The Lamp Room

I think we're beginning to see LED's that have a decent lifespan and improved colour rendering. We're seeing an increase in replaceable LED's too, which is good. A lot of LED replica discharge lamps on the market now as well. it's just a shame these didnlt come along 10+ yrs ago, before many lanterns and fittings were ripped out wholesale for sealed LED lanterns and luminaires, which are now themselves being binned as dead and hard or impossible to repair.

I'm working with some Tridonic 140mm LED modules currently - trying to make a conversion kit for existing 8w EM bulkheads, that'll offer either 3000K or 4000K, backed up with a tridonic inverter, Tridonic driver and replaceable battery too. My aim is to find a way to keep older fittings going, or to be able to repair newer LED bulkheads. This can also be slipped into other fittings to add an emergency option. Watch this space...

My Robus LED exit sign has been up since 24/03/20218 and it’s still working fine. It’s done about 50k hours. The colour temp is 6500k I think and the legend has definitely faded a bit (gone less green) but still acceptable. It passed its 3 hour test not too long ago as well. I’ve seen quite a few others in public which appear to be working fine as well. They are only rated 30k hours but mine has obviously exceeded that.

If I had to go with LED, I’d definitely have more faith in an LED fitting intended for a commercial environment… rather than something from a DIY shop or Aldi centre aisle.

LED lamps now have come a long way!, now they really are doing 50,000 hours in use, I have one in use in my bathroom, a mini globe SMT version from Energetic, Energetic gave it a 30,000 hour life on its packaging, but its now on 54+ thousand hours and still going strong!

Even the pound shop lamps are good today, Big Clive on YouTube was surprised when stripping them how decent even the simplest of circuits are today compared to the lamps of 10 years ago.