Dubai lamps

[Vayra86]

Much appreciated; I had thought to get a bulb to try from Dubai, but you saved me the trouble.

Dimmable LED is a total crapfest anyway. Meanwhile a wall socket led dimmer costs like 50 EUR. its ridiculous. Finding the right bulb with the perfect dimmer that might last is a horrible challenge of trial and error.

Sooner rather than later, you get some kind of irregularity. Slight flicker, and it will escalate. Or maybe I've just been super unlucky, but honestly, not a single LED dimmer in the house works as it should. I have one that only pushes something 'not so bright' and then goes straight to 'wear sunglasses mode' in the bathroom, and downstairs we had one that started failing after a year and also never really had a decent range of dimming.

And yes... we checked what dimmer to use with what sort of lamp, wattage, etc.

The better solution are the dual or triple option switches, they just give you 2 or 3 steps for brightness. Those are fine!

 

[Wirko]

Oh, and by the way, LED bulbs with the plastic diffusers are -obviously- easier to repair than the filament type, replacing a burnt LED can be done in seconds with the right tools, same for caps and coils. The transformer usually outlasts the rest of the parts and can be recycled, depending on the output and if the surface allows you can also add extra LEDs and transform a 10W bulb into a 12 or 15W, neat trick.
If LEDs aren't available I've used 10Ω resistors before and bulbs lived for a long time, the ghetto alternative is shorting the contacts with a puddle of solder, it's not pretty but it'll be enough for a weekend until you get another bulb.

I've tried replacing or shorting the diodes several times. Most often, another one failed soon, meaning they were all at the end of life.
They are driven by a constant current source so shorting one won't put more load on others, but this also meant that a series resistor has no effect. (Sometimes it's not that simple, they may not be all connected in series but in some combination of series and parallel.)

 

[Vayra86]

Why it's best to avoid LED filament lamps. In short, they overheat. Common LED lamps have diodes mounted on an aluminium substrate with good thermal coupling to the shell. The shell is usually plastic but cooling is still reasonably good, and more powerful lamps have metal shells, sometimes with cooling fins. In filament lamps, LEDs sit and sweat on tiny substrates with little cooling ability. Dubai lamps have 8 filaments for 2 watts, that's obviously better than 2 or 4. But there's still the glass bulb there, which is very effective at preventing convection cooling.

The stated lifespan is exaggerated in all CFL and LED lamps, I'm sure it's even more so in these. They're supposed to retain ~78% of lumens after 25k hours. No way.


At least in the kitchen, and elsewhere around food, look for good CRI. And R9 too - if you can ever find that data. Some of the highest efficiency V-Tac lamps that I linked have both specified and the R9 is very low, I can only assume it's a tradeoff for efficiency.

Very interesting article, that! Thx!

 

[Wirko]

Dimmable LED is a total crapfest anyway. Meanwhile a wall socket led dimmer costs like 50 EUR. its ridiculous. Finding the right bulb with the perfect dimmer that might last is a horrible challenge of trial and error.

Sooner rather than later, you get some kind of irregularity. Slight flicker, and it will escalate. Or maybe I've just been super unlucky, but honestly, not a single LED dimmer in the house works as it should. I have one that only pushes something 'not so bright' and then goes straight to 'wear sunglasses mode' in the bathroom, and downstairs we had one that started failing after a year and also never really had a decent range of dimming.

And yes... we checked what dimmer to use with what sort of lamp, wattage, etc.

The better solution are the dual or triple option switches, they just give you 2 or 3 steps for brightness. Those are fine!

What kind of switches? I'd very much like to find that, found these on Aliexpress but don't like the touch user interface. I suppose they at least work properly because they are not simply connected in series with the lamp; they need a permanent 230V supply (line + neutral).
Although the series capacitor solution works fine for me, gets me just one step between off and on but that's OK.

 

[Vayra86]

What if you knew that could be done for 5W?

Honestly? Personally? A complete and utter non-issue where I would value the cost of the product higher than the usage of energy. We're looking at single digit wattages here. That's literally cents on yearly energy bill.

We use about 2300kwh yearly for two person households and that's being optimistic. I mean... this is the kind of detail that is pretty irrelevant.

Also, consider what some have said in this topic! 'We can now use LEDs to light up a whole floor, while using less than a single bulb'. So... considering the climate impact... we're now producing more stuff that uses less energy, and we buy more stuff because it saves energy. Something seems counterproductive here Could this be a paradox of progress?

What kind of switches? I'd very much like to find that, found these on Aliexpress but don't like the touch user interface. I suppose they at least work properly because they are not simply connected in series with the lamp; they need a permanent 230V supply (line + neutral).
Although the series capacitor solution works fine for me, gets me just one step between off and on but that's OK.

They're actually the lamps themselves.

The dimmer is removed from the equation - you just use the switch you had an extra time to go through the steps.

I'll try to find some english site. But you can search for 'Step Dimming'.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-SceneSwitch-Classic-Dimming-Filament/dp/B073FMDXJN

There it is.

We have one in the kid's room, it works a charm. I'll be replacing all dimmable stuff with this over time.

 

[Wirko]

In bedrooms, it's meant to help people sleep/rest easier
In the puter room/study, i wonder which would be best...


Edit: i am officially blind because i looked directly at these LED's as they turned on
I mentioned these a few times, and they seem to be pretty good competitors to the doobies and yet quite unknown so here we go:

3K is what i'm used to
4K used both sets of lights, i dont want to use the extra wattage (oh no, 18W)
6K right now makes everything look... blue-ish? white-ish blue ish

My roof lights:
View attachment 236040

El switcho
View attachment 236041

At this point my son switched the light on to help and burned my retinas out of my face, hence the blur
16W for 4000K (both strips) - 3 and 6 use just one side (Was the other room higher wattage? i need to check)
View attachment 236042


Unrelated edit:

"f your space has white walls and ceilings and you select a warmer hue of white, it will look warmer than if it had a dark color scheme. Conversely, if your room is predominately dark in color, you may want a cooler hue of white, so you can clearly see the room."

^ Random internet quote, makes sense. The colour lighting we want depends on our wall colour!

Nice light that you have there. Turning on both "orange" and "white" LEDs won't give you twice the power; the total current will stay at 700 mA but will be distributed between both. Which is good because it won't overheat the LEDs or your retinas.

With that said, I think the "wrong" colour doesn't cause *eye* strain. It can affect your internal clock in ways you don't want. But eye strain is likely caused by the lights being too bright or not bright enough.

They're actually the lamps themselves.

The dimmer is removed from the equation - you just use the switch you had an extra time to go through the steps.

I'll try to find some english site. But you can search for 'Step Dimming'.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-SceneSwitch-Classic-Dimming-Filament/dp/B073FMDXJN

There it is.

We have one in the kid's room, it works a charm. I'll be replacing all dimmable stuff with this over time.

Ah, I see. I have some too (in other shapes). Would also need a step dimmer as a separate component, though.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Which Philips Altos? I can find some here but the CRI is all over the place, from 59 to 89. Fluorescent tubes I use the most are Osram 830 or a mix of 830 and 840. (It's a universal colour code, 8 means CRI over 80, and 30 or 40 is 3000K or 4000K.)
The problem of many LED lamps is actually deficiency of reds more than anything else. That's what gives fruit and vegetables and meat a weird grey colour. And high efficiency goes contrary to good reproduction of reds.

But why is that so? Because there are lights where previously there were none, or were less powerful? In comparison with the old and huge mercury (or even sodium) lamps, tiny diodes are easily tamed to send the light in the desired direction, like downwards, instead of everywhere.

I have mostly their 48-inch T8s and 48-inch T12s, then in 2021, I got 1 46-inch T5HO fixture with F54T5 tubes that are 4,100K-rated.

About the LED light-pollution report? I think it's the blue-light-spectrum.

 

[caroline!]

Dimmable LED is a total crapfest anyway. Meanwhile a wall socket led dimmer costs like 50 EUR. its ridiculous. Finding the right bulb with the perfect dimmer that might last is a horrible challenge of trial and error.

Sooner rather than later, you get some kind of irregularity. Slight flicker, and it will escalate. Or maybe I've just been super unlucky, but honestly, not a single LED dimmer in the house works as it should. I have one that only pushes something 'not so bright' and then goes straight to 'wear sunglasses mode' in the bathroom, and downstairs we had one that started failing after a year and also never really had a decent range of dimming.

What a ripoff.

I'll try to find some english site. But you can search for 'Step Dimming'.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-SceneSwitch-Classic-Dimming-Filament/dp/B073FMDXJN There it is.

All manufacturers use pictures like this to showcase stuff.

I can only think of this if I sit at the table to eat and have a light literally 30cm away from my eyes.

Those low hanging fixtures seem to be purely decorative though, the kind of stuff a boring housewife asks her husband to install over the kitchen counters to use once in a lifetime and then forgets about it.

 

[Mussels]

Nice light that you have there. Turning on both "orange" and "white" LEDs won't give you twice the power; the total current will stay at 700 mA but will be distributed between both. Which is good because it won't overheat the LEDs or your retinas.

With that said, I think the "wrong" colour doesn't cause *eye* strain. It can affect your internal clock in ways you don't want. But eye strain is likely caused by the lights being too bright or not bright enough.


Ah, I see. I have some too (in other shapes). Would also need a step dimmer as a separate component, though.

using both draws the full power, one each uses half

That said, i switched to both in the computer room and wont go back - it's reduced the eyestrain issue

 

[pavle]

Well I made my own LED lamp thats behind the monitor out of a LED strip 10W/m 2700K with diffusor and all. Cool and long lasting 5W of 2700K sweetness!

 

[caroline!]

Well I made my own LED lamp thats behind the monitor out of a LED strip 10W/m 2700K with diffusor and all. Cool and long lasting 5W of 2700K sweetness!

own pcb or just parts of a strip in parallel? I made one with LED filament, it's barebones but does the job, and no glass helps dissipate heat faster

 

[pavle]

I usually glue parts of a strip on a flat alu or thin SS plate for added cooling; never gets hotter than 40°C.