Becoming useful
I bought a couple of 12V LED lamps to replace conventional halogen spots this week. I have tried this before, but the last time I experimented, the light output of the LED units was pretty pathetic. These new lamps throw 450 Lux and use 60 LEDs drawing 2.1W – the result is acceptable – about the same as a 10-15W halogen lamp I would guess, which is enough to be able to at least partially replace the 20W halogen lamps as they burn out in future.
Even if we add some extra units to get the same amount of light as now, we would be burning 10% of the electricity and getting over 20 times the lifetime of the halogen units (up to 50 000 hrs instead of 2000 hrs). The so-called “white” light is tends towards a light blue, so it will probably be an idea to mix in some warm-white or yellow units at the same time.