I was looking around the Farnell website the other day, as we are renovating our apartment and want to install energy efficient lighting throughout the flat, and I came across these LED replacements for Halogen bulbs. Halogens are notoriously energy hungry, the most common size people have in their homes is typically 50 Watts. I also find they generate a large quantity of heat during operation compared to normal bulbs. They do provide very good light levels (1000 Candlepower) which is great but I have seen rooms that had as many as ten recessed PAR16 Halogen fixtures, the total power consumption of the lighting in such a space would be 500 Watts which in Ireland translates to 12.4 cents for every 2 hours they are activated. Compact fluorescents are one solution but are quite large and so not suitable for recessed lighting fixtures.
Theses LED banks on the other hand are designed to fit the GU10 fitting used by PAR16 Halogen bulbs, the consist of 20 high power LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) consuming only 1.8 Watts in total and 2 Watts max. They have a mean time between failure of 30000 hours compared to 3000 hours for Halogens and a very low heat output. They do cost most but do the math and figure out the savings you can make over several years (Find out the cost of electricity in Kilowatt Hours its usually on your bill, and calculate how many hours it would take an appliance to add up to 1 Kwh). They are also available in a variety of colours.
Other things you should know about Halogen bulbs are that you should never touch them as the grease from your fingers shortens their lifespans (It does not tell you this on the box, I wonder why) and when they fail they often trip your MCB (Miniature Circuit Breaker) leaving you in darkness.
Here are the technical data sheets for Halogens.
I cannot seem to find a decent data sheet (Apart from the basic one on the Farnell website) for the LED bulbs but each super bright LED is equivalent to 200 candles now multiply that by 20 and the total light from each bulb should amount to the equivalent of about 4000 candles.
LEDs have been gaining in popularity in the world of lighting over the past few years as energy becomes more and more expensive, for example check out this stylish LED Lamp by Herman Miller.
There are many suppliers of these devices but I find the best place is Farnell as they are international and provide very fast service and great technical feedback.
