Energy Efficient Lighting

[rwb]

Which are better: three blobs or SMD?

[FarmerPug]

I replaced all the bulbs in the kitchen with SMD warm white bulbs, that run on 240v without needing a 12v transformer, the 5w a bulb was quite appealing with 9 bulbs in the kitchen, and warm white was the best match to the old halogens light output.
All was very good, the electric bill seemed to have went down and they lit up straight away.

But there have been problems, some of the bulbs have had the front bulb cluster part fall off, i glued the affected ones back on, but now some of the bulbs are completley failing i think its a capacitor which is blowing on them:




These were bought off ebay, so watch out you might end up with shite one like these, dont take CE markings to be true either they are very easy to print on.

[Bailes1992]

Cheap chineese LED's are a massive no from me.
I even stopped my other half buying cheap Chinese phone chargers.

[steve_earwig]

Cheap Chinese LEDs are all I'm running I suspect that a lot of electronics we buy are exactly the same thing, just someone's added a huge mark up. Trouble is some of it really is junk, dangerous at that.

Where did you get those Frank? Just so we know which ones to avoid...

[Rolebama]

Welly, the dimmables I referred to are CFLs, the 'straight' type with with 2 U elements. A friend saw them in Homebase, (Hayes, Middx branch) and told me about them. I bought two to try them, but they only lasted about 18 months.

[FarmerPug]

I just went though my ebay purchase history to find the bulbs, here they are still listed in the same way:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-20-x-GU10- ... 53f8a3ecd4

I purchased them on the 11th of Jan 2014 so they havent even done a full year of service, they are best avoided.

[DaiRees]

I've had a couple of goes at getting Chinese LEDs for the kitchen to replace the 12X 50W halogens in there, but I found the colour and light output to be disappointing and the bulbs failed far too quickly. Good quality LEDs are far too expensive, so I'm back to bulk buying cheap halogens.

[lozz]

chinneese tat is never anygood,

can you not fire them bulbs back and get a refund'?


Pugs is getting made over in 'rice land now, (Dongfeng Peugeot Citroën Automobile (DPCA))

iwonder if they last longer than there bulb's..

[FarmerPug]

Its not too bad building stuff in china, provided its been deisgned correctly and they have a decent quality control setup in place, take the iphone as an example. Unfortuantley there is also a lot of cheap rubbish, although a plus side is the hilarious instruction manuals.

I have contacted the seller i think ill be able to get replacements, although if they havent improved the deisgn thats no real advantage.

[DaiRees]

can you not fire them bulbs back and get a refund'?

I think I did that with the first batch now you come to mention it...

[Welly]

I bought 'Crompton' LED GU10's from a commercial electrical wholesaler, the dimmable ones were £9.00 each + Vodka & Tonic

I say 'bought' they definitely didn't get added to a works order no they didn't.

Point being not one of them had given any hint of trouble (upwards of 10 months).