household applications. At the moment I have it behind my monitor as bias lighting.

It runs cooler than I expected. Going to see how long it lasts on our dirty power.

Also, I can already see a speck of muck inside it. I think if I put it in an open backed recess can, it's going to get ceiling muck building up inside the plastic lens.

Niel

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Reply # 620715 6-May-2012 22:58

Oubadah: I have one of the 8w viribright bayonets now. So far it's been either too bulky or to dim (or both) for 85% of my household applications. At the moment I have it behind my monitor as bias lighting.

It runs cooler than I expected. Going to see how long it lasts on our dirty power.

Also, I can already see a speck of muck inside it. I think if I put it in an open backed recess can, it's going to get ceiling muck building up inside the plastic lens.

Currently with LEDs until efficiency is further improved (which will happen, not intrinsically limited like CFLs) the lamps will be bulky and you do need to check if it will fit your fitting. And radiating from only half of the bulb means in an open fitting you will get only half the light, but for em they fit just right in my recessed fittings and the light output looks like a 100W since with a recessed fitting you do loose about half the light.

It should last just as long (if not longer than) a CFL. CFLs will die mostly from the tube wearing out, sometimes electronics die, but LEDs mostly die only from electronics.

EDIT: Should be able to get dirt out by turning the lamp upside down. Time will tell how much an issue this is. At least the light source on these is large so specs do little to block the light.

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Niel

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Reply # 621811 8-May-2012 18:24

I've take some temperature measurements:
- Ceiling cavity 15 degC
- Room 21 degC
- 100W Philips Softone 130 degC
- Viribright 8W 44 degC on heat sink

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