I feel like a newbie posting this, so long ago since my last post.

But any way here is the question. My parents have now replaced all their normal lighting bulds with CFT (is that the right term ?), expect the ones in the bathroom and the stairs. Main problem is that the bulds need to be 100watts and need to come on straight away. The CFT's seem to take a couple of minutes to get to full brightness, and I have not seen any that are equal to 100W.

I was wondering if there is a direct LED replacement for the normal bernet type incandescent? the only one that I have seen so far was for 40W screw type for a 120V US system.

Thanks for any help.

You can get LED bulbs and I use the 230V GU10 fittings. These give nowhere near the same light levels of the 40W halogens they replace, BUT they use much less energy and they last 30 times longer. You can get bulbs with more LEDs in them, so even the LED bulbs vary in light output. So in summary, these bulbs are not bright enough yet. Ask my missus - she will tell you.

Not quite relevant to your question but be careful about putting LED GU10s into standard halogen GU10 fittings. Although LEDs produce much less heat than halogens, LEDs are very intolerant of heat and, if they get too hot (even though this will be at a much lower temperature than halogens) they will not last anything like the 30 -50 times longer that retailers claim. LEDs really need to be fitted in specialist LED fittings to handle this.

LEDs really don't seem to be there in terms of brightness yet. I was staying in a hotel recently where the whole room had been fitted out with LEDs. Reading in bed was like trying to read a book with a torch.

Can you post the part numbers for that Philips MasterLED. Their website suggests they have 20 or so models!

Long link to philips site..
http://tinyurl.com/yzkusjw

Thanks. Pitty it's so much taller than the 3W.

LED lights can now compete with halogen for general lighting and can also genuinely be used in 60w replacement GLS bulbs. Efficiency now far exceeds that of CFL and the instant on / no mercury aspects are also massive benefits. You may be interested in my range at lightplanet.co.uk and also some of the articles in the news section of the kudos-bt.com. The early generations were awful, but it is now possible to buy some very impressive products.

Posted By: spammerEfficiency now far exceeds that of CFL and the instant on / no mercury aspects are also massive benefits.

Not true. The efficiency of the best on the market is about the same as CFL, most are worse or much worse.

With hindsight, my first post looks too much like an ad. Sorry about that - hope it didn't offend... to balance things a little, there is also a whole lot of useful info on this subject at kulekat.com in the LED section.

Posted By: LightplanetGood quality commercially available Cree and Nichia LEDs now ...... if properly implemented produce 70 lumens per watt in application. Typical CFL output is 55 -60 lumens per watt after 10 mins warm-up.

Thanks for retracting your efficiency claim. (To me "far exceeds" means a factor of 3 or more, not a few per cent.)

Not knocking LEDs, they do look as could be the future of lighting now the efficiency is improving. Because of the small size of the emitters there is the opportunity to make a much greater variety of luminaires than just GU0/MR16 replacements. Unfortunately, as Cwatters says, it is very difficult to sort out the wheat from the chaff, and the prices of the good ones are eye-watering at the moment.

I think LED lights have come on even since my last post on this topic I bought an 'alpha' GU10 3.5W LED which was about £13. This is said to be equivalent to a 20W halogen.

It is in a 4 Light cluster for direct comparison with 3 halogen 50W GU10s. I think it is nearly good enough. Even the missus was impressed.

The lights *are* cost effective. My 10-year old calculated that payback time is less than 2 years.

I have tried several different types and brands of replacement LED GU10 bulbs.
The best I have found to date is made by Deltech, the code on the green box is GU10-M5WW which is just 5W in warm white colour, these easily replace a 35W halagen and are almost as good as a 50W ! I bought 6 for my kitchen from www.nlandc.co.uk after speaking to a lady called Samantha who was very helpful.
There order code was GU10MK55WW, well worth the money !

Just looked up that part and they claim 450 Lumens which is a bit less than a good 35W halogen (550-600L) but still quite impressive. Beam angle is 38 degrees which might be an issue if your down lights are far apart.

I think these are the same but a few £ cheaper..
http://www.energybulbs.co.uk/products/LED+Light+Bulbs/High+Performance+LEDs/High+Performance+GU10+LEDs/Deltech+Triple+High+Power+5W+GU10+LED+%285+Watt%29/453748016

Posted By: jamesingramthose are the same as the TLC one but they quote 175 lm ( 660 lux) ?

. Anyone tried the dimmerables yet. Must order some up.

Caution, I believe Deltech make several versions of their LED with varying output. Google suggests Deltech are upto Mark 7 now.

I suspect some other LED companies are also using the same heatsink.

I could swear that last night I found a Deltech web site but can't today. Anyone?

How do these LED lights disperse the heat? My understanding is that LEDs function increasingly poorly as they get hotter. Even my very bright bicycle LEDs (where obviously there's a constant windchill around them) have special aluminium casing and heat sinks to stay cool?

To answer the OP, yes there are a few B22 240V bayonet-fitting LED lights on the market such as:
http://www.litalighting.com/6w-gls-a55-led-bulb-b22-bayonet-fitting-high-power-warm-white-energy-saving-p38920.html

But there aren't many and it's not really the right way to go about switching to LEDs. Changing the fittings will give you _much_ more choice, cheaper lights, and better efficiency.

I've just installed my first LED strip lights (400 lumen, 6W): http://www.pur-led.de/index.php?cat=c386_Slim-LED-Leiste-12V.html
And I'm very impressed. _Much_ nicer lighting than the CFLs we had before in the kitchen and the recessed halogens in the bathroom. And the instant full-brightness is nice, even though I'm used to CFLs. Using a cheapo ebay (£6) 12V LED driver the overall efficiency is only 50 l/W, so no better than the CFLs but much better light quality. The rest of the house looks awfully yellow now.

We're quite keen on filing the house with LED strips now, but this is still an expensive excercise and efficiency will double over next couple of years to 100l/W