LED Downlighters

Soldato
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Presently have one light in narrow, but long hallway at one end & one light on top landing, which leaves a lot to be desired.

Need more light, been looking at LED downlighters, anyone use these in a hallway?
Been looking at what's available here:

http://www.downlightsdirect.co.uk/downlights/led-downlights.html

I'm so out of touch with the LED advances, never realise the range has grown so much in the last year.:o
It's not so much the fitting as the lamps to use, is it better to go for GU10, MR16 or the MR11 LED lamps?

MR11 lamps have some benefits, smaller size, so smaller fittings, but they are 12 volts.:(

http://www.megamanuk.com/products/led-lamps/professional-series/reflector/mr11/141159/
 
I personally wouldn't pay the premium for a marketed 'LED' downlight.

A regular halogen downlight fitting with an LED bulb will suffice just as well in the average home.

GU10 is a mains voltage bulb fitment
MR16 is a low voltage bulb fitment

I may be wrong but unless you are coming from low voltage halogens to LED I would stick with mains voltage as the draw is so minimal.

You can get some pretty wide spread beam angles (120 degree) with LED which give a broad coverage. There is an LED thread knocking about so do a search and you'll find more answers.

For the record I have what I suggested above, pictures of which are in said thread.
 
cant say anything about the other lamps but the previous folk in my house installed a load of GU10 bulbs. Since i moved in 3 have gone on me but the rest are fine light wise since september.
 
I just bought 46 ZEP1's from ECOLED. they are very good and dont look like LED's!

Did you go for a 'Warm White' or 'Cool White' lamp?

Derek W: Got GU10 in kitchen, they seldom last very long, with a stomping teenager's bedroom above.:(

Will also be changing these to LED in the next few months.
 
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Thankfully I don't have that issue. Got them in kitchen, hall, landing, bedroom and bathroom. I'm not one for stomping about my house, maybe stumble about while drunk though :D
 
I have just replaced 14 50W GU10 Bulbs with 3.6W GU10 LEDs

I went for the day white ones and they are brighter than the 50W halogen where
 
The Megaman LED GU10's are very good, just get GU10 downlighters and throw away the halogen bulbs.

Have looked Megaman lamps, 6w & 7w versions , but they only offer 35 degree beam angle, I will buy one & do some experimenting with it.

I have a long narrow hallway (3.7mtrs), trying to use the least number of fittings possible there, ideally three, but would use more if needed.
 
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I'm looking at buying around 15 LED GU10 240v downlighters for the hallway, top landing & kitchen.
Been looking around for fittings,seriously considering firerated downlighters, something similar to these.

http://www.downlightsdirect.co.uk/icage-led-downlight-fixed-position.html

But still undecided on lamp wattage, want to work out some beam angle & spread first.

Just buy a standard halogen downlight fitting, it'll be identical and half the price. Think I paid around £6 or £8 per unit.

Warm white for light colour, unless you want your home to feel like a laboratory.
 
I can pick up fire rated GU10 downlighters for around £7-£8 trade, it also gives me that safety feeling.

Sorry, that's what I meant :) I thought you were considering paying £17 a fitting for the exact same thing just because they were on an LED suppliers website!
 
If you are placing gu10 into gu10 you will have no issues, if you are placing mr16 into mr16, then you will need to see if your driver (transformer) can cope with such a low draw, when I replaced the bulbs in my house, I was fine in most places, except the extension and kitchen, which were wired more recently and used newer transformers that were likely toss, I replaced the lot, and things are great, we have seen significant savings in our electric bill over the course of the last winter.

I am quite pleased.

Onto e14s and the story is more random and different, some success, and some companies I would never touch again for supplied generic toss that can give electric shocks when removing the bulb, wasn't impressed. Some things are best left in energy saver bulbs.
 
If you are placing gu10 into gu10 you will have no issues, if you are placing mr16 into mr16, then you will need to see if your driver (transformer) can cope with such a low draw, when I replaced the bulbs in my house, I was fine in most places, except the extension and kitchen, which were wired more recently and used newer transformers that were likely toss, I replaced the lot, and things are great, we have seen significant savings in our electric bill over the course of the last winter

I did for a minute consider MR16 lamps, but like you I had some bad experiences with transformers in the past.:(

GU10 LED lamps are the best opition, & they are continuing to improve.
 
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