On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:39:59 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
"Tim Downie" writes:
I bought some 20-25W (1.8W) LED GU10s the other day from ebay
(http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=180497438370) and I
have to say I'm pleased with them.

I bought the "day white" variety and the colour balance is fine for our
en-suite bathroom. Unfortunately they're not really going to be bright
enough to replace the 50W GU10s in another room in our house
(living/dining/kitchen) but the prices jump markedly when looking at higher
wattage lamps. I think I'd also probably go for the "warm white" for that
room which is another reason for going for a higher wattage lamp

Does anyone have any reccomendations for LED GU10 lamps with good colour
balance (i.e. like tungsten), power and price combination?

The max power you can give off from a GU10 or MR16 sized lamp
and keep an LED junction from melting is around 3W, possibly
5W with imaginative heat sinking. You aren't going to get
close to the output of a 50W lamp. GU10/MR16 simply aren't
viable form factors for high output LED lamps.

I bought a warm white & cool white SES 4W version of these
http://www.electricity-monitor.com/d...s-c-55_68.html
recently, to see if LEDs had got to a usable state yet. Trying the
cool white version in a room with some 40w SES tungsten spots, the 4w
LED was subjectively much brighter. Admittedly a halogen spot would be
a bit brighter than the ordinary tungsten, and the blue colour and
hard shadows, due to the near point source, may have made it appear
brighter than it actually was, but its was certainly in the same
ballpark, and much more usable than any LED lights that I've tried
before.

Unfortunately, they still don't have very good colour rendering. The
warm white gives things a magenta cast, which isn't surprising when
you look at the Cree spec. It's got a huge blue spike in the spectrum.

If they weren't eye-wateringly expensive they're good enough for me to
use elsewhere.