Replacing halogen bulbs with LED bulbs.

[Packard]

I moved an 8 foot run of almost-never-used track lights from my almost-never-used office to my frequently used shop. 

It has warm light halogen bulbs:  FNV 50W 12V GE bulbs. 

I want to replace them with LED bulbs.  Is there any issue with that?

From what I see the 7 Watt Single Source LED MR16 is listed as a replacement.

Five of the six bulbs are still good.  One is not.  Does it make sense to replace all of them, or just the one that is burned out?

 

[luvmytoolz]

I'd replace them all, the new LED lighting in either white or warm are sensational for the workshop. Really nice clear and strong lighting for a fraction of the power cost.

 

[Packard]

I'd replace them all, the new LED lighting in either white or warm are sensational for the workshop. Really nice clear and strong lighting for a fraction of the power cost.

Thanks.  My experience is that if one bulb dies, the rest are on borrowed time. 

Do you know if the part number I captioned is the correct replacement. 

Amazon seems to only sell I-never-heard-of-them-before manufacturers.  I would prefer a brand that I have heard of.  Preferably Philips, GE or Sylvania.

 

[rvieceli]

Packard both Lowe’s and Home Depot should have those bulbs in stock. Lowe’s usually has GE and FEIT. HD generally has FEIT

RON

 

[PaulMarcel]

I have two light fixtures that use small halogen bulbs. One has 6, the other has 20. I replaced them with Feit LED bulbs. The only problem I had with them was when dimming them (might not be something you do). If I had only LED bulbs in the fixture, it would dim a bit then start blinking. I put one original halogen bulb in the 6-bulb and 2 in the 20-bulb fixture and it fixed it. Per things I found online, the problem was due to the current draw of just the LEDs was too low for the ballast to work properly. Adding the original bulbs increased the current enough.

You may not have this issue, but wanted to point it out just in case.

 

[Packard]

I have a total of 8 fixtures along an 8’ track.  Two are pendant lights, and 6 are spot lights that can be aimed.

The spots are to light up my oscillating belt sander, a dovetail fixture, mortising machine, a drill press, and router and bit storage.the pendants might work better for some of them.  I am pretty keen on well-placed lights, so I will probably make some adjustments in the future.

Thanks everyone for all the information.

Packard

 

[bobtskutter]

I've been changing the bulbs in our UK home over to LED - it's difficult to buy tungsten filament bulbs thanks to new government energy targets.

I find that LED bulbs give off a light which is very directional and doesn't diffuse very well.  I always seem to be stood in a dimly lit space!

I suggest to think about the placement of the lamp in relation to where you do most work.  Make sure the lamp isn't behind you or directly over you otherwise you could find you're work area isn't actually that bright.

I have LED batton lights in my garage.  These ones I think,https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-twin-5ft-led-batten-55w-6300lm-220-240v/115pp

Regards
Bob

 

[peter halle]

I have two light fixtures that use small halogen bulbs. One has 6, the other has 20. I replaced them with Feit LED bulbs. The only problem I had with them was when dimming them (might not be something you do). If I had only LED bulbs in the fixture, it would dim a bit then start blinking. I put one original halogen bulb in the 6-bulb and 2 in the 20-bulb fixture and it fixed it. Per things I found online, the problem was due to the current draw of just the LEDs was too low for the ballast to work properly. Adding the original bulbs increased the current enough.

You may not have this issue, but wanted to point it out just in case.

I have that issue with my kitchen lights.  Also solved with one traditional MR-16 which unfortunately has a different color spectrum.  Urghh.

 

[bobtskutter]

May I suggest searching for "Dimmable LED lamps" and also "LED Dimmer switches".

The bulb AND the switch must be suitable for dimming operation.
Something to do with current draw being too low and the LED electronics fighting to maintain constant power.

Regards
Bob

 

[Packard]

I've been changing the bulbs in our UK home over to LED - it's difficult to buy tungsten filament bulbs thanks to new government energy targets.

I find that LED bulbs give off a light which is very directional and doesn't diffuse very well.  I always seem to be stood in a dimly lit space!

I suggest to think about the placement of the lamp in relation to where you do most work.  Make sure the lamp isn't behind you or directly over you otherwise you could find you're work area isn't actually that bright.

I have LED batton lights in my garage.  These ones I think,https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-twin-5ft-led-batten-55w-6300lm-220-240v/115pp

Regards
Bob

There is an axiom in lighting that essentially says, “The the larger the light source, relative to the subject, the softer is the lighting effect.”  And the corollary, “The smaller the light source, relative to the subject, the harsher is the lighting effect.”

So, on a summer’s day, with not a cloud in sight, the direct sunlight is harsh and contrasty.  But the sun is a huge light source.  This seems to violate the axiom.

The key is “relative to the subject”.  Yes, it is a huge light source, but on a typical summer day I can hold my thumb up to the sun and completely block it out.  The sun is huge, but hugely distant.  The effect is that it is the smallest pin prick of light with a huge output that there is.  On a cloudy day, that changes.  On an overcast day the whole sky is the light source.  Undoubtedly the largest bright light source there is.

That relates to LEDs in that the bulb is very tiny.  Probably 1/10th or 1/20th the size of the incandescent bulb it replaces.

They are getting around that by using an array of tiny LEDs in a single “bulb” and the effect is that it is a larger light source than the incandescent bulb it replaces.

Our mind makes visual “corrections” so that things look “right”.  It is only when we take a photo that the look “wrong”.  Our minds “correct” colors despite the color temperature of a bulb.  After a few minutes under the harsh LED lights and our minds correct the visuals and they no longer seem so harsh.

 

[Cheese]

A number of years ago I installed 4" recessed cans in the living room ceiling. However, for the last 5-6 years I've been wanting to replace the original Halogen MR16 bulbs with LED replacements. The problem has always been that the MR16 style LEDs have always produced significantly less light than the original Halogen bulbs and they were usually only available in the 3000K color temperature.

Quite literally, every 6 months I'd find a new MR16 LED on the market, purchase one, install it, become disappointed with the light output and color, remove it and reinstall the Halogen bulb.

Then about a year ago I found a different style Feit MR16 bulb that contains 21 individual LED's, the BPEXN.  These things are BRIGHT, consequently I've replaced all of the Halogen bulbs with these. I purchased the 5000K version and they are available with a GX5.3 base or a GU10 base. They also dim very linearly, much like the original Halogen bulbs.

[attachimg=1]

 

[Steve1]

The "quality" of a light from a lightbulb is it's CRI.
Halogens have a CRI of 100.  You can't beat that.  You would save energy with LED bulbs, but the quality of light would suffer a bit.  So it rather depends on your priorities.

The bulbs mentioned above have a CRI of 90, which is very good.  80 or less is poor.
[attachimg=1]

 

[Packard]

The "quality" of a light from a lightbulb is it's CRI.
Halogens have a CRI of 100.  You can't beat that.  You would save energy with LED bulbs, but the quality of light would suffer a bit.  So it rather depends on your priorities.

The bulbs mentioned above have a CRI of 90, which is very good.  80 or less is poor.
[attachimg=1]

That is color accuracy.  That is not the quality I was referencing.  The CRI only measures how accurately it renders colors. 

For instance, incandescent bulbs, in main, are about 2700 degrees K.  Bright sun is about 5,500K.  Halogens are about 3,200 - 3,400 K.

Fluorescents are missing bands of colors, except for some very expensive color balanced bulbs.  Conventional fluorescents cannot be made to photograph colors accurately because of those missing bands of colors. 

Photographers generally refer to the “quality of light” as referencing the softness of illumination or the harshness. 

For portraits, most photographers like large soft boxes which, since they are fairly close to the subject, make a light source that envelopes the subject and provides excellent contouring.

But for food photography, color accuracy reigns king.  They generally like “hot” spotlights that accent the foods.  Soft lighting makes food look dull as a rule. 

And then there is the ring light.  First brought into prominence by Nikon with their Medical Nikor, which was designed to photograph “gross specimens” (autopsy organs, etc.).

And was used in extreme for the movies “Village of the Damned” to create those extraterestial catchlights in the children’s eyes.  No digital effects back then.

 

[Packard]

The replacement bulbs just arrived.  On the right is the original halogen bulb.  On the left is the replacement LED.

The halogen is a naked bulb in a parabolic (?) reflector.  The LED has a diffusion glass to make the light source effectively about 6 times larger, but still quite small and I am anticipating little change in harshness.

Of course the halogen would get way too hot for a glass cover like that.

Down to the basement to check it out.

 

[smorgasbord]

The only problem I had with them was when dimming them (might not be something you do).

Yes. My house has what was once a very cool, state of the art, central lighting control system: LiteTouch. It uses Triac dimmers - 8 to a module. There's current leakage that if any one triac circuit is on, an LED on the others will also come on. The fix is to install a resistor in parallel. Your fix of keeping one normal bulb in the circuit also works well.

In terms of CRI, there's actually a lot of debate over whether CRI ratings can be relied upon. Here's a long detailed paper:https://www.mikewoodconsulting.com/articles/Protocol Winter 2010 - CRI 1.pdf

TL;DR is that CRI only measures color fidelity at 8 Munsell points, but there are orders of magnitude more points to consider. It's possible/likely that some/most LED manufacturers are gaming the CRI test by tweaking their bulbs to output well at those 8 points, but not the other dozens and dozens. The result is that it scores high on the test, but not in real life.

Of course the halogen would get way too hot for a glass cover like that.

I have used, and continue to use, MR-16 halogens with integral glass covers that have lasted years in service. This is one example, by GE:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000V5WHMI

 

[Mini Me]

It is interesting that the conversion LED for downlights has been and gone in Oz, I threw out over 60 Halogen down lights and installed LED down lights straight into the same ceiling opening for way cheaper than the conversions and far better performance. We have never had can style lights as you guys have except for some commercial ceilings and those had fluorescent globes. 

 

[Packard]

I replaced the old halogen bulbs with the new LEDs.  I see no difference in the color, brightness or contrast (harshness). 

The big difference is 8 fixtures times 50 watts = 400 watts vs 8 fixtures times 7 watts = 56 watts.

However, I find that I only need 6 fixtures for the workshop, so it is just 42 watts.  At most, it will get a couple of hours use per day, so not much impact on my utility bill.  But I did save the cost of a new track by re-using the one from the nearly-never-used office (now that I am retired). And the cost of the 6 fixtures I settled on.

When I had my framing shop, I fretted over the lighting for the design counter.  Some very expensive fluorescents had a very high CRI rating.  But further investigation showed that high rating was limited to about 400 hours of use.  Those bulbs were intended for light tables for examining color transparencies.  So 400 hours was reasonable for that application.

Halogen seemed like the best available light source and there were some tinted (with blue) bulbs that approximated daylight.

LEDs would have solved that problem neatly. 

The added light for the bench top machines makes them much easier to use. There is no such thing as there-is-too-much-light in the workshop.

 

[Cheese]

Of course the halogen would get way too hot for a glass cover like that.

I have used, and continue to use, MR-16 halogens with integral glass covers that have lasted years in service. This is one example, by GE:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000V5WHMI

Agree...when I re-bulbed the recessed cans in the living room, the Halogen MR16's I removed were a mix of open reflector and glass covered reflector...Sylvania & GE I think.

 

[mwolczko]

Around 2000 I installed a lot of 12V MR16 halogen lighting in my then-new home. I have around 80 bulbs across all the rails and fixtures.  In the 23 years since I’ve had to replace only 5 failed bulbs.  Every fixture is on a dimmer and is hardly ever run at full power.

One of the tracks had a power supply fail and I switched that over to MR16 LEDs.  They’re OK, but flicker at low power, audibly buzz a bit more than the halogens, and are a bit too white for my taste.  (I could probably find warmer bulbs now but at the time they were the warmest easily available.)

Yes, the halogens take more power than LEDs — but they’re on mostly during the long hours of the winter when the house needs heat anyway, so it’s not exactly wasted.

 

[Packard]

Update. 

The move from the largely unused office to the frequently used shop was a home run for the track lights.

The LEDs are performing well, and the light is very similar to the halogens. 

I added a wireless remote to actuate the lights.  The switch is about 6” away from the most used countertop machines (drill press and oscillating belt sander). I ended up spending about $50.00, but the equipment is easier to use with the focused lights on the work areas.  So a worthwhile upgrade (side grade?).  At anyrate, I’m happy with it.