The Lamp Room

No I think the opposite, the rexal I go to at first like this one were all-pro LED but now they have realised sales are falling the massive stores they had racks on racks of Lamps tubes and control gear on Are laying empty sales are down. The actual store manager the other day said to me the LED plague has been horrifically bad for the electrical wholesaler industry . Where at first they were making a bit when the LED panels was 60\70 quid apiece now you can get mega man LED flat panels for 18 quid . Talk about shooting yourself in the foot

Same here for the company I work for. There is no mark up on the cheap stuff everyody wants for nothing now.
I was looking at a cheap LED floodlight recently and it came to me that a decent connection box for the 6'' flying lead they give you would cost more than the light itself.

During a phone conversation between myself, one of our suppliers, (Lightworks in Stafford), and Danic Lighting in Scotland on Tuesday morning, I discovered our coffee shop lights, (of just five years old), are now obsolete!!
The model DN RML2, were a 600x600 LED mod, with separate diode trays and a separate driver.
This meant you could replace the trays as you would a lamp, and the driver, as you would a choke!

However, due to Danic having ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA which of the two trays were 4000K or 6000K, (as nothing is printed on them), they now have to send the ‘spares’ as FULL units!
But they only have 200 trays left, (in the form of 50 units), before the stock runs out!
Then the replacement, in the form of a 600x600 panel has to be used!......
.......it’s like the lightning industry, like Rich says, is trying to stop you from repairing anything!

That's exactly what they are trying to do - if you can repair it, you only need spare parts, sometimes even at the manufacturers cost. If you have to replace it, you have to but the WHOLE UNIT again at some rip-off price. LED lighting has NOTHING AT ALL to do with saving you money and saving the planet, it's simply about making manufacturers as much money as possible. One massive con! It's a shame a few more people don't wake up to this fact......

It’s a shame really, as the DN RML2 was a smart looking mod, (for LED), panels on the other hand, whilst bright with a soft spread of light, are a tad boring to look at!!
This is where I prefer LED tubes, as you get the LED benefits with the power consumption, with the traditional look of a fluorescent mod!

And you can at least replace them! ALL LED lighting needs to follow the model of replaceable lamps and drivers if it's going to be in any way environmentally friendly!

This is one thing I don’t think will EVER happen with LED, fluorescent standardisation was a great idea for competition in the market, but with LED it looks like every man for himself!, you try and find ‘compatible drivers’, it’s impossible!!, voltage and diode current is totally different manufacturer wide!
But this also stops you from fixing anything!

One of the main reasons I hate LED lighting so much!

Many LED fittings use current limited drivers with an output voltage range between circa 30-45 volts, these are common and it's pretty easy to find one with a suitable current rating to replace a dead driver. Replacing diodes on the other hand varies wildly between fittings.

These Danic trays come in the form of just a 50cm rigid LED strip in an aluminium case, but their 30 volts per strip, and yes, you’ve guessed it, the bulk of 50 cm rigid strips on eBay are ALL 12 volt!!
Now if you could find the EXACT supplier in China that Danic bought from, then you could just buy the strips in bulk, and bang!, the problems solved!

But again, there’s NO name on the original strips, NO numbers , and no way of identifying the original manufacturer!