Mr-16 LED

[barry2952]

I'm astounded. I replaced a bunch of 20-watt spots and wide floods with 6.7 and 6.2-watt LED MR-16s and I have more light. They don't dim as low as the quartz lamps and don't flicker except at the bottom of the dimming range. I selected the warm-white over the cool-white as I like the look of an incandescent light for artwork.

I bought a bunch of these in three beam widths, 8°, 25° and 35° to use in my outdoor lighting. At $22 each I could only justify using them outdoors as they are on 4,380 hours in a year. That amounts to something at 13-watts each. I couldn't bring myself to use them indoors as so few are used for any great length of time. The payback is outrageous.

What pushed me over the edge was having to climb on a ladder to replace the lamps in a high ceiling room. That was it, I didn't care what the cost was I wasn't about to be out in the freezing cold or up on a ladder changing light bulbs anymore, even though that's how I make a living.

However, I don't know how they'll ever take off at that price.



I didn't show a brand name. I'm not shilling anyone's product.

[spockcat]

I can't wait until LEDs come down in price to around the $8-10 range. For probably 10+ years I've been using 5 watt CFL R-20s for down lighting in my soffits. I run the dusk to dawn and there are 13 of them around the house, so going incandescent is out of the question. But those little sucker put out enough light at night to light up the walk around the house.

Here are a couple of photos I took trying to get those nighttime realtor shots that you see in better real estate listings. Tough to do with a cheap point and shoot digital camera.

[sassbs]

beautiful home

love a house with a crap load of big windows...

i saw these lights at hd. but the price did turn me away.... great product...too rich for me tho

[99blackmagic]

I swear i just saw some of these on clearance @ Lowe's for under $7.

I went home to find that i dont' have any fixtures that use them. I knew it was a good price.

[barry2952]

You just made me go through every LED item at Lowes (621 of them) and there were no MR-16 with a 20-watt equivalent for less than $22.00. I wonder what you saw.

[barry2952]

The MR-16s don't work with my outdoor fixtures as they have electronic quartz transformers which appear to not be compatible. They work as long as I leave one of three lights as a quartz. If I replace all 3 none of them work. New LED power supplies on order.

[wildcar]

check ollies every now and then, i got a 14 led dimmable flood light bulb for 10 bucks. normal price is close to 30. you just have to catch them when they get them in because they go fast

[WRXGuy]

I've replaced all of my landscape MR-16's with LED MR-16's-- took trial and error to find ones with the 'right' color value so that my Designer (aka my other half) didn't go "NO!". The only non-LED part of my landscape lights is more challanging-- wall washes that have a 20w bipin in them. I think I've found the right ones-- with those in place, my total wattage will go from 410w total (front and back yard) to something like 84w!!!!

[barry2952]

I've replaced all of my landscape MR-16's with LED MR-16's-- took trial and error to find ones with the 'right' color value so that my Designer (aka my other half) didn't go "NO!". The only non-LED part of my landscape lights is more challanging-- wall washes that have a 20w bipin in them. I think I've found the right ones-- with those in place, my total wattage will go from 410w total (front and back yard) to something like 84w!!!!

So you have about 20 fixtures. If you went from a 20 watt bulb down to a 6-watt LED you've saved plus or minus 13 watts per lamp. That's 260 watts. Let's use your figure of 326. That's .326 kilowatts at $ .15 per kilowatt hour. For round numbers let's call it a nickel an hour in savings for all 20 fixtures. Let's assume they are on a photocell so they are on 4,380 hours in a year. That's $219 in annual energy savings. If you spent $22 a fixture on an LED retrofit bulb you'd have spent $440 and saved $438 in a two year period. Since the LEDs are now rated for 25,000 hours that a likely lifespan of 6 years between bulb changes, saving another $50 a year.

If you do the math, it's the best investment out there. Spend $440 and get your money back in 2 years. Save an additional 4 years with no maintenance expense and save another $876, assuming rates won't go up. By spending $440 you get back $1,340 in 6 years. Then you'll spend $220 to replace them in 6 years (because the price will go down) and that $220 investment will pay out another $1,340 over the subsequent lifespan.

Sounds to me as though LEDS have reached the price where they make sense for outdoor dusk to dawn lighting. Sounds like a far better investment than anything I've seen recently. I think that these things will put me out of business. Good thing I'm about to retire.

[WRXGuy]

Barry -- your #'s are close-- think I got the bulbs for an avg price of $10ea --- and you're right about it being 20 fixtures total. I don't run dusk-to-dawn... more like dusk to 1am. So the #'s are tweaked somewhat, but the payoff is BIG!

About the only issue was finding MR-16's that had the "correct" color temperature for my Designer's eye-- think we hit the sweet spot around 3500k. Had more than a few missteps and got ones that were closer to 5k... nothing like uplighting a palm with a very 'blue/white' light to make us both go "Ewwwwwwwwww!!!"

[barry2952]

I use 2700K lamps as they are closest to diffused sunlight and incandescent light. They are nearly indistinguishable from quartz MR-16.

[WRXGuy]

I use 2700K lamps as they are closest to diffused sunlight and incandescent light. They are nearly indistinguishable from quartz MR-16.

Whats your source for these? I've had a heck of a time finding anything thats damp-rated in a color value that low!!

[barry2952]

http://www.lightingsupply.com/?gclid...FUMCQAodBkcA9A

[spockcat]

Have you ever taken a chance and tried the low cost LEDs from China sold on eBay? I've considered it but not bought any.
Here is a sample of what I mean:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3W-4W-6W-9W-...item231eb947f9
http://www.ebay.com/itm/6W-Mr16-12V-...item2573932e11

[barry2952]

I've not, but I'm in the business and give a two year warranty on what I do. The warranty and liability exposure is too high for commercial use. However, for the average homeowner..........

[zhenya00]

Have you ever taken a chance and tried the low cost LEDs from China sold on eBay? I've considered it but not bought any.
Here is a sample of what I mean:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3W-4W-6W-9W-...item231eb947f9
http://www.ebay.com/itm/6W-Mr16-12V-...item2573932e11

I took a chance on one of the $4 G4 bulbs from ebay to try in our under-cabinet lights which use 24 10 watt halogens and are on a lot of hours every day. The one I got didn't quite fit, and when I tried to force it, one of the pins broke off. I can repair it, but I haven't bothered. I am looking forward to some quality bulbs coming available in this size for reasonable money though as they are only 2 watts apiece rather than 10.

I have splurged on a few LED's for home bulbs. I have one basement light that is on pretty much 24/7 that I found an LED that I preferred over any CFL I've ever had in there, and I have a few of these Philips bulbs in places where I the lights are on many hours, but I also value the instant on capabilities of LED. They don't pay back very well, but their better behavior makes it worthwhile. These are the first nearly as good as incandescent LED I've seen.
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-409904...ds=philips+led

Home Depot typically has them at the cheapest price. Only downsides are they can't be used in fully enclosed fixtures (the silver is an actual metal heat sink, and despite only using 12.5 watts, it gets hot enough to burn you), they don't quite dim below about 15%, and they don't get the warm color of incandescents when dimmed (good or bad depending on your POV). Otherwise the color temperature, brightness (these are every bit as bright as a regular 75 watt bulb), omni-directional light output and speed to on is excellent.

[WRXGuy]

I've experimented with the eBay/Chinese MR16's with mixed results-- a few of them are too tall for my outside fixtures, while others die after a short time. But hey, for $5 or so...

The best luck I've had are with the Phillips MR16's... got a stupid deal on them at HD, and cleared out their stock.

[mikegilbert]

I'm very interested in this, Barry. Most of the lighting in my condo is via Kable light which uses MR16 bulbs. My other fixtures use line voltage GU10 bulbs. One thing I love about the MR16 bulbs is the colorful light which escapes through the back of the bulbs. The LEDs would obviously do away with that.

I've got ~38 MR16 heads in use and ~12 GU10 bulbs. Most are on for ~6 hours/day. I've wanted to add some additional heads to the Kable setup, but I'm running ten 20w heads on a 200w transformer already.

Using LEDs seems like a no-brainer. I'll see how yours hold up.

[barry2952]

Using LEDs seems like a no-brainer. I'll see how yours hold up.

Won't know that for a very long time. Found out yesterday that a utility rebate may pay for 75% of my upgrade.

I just ordered 45 more MR-16 and 27 R-20 LEDs. I had to order one low-wattage MR-16 for a specific application, but the 6.2-6.7 watt units really kick out some light.

[WRXGuy]

My front landscape lights (6 wall wash, 2 spots, 4 pathway) on one side are now 100% LED's-- had to swap out the old transformer for a new magnetic $40 one from Lowes, as the old one (600w?) had an issue where it'd turn the lights on at dusk, but not ever turn them off again. No matter what I set it to for an off time, it would never turn off.

My other side of my front lights are 2/3 LED's... 3 wall wash fixtures. I put the LED's in all 3, only to have the transformer decide to flash them for me!! It was a pretty cool effect. I'm guessing (Barry, correct me if I'm off here) that the transformer was requiring a specific load to be seen, or it'd flip out. I put one of the 20w's back in, and left the other 2 as LED's-- its working fine now. Guess I'm now shopping for another transformer.

Any idea why I'm seeing such odd behavior with that one transformer type? When I switch to the 'magnetic' type, all of these weird issues disappear.

[barry2952]

It's because quartz electronic power supplies require a minimum wattage to work. I had the same problem. I just received some 60-watt LED-specific power supplies that are tiny, which is important as they have to fit in existing junction boxes. I'll let you know how they work.

All of my indoor lighting has magnetic 50-watt maximum magnetic transformers, but some of the dimmers don't provide the range that they did before.

[DantheVWman]

I took a chance on one of the $4 G4 bulbs from ebay to try in our under-cabinet lights which use 24 10 watt halogens and are on a lot of hours every day. The one I got didn't quite fit, and when I tried to force it, one of the pins broke off. I can repair it, but I haven't bothered. I am looking forward to some quality bulbs coming available in this size for reasonable money though as they are only 2 watts apiece rather than 10.

I have splurged on a few LED's for home bulbs. I have one basement light that is on pretty much 24/7 that I found an LED that I preferred over any CFL I've ever had in there, and I have a few of these Philips bulbs in places where I the lights are on many hours, but I also value the instant on capabilities of LED. They don't pay back very well, but their better behavior makes it worthwhile. These are the first nearly as good as incandescent LED I've seen.
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-409904...ds=philips+led

Home Depot typically has them at the cheapest price. Only downsides are they can't be used in fully enclosed fixtures (the silver is an actual metal heat sink, and despite only using 12.5 watts, it gets hot enough to burn you), they don't quite dim below about 15%, and they don't get the warm color of incandescents when dimmed (good or bad depending on your POV). Otherwise the color temperature, brightness (these are every bit as bright as a regular 75 watt bulb), omni-directional light output and speed to on is excellent.

I have these philips bulbs. cheapest ive seen them go down to on amazon was $18 and I usually scoop up a few at that price. i am slowly changing all my bulbs in the house to LED.

[GeoffD]

I have these philips bulbs. cheapest ive seen them go down to on amazon was $18 and I usually scoop up a few at that price. i am slowly changing all my bulbs in the house to LED.

I bought a couple of Philips non-dimmable A bulbs last year for the two lights that are on most often. I'm still waiting for prices to drop and dimming technology to improve before I replace all my halogen recessed lighting. The payback doesn't work for me. My electric bill is sub-$50.00 and that's running my mini-split A/C 24x7.

[DantheVWman]

The ones above are dimmable FYI. they actually go pretty low before they completely turn off unlike some.

[barry2952]

I found out that all I need is some CFL/LED/incandescent dimmers, an update of the electronic dimmers I installed 20 years ago. I ordered 4 to try out.

[TwoLitreVW]

i'm watching this thread for knowledge.

i sure could use some help with my electric bill, and this looks like the right place to start....

[barry2952]

The math makes sense for exterior landscape lighting. I'm just not so sure about miscellaneous interior lighting. 16 of my lights are exterior and run dusk to dawn so I can base a payback on 4,380 hours use in a year. Interior lighting is much more random use, and significantly lower consumption to base a payback on.

[WRXGuy]

For my landscape lighting, I went from about 500w total, running from dusk until 1AM, to about 100w total running the same amount of time by moving to LED's.

No, I don't expect my bill to drop by 4/5ths, but I do expect to see a difference.

[barry2952]

For my landscape lighting, I went from about 500w total, running from dusk until 1AM, to about 100w total running the same amount of time by moving to LED's.

No, I don't expect my bill to drop by 4/5ths, but I do expect to see a difference.

You're probably saving six or seven cents per hour of operation. That adds up.

[barry2952]

I found out that all I need is some CFL/LED/incandescent dimmers, an update of the electronic dimmers I installed 20 years ago. I ordered 4 to try out.

Dimmers work great. They definitely let me lower the lights much more than the dimmers I had.

[DantheVWman]

$18 right now on amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Philips-409904...=1DC4283A5UBMO

[barry2952]

OK, let's do the math.

I have 16 outdoor landscape lights that were 20-watt wide, medium and narrow focus MR-16s. I replaced them with like-focus lamps that range from 6.2 to 6.7 watts each. They are about 20% brighter than the quartz lamps, but will lose output over time.

16 times 20 equals 320 watts or .32 Kilowatts. A kilowatt of electricity is 1,000 watts consumed over one hour. With taxes and surcharges our rate is about $ .15 per kilowatt hour.

Multiply $.15 by .32 to come up with an hourly operating cost of 4.8 cents per hour.

The new LEDs have an average consumption of 6.5 watts or 130-watts total for an hourly operating cost is 1.9 Cents per hour for an hourly savings 2.9 cents per hour for the 20 lamps.

That may not seem like much, but photocell-controlled dusk-to-dawn lighting operates 4,380 hours in a year at 12 hours per day average. That produces an annual savings of $127.02, not including lamp replacement costs. That works out to $6.35 per lamp per year. That's a 4 year return on investment without factoring in maintenance and replacement lamp costs.

At $22 each the payback is 3.46 years. The lamps are rated for 5.707 years of use at 25,000 hours. That's 2.47 years of savings or $313 towards the purchase of the next batch, which should cost significantly less in 5.7 years, if past technology value is any indicator.

In effect, the swap will pay for the initial investment and all future lighting maintenance costs. It's actually a far better return for your money than traditional investments or savings, IMO.

[GreenandChrome]

OK, let's do the math.

I have 16 outdoor landscape lights that were 20-watt wide, medium and narrow focus MR-16s. I replaced them with like-focus lamps that range from 6.2 to 6.7 watts each. They are about 20% brighter than the quartz lamps, but will lose output over time.

16 times 20 equals 320 watts or .32 Kilowatts. A kilowatt of electricity is 1,000 watts consumed over one hour. With taxes and surcharges our rate is about $ .15 per kilowatt hour.

Multiply $.15 by .32 to come up with an hourly operating cost of 4.8 cents per hour.

The new LEDs have an average consumption of 6.5 watts or 130-watts total for an hourly operating cost is 1.9 Cents per hour for an hourly savings 2.9 cents per hour for the 20 lamps.

That may not seem like much, but photocell-controlled dusk-to-dawn lighting operates 4,380 hours in a year at 12 hours per day average. That produces an annual savings of $127.02, not including lamp replacement costs. That works out to $6.35 per lamp per year. That's a 4 year return on investment without factoring in maintenance and replacement lamp costs.

At $22 each the payback is 3.46 years. The lamps are rated for 5.707 years of use at 25,000 hours. That's 2.47 years of savings or $313 towards the purchase of the next batch, which should cost significantly less in 5.7 years, if past technology value is any indicator.

In effect, the swap will pay for the initial investment and all future lighting maintenance costs. It's actually a far better return for your money than traditional investments or savings, IMO.

you hush up with your fancy new math and figures! that has no place on the internet!