In article ,
"Sparks" writes:
I am after a quantity of R63 reflector light bulbs...

Easy you may reply

BUT

I am after some energy saving ones!

I had the same issue in commercial premises.
A further issue was that even the existing R63's left the
area rather gloomy. I replaced the lamps with GE's Genura,
which is a 23W electrodeless compact fluorescent. This change
was extremely effective. There are some issues here though...

o The Genura is an R80 replacement really, and so won't
physically fit in all R63 fittings -- mine had a black
ring which unclipped and allowed R80's to fit. (That wasn't
what the ring was for or why it unclipped.)
o Genura is a flood lamp, not a spotlamp -- in my case this
was a good thing, but it might not be what you're after.
o The Genura is expensive compared with other compact
fluoresents, but if you do the calculations, it still
saves you loads over filament lamps. However shop around,
particularly from electrical wholesalers -- you'll
probably do much better than buying 13 of them from B&Q.
(Try a single one first, obviously.)
o The Genura has a light output in excess of 100W lamp --
this will make the area much brighter. (AFAIK, the Genura
is the only compact fluorescent which produces more light
than the filament lamp it replaces of the same physical size.)
o The Genura is only manufactured in 3000K and 3500K colour
temperature. Compact fluorescents for home use are normally
2700K to match filament lamps, so there won't be a perfect
match with other filament lamps and compact fluorescents
you have. OTOH, the increase in light output, in many
situations, will also make the increase in colour temperature
look reasonable.
o The Genura has a runup time of around 2 minutes. Initial
light output is around half the output when warmed up.
I would doubt that frequent switching would effect life
(unlike normal compact fluorescents), but the longish runup
means it would not be suitable in many cases where you might
want to switch it frequently.
o The life of individual lamps is much more variable than that
of filament or regular compact fluorescents. They run until
the electronics die. The cooler you run them, the longer they
are likely to last. I've had many still running when the phosphor
coating starts wearing out -- you never achieve that with
standard fluorescent lamps as the electrodes die long before
that happens. Hence, you may need to replace some before they
completely die to get light output back up, but they will
probably have done over 20,000 hours by then, so they owe you
nothing.

--
Andrew Gabriel