Energy Saving Lightbulb for use *with* dimmers!

[fozzyo]

I just wanted to share a discovery I made over the weekend.

At home and in my practice room I use dimmers and love having the control over my light levels. The press and everyone have been going on about the need to switch to Energy Saving bulbs which is lovely apart from those of us with dimmers. Until now!

I've seen several bulbs that claim to be dimmer lights but rely on switching on and off several times - not very nice mid massage to dim the light is it. Also I use a 100W bulb in my practice to give lots of light when waxing, most low energy bulbs aren't that bright.

Well at the weekend while in Brighton I discovered the DigiFlux bulb which you can buy online for £10. This is 20W at full brightness the equivilent of a 100W bulb and fully dimmable on a rotary dimmer switch and works a treat.

When you first put it on at lower levels the light is a bit cold, but i wack it up full first to warm up and then it gives a lovely glow to the room.

I'm chuffed to bits and ordering three more for the rest of the house.

Mat

 

[Ruth Mills]

Well done Mat. We've got 8 of these in our house now too; 7 in our lounge (we don't run them all at the same time, 4 are for the main lights and 3 for the wall lights) and 1 in the computer room. We like them too; although the colour temperature does not shift down so much as incandescent bulbs when you dim them, they still give a nice light and are probably saving us a fortune in electricity too!

We're also a fan of LED spotlight bulbs - especially the expensive ones that use about 4W rather than the cheap dim ones that you get at B&Q that aren't anywhere near as bright...

 

[fozzyo]

Where do you get your LED spotlights from? I'm on the lookout for some of them too.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Where do you get your LED spotlights from? I'm on the lookout for some of them too.

The best website I have found so far (in terms of quality) is Ultra Bright Leds and Led products at bargain prices with super fast delivery - by Ultra Leds U.K - and the GU10 bulbs that I got from them for my computer room are GU10 240v 3 x 1 Watt Cree XRE Cool White Leds Spot 270 Lumen 120' by Ultra Leds U.K

I have a 3-way fitting in my computer room above my desk, which previously ate 150W of electricity to light up my desk and the keyboard stand to the right of it - using the LED bulbs it's now down to 12W yet still easily bright enough for what I need. Not cheap to buy the bulbs in the first place - £25 each(!) but they kick out an excellent amount of light with a decent spread, rather than it all being in a really tight beam. I found that the cheapo LED bulbs from B&Q (which have 21 different LEDs in them) were a lot dimmer and projected in a very narrow angle - OK if you buy a shed load of them and pepper your landing ceiling with them but not so good for lighting a desk or work area.

Note that the bulbs I chose for the computer room are the "cool white" ones with a fairly high colour temperature - these are more efficient than the "warm white" ones (you get more lumens per watt) but have a more "daylight" spectrum. I've found that using the bulbs in the daytime to give a bit of extra light works really well though, as the effect is that there's more daylight in the room rather than it seeming that you've put a light on...