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Halogen ceiling spot lights

Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 7:45 pm
by Someone-Else
You don't have LED drivers with GU10 Lamps.

Not all dimmers will work with LED lamps, yes a leading edge dimmer is better for LEDs, but bear in mind what I said previously about dimming LEDs

Halogen ceiling spot lights

Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 8:11 pm
by vaughan198
Thanks. Have ordered the switch. Fingers crossed!

Halogen ceiling spot lights

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 6:21 am
by ericmark
Philips do a PDF list of all the dimmers that will work with their lamps, some dimmer switches seem not to work with light load, the adverts often say "Adjustable minimum level to adjust low level output and stabilise load. LED 5-50W, 40-400W tungsten." so in that case the dimmer will not work under 5 watt. Often the dimmer needs some power to work the electronics so common to have a minimum output as well as maximum, and the minimum is when the lamp is dimmed, so if 5 watt is minimum and you want lamp at half output then lamp needs to be 10 watt.

Halogen ceiling spot lights

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 6:30 am
by vaughan198
Thanks. There are 5 lamps on one circuit and 7 on the other so minimum loads shouldn’t be a problem.
Best,
Will

Halogen ceiling spot lights

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 7:07 am
by ericmark
someone-else wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 7:45 pm You don't have LED drivers with GU10 Lamps.
Not technically correct, all LED have drivers, but often the driver is part of the lamp package, with both 12 volt and 230 volt lamps, the driver is built in, external drivers are only required when the LED is classed by the current it uses, so a 340 mA LED will need a driver, a 12 volt LED does not, it is built in.

However the lighting industry seems to have a problem with names, be it driver, transformer, or ballast, they call new products after the old product it replaced, so you get electronic transformer which is really a power supply, it contains a transformer, but also has a lot of electronics which change the frequency of the output and control the voltage far better, but also often has a minimum output which a simple transformer does not, the electronic ballast is the same the simple wire would device is replaced with electronics, in both cases it has caused a problem with LED lamps as often they will not work with the electronic version, as to driver I have never worked out why the lighting industry calls a simple voltage regulated DC power supply a driver, but they do, also the current regulated power supply is also called a driver, which is correct, but the net result is you have to read the specifications the names mean very little.

Also of course even the name lamp, traditionally the lamp fitted on a spigot on the wall, inside the lamp you had a wick, or mantel, or a bulbous electrical device, bulb for short, but not all the electrical devices were bulbous in shape, we also had tubes, in the auto electrical industry the fitting has always been called a lamp, so order a head lamp and you get the reflector and glass minus the bulb, but house bashers have often said bulbs grow in the garden the bulbous thing with bulb written on the packet is a lamp! Which is of course daft, but call the whole unit a fitting, a lamp, a luminair, there is no word to cover all the replaceable bits inside the device, we have projectors, tubes, bulbs, wicks, mantels depending on fuel used, and to go into a shop and ask for a folded tube compact fluorescent is a bit of a mouth full so the industry actually called them a lamp, or CFL for short (compact fluorescent lamp) and with LED (light emitting diode) this is technically the bit inside the bulb, the chip, the bulb also contains the driver, and the base to connect it to power, and we hope some cover so we can't touch hot bits or anything else that will give one a shock.

But the language problem of the lighting industry means it becomes hard to use English to describe what you want, looking at @someone-else post, I think my box of tricks is technically a multimeter, it measures resistance both with over 250 mA for low ohm reading, and with 500 volt for insulation resistance, another one measures time and current so I know if the RCD is working correctly, and a further meter reads out in impedance and prospective short circuit current, although likely it measures volt drop under a set load. All technically multimeter, and all essential for the electrician, but non of the things they measure can be done with what we call the multimeter.

This is what happens when you marry a student of English, you realise why politicians like it.

Halogen ceiling spot lights

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 1:29 pm
by Someone-Else
ericmark wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 7:07 am
someone-else wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 7:45 pm You don't have LED drivers with GU10 Lamps.
Not technically correct
This is a D.I.Y. Forum, I try to keep my answers clear and easy to understand.
It could be said you are technically in error since GU10 LED lamps have a capacitive dropper inside, not a driver (Driver being more complicated) but there would be no point. At the end of the day I like to help people not squabble over technicalities most folk have no need to know of.

All the OP was interested in is should GU10 lamps have a driver installed (A small box fitted before the lamp) to which the answer is the same now as it was then. NO. He doesn't need to know a GU10 has a capacitive dropper in its housing. If he asks then yes by all means explain, but if not keep it simple.

Halogen ceiling spot lights

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 11:14 pm
by ericmark
Good point sorry.