Hi Arkadiy,

Recessed incandescent lighting is not an efficient nor cost-effective
way to light a room. I have a dozen Halo H99RTfixtures equipped with
specular reflector cones in my living room. I had previously used
50-watt PAR20 halogen lamps but about two years ago swapped them out
for GE's 21-watt Diamond Precise product.

The Diamond Precise is basically a low-voltage MR16 lamp with an
internal 120 to 12-volt transformer and standard Edison screw base
(meaning that they will work with this type of fixture). It has a
rated service life of 5,000 hours and produces 260 lumens. Although
this is about half the light output of a standard halogen PAR20, less
light is lost inside the fixture housing so the difference in light
levels is perhaps not as great as you might think (and compared to a
50-watt incandescent R20 at 330 lumens, there should be little or no
appreciable difference). They run much cooler than a 50-watt halogen
and are easy to insert and remove due to their smaller size. Most
importantly, power demand dropped from 600-watts to just 252-watts.

This is a picture of the Halo fixture with the Diamond Precise lamp:
http://server4.pictiger.com/img/8466...lo-fixture.jpg

This is a close-up of the lamp itself:
http://server4.pictiger.com/img/8466...nd-precise.jpg

You should be able to purchase these lamps at any lighting distributor
that sells GE products.

Cheers,
Paul

On 16 Jan 2007 14:03:02 -0800, "Arkadiy" wrote:

wrote:

Why would you need a socket extender on a new Halo recessed light? If
you use the right bulbs for the fixture no extender is required.

Mostly because there is much more light. When I don't use socket
extender, the lower part of the bulb is at the upper edge of the
reflector. Maybe this *is* the right setup, but I have some problems
with it: first, it's very difficult to screw the bulbs in and out... I
mean *very* difficult. Sometimes I need to first remove the reflector
to be able to unscrew the bulb. Second, there is much less light than
if the bulb is closer to the ceiling level, as with the socket
extender. And third, despite the reflector, most of light goes down,
so the upper part of the walls is very dark... This also is better
with the socket extenders.

I also hope that getting bulbs lower might put them in easier condition
in terms of heating, and they may burn out not so often.

Maybe I am doing something wrong, but this is my first experience with
the recessed lights, and so far I am not very happy :-( I imagine the
total of 600W of light would make the 250 feet room very bright if it
were a regular fixture. But until I used socket extenders, there was
not much light at all...

BTW, does the quality of the reflector makes much difference?

Regards,

Arkadiy