| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| steevo777 |
Posted - 14/04/2008 : 23:53:30
Hi all,
Can anyone tell me if there is any potential problem in using a 12v battery connected to an inverter and attaching it to a 240v lamp which has an LED light bulb. I have tested it out for myself and the LED light bulb works great but I just want to check if you know if there is a risk of the LED's blowing when attached to an inverter. I am wanting to buy some more of these LED bulbs cos I found a supplier of some very good ones on Ebay but they are expensive (but worth it) but I just hope that they are not gonna blow when attached to an inverter.  |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| steevo777 |
Posted - 27/04/2008 : 17:14:24
Yeah Ghurd, but the ORIGINAL bulbs I got had just the right tinge of yellow. They were perfect. The new ones have too much yellow but are FAR better than those White Light ones like you have mentioned. |
| ghurd |
Posted - 27/04/2008 : 17:07:40
That's a common thing.
No 2 batches of LEDs are the same.
More blue tends to be brighter. More yellow tends to be dimmer.
Many people would call more yellow an improvement, even if it is dimmer!
G- |
| steevo777 |
Posted - 27/04/2008 : 15:23:08
UPDATE 27 APRIL 2008
PLEASE NOTE :- I NO LONGER RECOMMEND THESE BULBS BECAUSE WHEN I BOUGHT SOME MORE, THE LIGHT WAS MORE YELLOW AND SLIGHTLY DIMMER. I EMAILLED THE SELLER (I BOUGHT THEM DIRECT FROM HIS WEBSITE THIS TIME) AND SAID THAT I WOULD RETURN THEM TO HIM BUT MAYBE I STILL MIGHT DECIDE TO KEEP THEM BECAUSE I AM NOT SURE I CAN BE BOTHERED WITH RETURNING THEM AND ANYWAY THEY STILL BETTER THAN MOST OTHER LED BULBS THAT I HAVE SEEN BUT I DONT RECOMMEND THEM ANYMORE. |
| Capt Slog |
Posted - 18/04/2008 : 13:50:16
I agree with Steevo777 about the colour of most LED bulbs, they are just too blue for comfort.
However, they're ok in the right place, which is why I have them in my kitchen. I have a striplight made from 21 LEDs and 6 spot/downlights that use MR16 type LED bulbs. I also drilled some 5mm holes directly into the cooker hood and put LEDs in that too Altogether there are 150 LED lighting the kitchen, and the effect is quite pleasing. I'm using individual regulator circuits for each lighting set. The regs can handle upto 1A, and with the bulbs only using around 120mA this means I can get several on each circuit with no worries; 6 is the most I have on one at the present.
As has been mentioned above, there is some loss with using an inverter, so I decided to go with 12 volt into the house instead. It made things quite easy and fairly safe, I have worked on them 'live' as the only thing to worry about is a short circuit.
The MR16 bulbs I have at the moment cost around £3.69 each and 20 or 21 LEDs in each. The downlight fittings I managed to buy for around £2, so I think this is quite good value for a few lights.
I'm looking forward to the time when the LED bulbs drop into 'normal' price levels. We've seen them fall drastically over the last few years, so perhaps it will happen.
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| ghurd |
Posted - 16/04/2008 : 16:14:51
Victor- Good call. One of my better inverters for tiny loads pulls 100ma no load, and runs ~80% efficient with a 5W load.
Comes out to about 3.8W from the battery to run the LED bulb.
Larger inverters may pull 6W to run the bulb.
Decent 12V LED bulbs are easy to make. Finding good LEDs to start with is not. Expensive doesn't always mean good.
G- |
| BushWhacker |
Posted - 16/04/2008 : 04:09:32
As for the 12 volt solution, I have no idea if Grote is in th UK market but... have a look as it seems they are getting some things right with 12 volt LED's. If Grote isn't in the UK try a search on automotive LED's.
http://www.grote.com/new/000126.html
Cheers,
BW
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler. - Albert Einstein |
| gholt |
Posted - 16/04/2008 : 03:54:50
I just want to know when the local electronics gurus among you windies are going to post the circuitry and mechanics to produce an acceptable 12 volt LED light bulb.
How many windies does it take to screw in an LED ... ok, nevermind.
G. |
| steevo777 |
Posted - 15/04/2008 : 22:59:56
Yes victor I agree. The inverters that I have are supposed to be 85-90% efficient (whatever that means). Ideally we want LED bulbs which are 12vdc powered, but unfortunately I havent been able to find anything of that type. I think that there is an obvious reason why they dont seem to manufacture these sort of things, it's a real shame. The electricians amongst us may be able to come up with a solution and then maybe we can get some manufactured via China 
GotWind I just checked out those 5w Luxeon LED's I hadnt really seen those before. How do you utilize it ? 5w is alot of power though for me cos I dont have a big battery bank at the moment. I just have an old car battery which I charge up with my 18w solar panel and I also have 2 of those yellow emergency jump starters which have 17ah batteries in them. But if you can get the Luxeon LED's to work without an inverter then that is a different story 
EDIT : Btw thanks for commenting on my gifs, I made them on Photoshop Elements |
| Victor |
Posted - 15/04/2008 : 22:38:22
Reading all the posts on this thread I was wondering if anyone has taken into consideration the actual power consumption of an inverter? If we are using them to turn 12 voltsDC to 240vac would it not eat a lot of our harnessed electricity? The power consumption of the inverter itself must be added to the total power...
Just a thought!!
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| gotwind |
Posted - 15/04/2008 : 22:28:54
Pretty good for 2 watts of power consumption steevo. I like the animated gifs.
Bit pricey, Have you seen the single Luxeon LED's - 5w versions available - I have one, great colour - approx £20.
Ben.
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| steevo777 |
Posted - 15/04/2008 : 21:59:32
The following pic was taken tonight in total darkness except for the LED light that you can see on the right hand side of the pic (obviously the rest of the room was pretty much in darkness except for the area that you can see in the pic):-
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| steevo777 |
Posted - 15/04/2008 : 17:36:49
Here are some gifs showing the brightness that come from the bulbs. The pics were taken in the daytime without a flash.
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| steevo777 |
Posted - 15/04/2008 : 15:12:11
Hi Ghurd
I will try your test when I get around to it and see if I notice heat differences at the base. I actually ran the bulb on a 300w inverter for 12 hours continually with no apparant ill effect at all. There didnt seem to be any problem with heat either but I didnt check at the base but I dont think that it did heat up unduly at all but I will have to do a comparison test like you say.
The only thing that I noticed was that that lamp area buzzed continually very quietly but this may be a normal thing when connected to an inverter I dont know.
"not suitable for use with dimmer switches", this is what made me ask the question as to whether there is a risk.
Also, I once bought a cheap 150w inverter from Aldi for £15 but I returned it and got a refund because it was noisy (the fan) and it made bulbs flicker on and off (especially economy bulbs) but not on every occasion but I never tested that one on LED bulbs and I am glad that I didnt.
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| ghurd |
Posted - 15/04/2008 : 14:33:57
There are about a million ways to make a 230VAC LED bulb.
It sounds like they went with a better way than most. ("not suitable for use with dimmer switches")
Without knowing everything inside, there is no way to say for certain.
Often, if it doesn't like the inverter, it'll blow up in a few minutes. Meaning the easiest way to tell is use one and see what happens.
Might run 1 from the inverter and 1 from the grid for an hour, facing the same way. Then check the inverter powered bulb to see if it is much warmer near the base than the grid powered bulb.
And that is hardly expensive for what it is! (if it lasts)
Couple years ago they would have been £75 each.
G-
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| steevo777 |
Posted - 15/04/2008 : 11:59:30
Hi Speo
The LED lamps use less than 2 watts of power which is quite alot less that the CFL's and therefore my 12v battery can provide long periods of light. The ones that I use are WARM white as opposed to any other type of white light which feels cold/unnatural.
I use the 60 LED lamps where the LED's pertrude out and therefore distibute light better, as opposed to the other ones which have the glass plate over the top of them (like a normal halogen bulb).
I have tested out a few different types of LED bulbs and I would say that they are pretty poor in the amount of light (and the colour of the light) that comes out of them (except for the ones that I have now and that I would recommend). I would recommend them because :-
1. The colour of the light is like that of a normal bulb
2. It's bright enough in my opinion (supposedly equivalent of a 30w bulb). Not as bright as CFL's probably but the light quality is good and the amount of light is pretty good too in my opinion.
3. It is the most economical in that it uses ALOT LESS power than other bulbs.
4. They last years longer than any other type of bulb on the market (supposedly). I have been using mine every night in my house for the last few months and I am very pleased with them.
Here is an Ebay link to the ones I bought :-
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/4-PACK-TOP-QUALITY-60-LED-GU10-BULB-WARM-WHITE_W0QQitemZ320239209231QQihZ011QQcategoryZ20706QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262
UPDATE 27 APRIL 2008
PLEASE NOTE :- I NO LONGER RECOMMEND THESE BULBS BECAUSE WHEN I BOUGHT SOME MORE, THE LIGHT WAS MORE YELLOW AND SLIGHTLY DIMMER. I EMAILLED THE SELLER (I BOUGHT THEM DIRECT FROM HIS WEBSITE THIS TIME) AND SAID THAT I WOULD RETURN THEM TO HIM BUT MAYBE I STILL MIGHT DECIDE TO KEEP THEM BECAUSE I AM NOT SURE I CAN BE BOTHERED WITH RETURNING THEM AND ANYWAY THEY STILL BETTER THAN MOST OTHER LED BULBS THAT I HAVE SEEN BUT I DONT RECOMMEND THEM ANYMORE.
I have not tested any CFL's personally but I have tested the normal "economy" bulbs which are pretty good but use lots of power compared to the LED bulbs and so the battery runs out ALOT quicker.
The bulbs I use I have a GU10 connection so obviously you need an compatible 240v desk lamp or a floor lamp (I bought some on Ebay) cos I found that there wasnt many to choose from in the shops  .
I also bought some cheap wall fitting (spot lights) from wilkinsons which I use every night with these bulbs.
To conclude I would say that the light that they provide is more like a very relaxing background light (ie not like the normal 100w bulb that we all became accustomed to) but it is sufficient especially because they act as spot light and can be directed when necessary.
I will post some pics asap.
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