Anybody else hate those new light globes?

[units4me]

If you currently have low voltage halogen downlights, each using 50+ watts of power, a cheap, easy way to save power is to replace the lamps from a 50W, down to a 35W, or even a 20W. This of course depends on how your lighting is laid out, ie the spacing of downlights or lightfitting height etc.
Some situations, you can change down to 35W or 20W and hardly notice the difference, other situations you can't. Added bonus of less heat in the roofspace as well.

As to the replacements for old type incandescent bulbs, those new mains halogen globes mentioned by Witzl are very good, nice light etc, although they don't offer much of a saving in power over the old incandescents.

New CFL lamps are very good once you are used to them. Bonus with them is that as they don't generate as much heat, you can put a much more powerful CFL (18W/80-90W equiv.) in a lightfitting which was limited to say 60W max in the incandescent. They have come right down in price too.

For the outside, there is a 23W ES PAR38 floodlight globe available (bunnings abt $23) which is a replacement for the old, very common 120/150W ES (screw in) PAR38 floodlight. These are fantastic, I have them at my own house. A big saving if you use outside lights a lot.

As for LED, they are still too expensive to be worthwhile, at this stage. But that will change down the track. I don't trust the lifespans either (from personal experience).

 

[depreciator]

I liked it when there were fewer options

Okay you lighting technicians, I've got a challenge for you.

I need to light the space in the pic. The 'reno I should never have started' is up to the lighting stage.

See that chain? It's now got a light fitting attached. And in the space beyond the second truss where the ladder is there is another one.

They're big, old industrial ones. Glass dome with a glass base. The base is maybe 400mm across and the dome would be 500mm high.

That room is 80sqm and the ceiling is 6 metres high at the apex. So it's a biggish space.

I want a strong, warm light.

Nothing in my stash of candies will do it.

I though of a PAR38, but I don't want the light pointing down. I'm assuming those floods give directional light?

Any ideas?

 

[Witzl]

Looked into to specialised industrial HID lighting at all??
That's what most warehouses use AFAIK.

 

[depreciator]

HID?

Good grief, not another variant to add into the mix. Bet you can't buy them at Bunnings or Woollies.

The fittings originally had a huge globe. Beautiful incandescent thing - about 300mm long.

Big screw in base.

They needed a controller, apparently.

And they were $80 per globe.

So my tame electrical wholesaler gave me a coulple of edison screw adaptors (I think that's what they're called).

So the fitting now takes a normal domestic screw in globe.

So I'm looking for the best domestic globe solution.

 

[rugrat]

Really?

Yeah they take a minute to get to full brightness - but it's hardly a big deal. The room is still light enough to see, and if you happen to want to read, by the time you sit down in the chair, get comfortable and get the book out the lights good to go.

I love the new bulbs, yeah they're energy efficient (whatever, I'll admit it's not a huge deal to me) - but they last a lot longer! Gone from changing a bulb every other week to every few months.

The commercial ones are brilliant as well. Got 3 in particular that amaze me - had them installed about 8yrs ago - 2 finally went over the last 6 months and the third is still going.

yeah that.

We have yet to change a single globe in our house, and we have been living here for over 1.5yrs.

 

[Witzl]

Scott,

Sounds like those lamps originally were HID.
HID is EXTREMELY bright... far brighter than incandescent or halogen. It's the same type of light that modern cars are now using (think BWM, Audi, lexus, etc) with that super bright, very sharp beam. They do need a "ballast" to step up to very high voltage to drive the bulb.

They can be made in warm white colour (~3000K), but for cars are typically cooler white, around 5100K colour temp.

You shouldve kept them. You will NEVER get an incandescent, or other lamp, to produce as much light.

 

[depreciator]

Those lights would be 50 years old. The dead globes that came out of them look like museum pieces - they're beautiful things.
I've still got them, but they're dead - had them tested.
And I don't have the ballast/controller for those lights - bought them years ago from a second hand joint.
So the edison screw adaptor and domestic globes it is.
Are the PAR floods directional or do they throw light everywhere?

 

[Witzl]

hmmm... they must be something else then... like gas discharge (sodium) bulbs, like a street light.

PAR floodlights are relatively directional - just like your outdoor patio floodlights you get from bunnings, they use the same globe.

 

[vincenzo]

Is that a house?
You could get a big chandelier that can power quite a few globes, there are cheapish ones around that still look good.
You can use halogens, since you want instant brightness, that doesn't mind being power cycled/turned off and on.

It would be more cost effective/cheaper for the same light, than a hid power supply and lamp setup. Ballast is a resistor, not a power supply btw.

 

[depreciator]

No, it's not a house, but it's the top floor of a building attached to my house.
I'm not a fan of cheap chandeliers - too many globes.
So I can get gutsy i.e. bright, screw in halogens?

 

[vincenzo]

i forget the name, but you can get tube style halogens, that are unidirectional and seriously powerfull.
300w setups can be found for around $25 or so, as in globe, housing and stand.
I've seen em as high as 1700w, but i dunno if many stores could even order them that big - not that you'd need them!

 

[evand]

I reckon 4/6/8 industrial type high or low bay fittings would go well in that space Scott.

You could switch them in groups of 2 to save power.

I see they have LED ones now. Excellent, but i bet they're expensive.

http://www.spectrumlighting.com.au/led_hibay_lights.php

Here's the standard type.

http://lighting-store.com.au/lightshop/index.php?cPath=1_12_79

I used to pay about 70 bucks whole sale for these years ago.

By the way guys, a ballast is a coil/transformer, not a resistor.

 

[Dazz]

No matter how much i tell 'the other householders' these lights seemed to stay on. I figure I'll save about 1KWh per day (based on 5-6 hrs) on these 4 lights.

Wow that's amazing !! ....How do you plan on investing that 16c you've saved ??

 

[cu@thetop]

Wow that's amazing !! ....How do you plan on investing that 16c you've saved ??

Personally, if it was me I would move upmarket from the $6 to $7 a bottle Red but I'm a bit old school. How about CFD s instead?

 

[vincenzo]

By the way guys, a ballast is a coil/transformer, not a resistor.

Traditionally a ballast is simply a resistor. One type of resistor is a coil of wire.

There are even electronic current regulators used as ballast these days, which is basically a fancy type of resistor.

 

[evand]

Maybe, but we are talking about 240v lighting here. A ballast used in 240v lighting is traditionally a coil, no?

I vaguely remember resistors being a coil of wire but they are non reactive, so not really a coil. Just wound resistance wire around a core. I havn't seen one of them for oh 20 or more years.

The old fashioned type that sometimes has a sliding control on top of the coil to adjust the resistance. God, that takes me back to my apprenticeship.

With, say LEDS, a ballast resistor is needed as the LED itself doesn't have enough resistance on its own to limit the current so a ballast resistor is needed in the circuit.

Traditionally a ballast is simply a resistor. One type of resistor is a coil of wire.

There are even electronic current regulators used as ballast these days, which is basically a fancy type of resistor.

From Wiki:

Reactive ballasts
Several typical magnetic ballasts for fluorescent lamps. The top is a high-power factor, lead-lag ballast for two 30-40W lamps. The middle is a low power factor ballast for a single 30-40W lamp while the bottom ballast is a simple inductor used with a 15W preheat lamp.

Because of the power that would be lost, resistors are not used as ballasts for lamps of more than about two watts. Instead, a reactance is used. Losses in the ballast due to its resistance and losses in its magnetic core may be significant, on the order of 5 to 25% of the lamp input wattage. Practical lighting design calculations must allow for ballast loss in estimating the running cost of a lighting installation.

An inductor is very common in line-frequency ballasts to provide the proper starting and operating electrical condition to power a fluorescent lamp, neon lamp, or high intensity discharge (HID) lamp. (Because of the use of the inductor, such ballasts are usually called magnetic ballasts.) The inductor has two benefits:

1. Its reactance limits the power available to the lamp with only minimal power losses in the inductor
2. The voltage spike produced when current through the inductor is rapidly interrupted is used in some circuits to first strike the arc in the lamp.

A disadvantage of the inductor is that current is shifted out of phase with the voltage, producing a poor power factor. In more expensive ballasts, a capacitor is often paired with the inductor to correct the power factor. In ballasts that control two or more lamps, line-frequency ballasts commonly use different phase relationships between the multiple lamps. This not only mitigates the flicker of the individual lamps, it also helps maintain a high power factor. These ballasts are often called lead-lag ballasts because the current in one lamp leads the mains phase and the current in the other lamp lags the mains phase.

For large lamps, line voltage may not be sufficient to start the lamp, so an autotransformer winding is included in the ballast to step up the voltage. The autotransformer is designed with enough leakage inductance so that the current is appropriately limited.

Because of the large inductors and capacitors that must be used, reactive ballasts operated at line frequency tend to be large and heavy. They commonly also produce acoustic noise (line-frequency hum).

 

[BruceW]

Wow that's amazing !! ....How do you plan on investing that 16c you've saved ??

Hmm,

18.93 (WA) if you want to split hairs, soon to be 20.84, then on to who knows where?

What will i do?

I'll find some technology I like and apply it to the rest of the halogens in the house (probably another 30 or so).

I'm happy to leave these 4 in place if you'll send me a cheque for $75 each year..

Bruce

 

[depreciator]

Those high bay LEDs look great, Even, but I agree they would be expensive.

Anyway I was wandering through my local Bunnings on Friday evening - it's sad I know, but it's the best time to go there.
I checlked out the flood lights just for the heck of it.
Thgere was some sort of flood that said on the box 24w equivalent of 120w or something like that, but I knew it was complete nonsense. It looked like a flood with a flouro coil. And it was $27 I think.
Then I walked round the corner and there was a whole pallet - yep a waist high pile on a pallet - of PARA38 130w. The old fashioned ones. They were $7 for two.
It was quiet a nostalgic moment for me. I felt a bit overcome.
I'll keep looking for those things you mentioned Vincenzo, but in the meantime I've now got enough PARAs to last my lifetime.

 

[wylie]

Then I walked round the corner and there was a whole pallet - yep a waist high pile on a pallet - of PARA38 130w. The old fashioned ones. They were $7 for two.
It was quiet a nostalgic moment for me. I felt a bit overcome.
I'll keep looking for those things you mentioned Vincenzo, but in the meantime I've now got enough PARAs to last my lifetime.

Can't help but think of Elaine and her sponges .