So forum, talk to me about LED light bulbs (household spotlights)

Schizophonic · 7 Mar 2011 at 23:40

I stupidly brought 4 x white MR16 bulbs not knowing that my kitchen spotlights take GU10 bulbs.

Is there a way I can recover this situation and get some form of adapter without setting my kitchen on fire? Dont want to send them back as their from China and at the shop they tested them in front of me and I was impressed.

Its_Me · 7 Mar 2011 at 23:47

Nope

And LED's suck, compact GU10 fluorescents is what you should use.

3vil Tom · 7 Mar 2011 at 23:52

I bought some LED spotlights and its a horrible pale blue light, just cold and nasty, I would defo try to avoid them.

Schizophonic · 7 Mar 2011 at 23:56

LEDs do not suck. I've replaced all my house hold bulbs to crisp white. I want to change the rest of the spot lights in my house to the same colour / temp.

You should consider replacing any of your spot lights to LED as they consume less power and have more of a durability in terms of life expectancy.

Pav89 · 8 Mar 2011 at 00:12

All I can tell you about LED light bulbs is that OCUK sell them

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-089-EX

Steeps · 8 Mar 2011 at 02:00

I bought some "4w 20 smd warm white GU10" bulbs to replace a few in our house, replacing 2-3 halogens a year was getting a bit excessive. Going from 150w in a room to under 12w is nice but doesn't match the light output of a 12w regular energy saver.

Other downsides include:

The colour. The light from the bulb looks nice, but to get it they've just put a yellow filter on the leds so on paper it looks fine, I probably need more brightness but the colour of objects in the room are seriously affected, almost too yellow.

Flickering. I'm not sure if it's just the bulbs I have but there's a really distracting flicker when you look around, like when you wave your hand infront of a crt tv or a cheap projector only everything in the room has this effect.

For £8 a bulb it was worth a shot, I'm wondering if I should have tried cool white or if it's possible to mix with a regular halogen in the same fitting just to equal out the light a little bit. I'll get some pics up tomorrow.

Its_Me · 8 Mar 2011 at 02:14

If you buy cheap LED units, the driver circuit will be cheap and nasty.
As I said for GU10 fittings, there is no LED unit that can compare to compact fluorescents.
I have fitted some very expensive low energy light units for shop displays.
There is one things LED's can do that fluorescents can't though and that is for low energy active security lighting.
The problem is MR16 and GU10 retro fitments do not allow enough space for the LED & lens (diffuser) so you get very narrow beam of light rather then a nice spread.