LED Replacement for MR16 low voltage

gks · Nov 29, 2008

Would appreciate if anyone could give me advice on possibly replacing my 50 watt Halogen MR16 bulbs with LED bulbs. I'm an artist and have my paintings displayed in my own Gallery set-up. I'm running about 50 seperate lights and the energy bill is adding up. I started researching the LED MR16 bulbs but there are so many out there I have no clue which are the best quality? Which will most closely resemble the light quality of the halogens? Which will last the longest? Which are capable of dimming, and which are the most reasonable in price? Below are the specs on the recessed housings I have installed: With 50 plus bulbs to replace, this is a huge investment for me and I can't afford to make the mistake of buying the wrong lamps. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
(1) 12V 50W MR16; 50W max., GU5.3 base Thermally protected Magnetic Class H Transformer is prewired,

120V in/12V out. Can be used with low voltage, magnetic dimming controls for optimal control of illumination

Ken_McE · Nov 29, 2008

There are 12 volt DC MR-16's on eBay, but none of them will have the output of a 50 watt incan, and I would be concerned about color rendering.

blasterman · Nov 29, 2008

I'm an artist and have my paintings displayed in my own Gallery set-up

Then go with MR-16 / 12 volt Solux Halogens. I work with fine art photography, and Solux Halogens are really the default standard when it comes to rendering art color art work with precision. At $7-8 apiece, they are also your cheapest option.

LEDs are getting better in terms of CRI (color rendition index), but the vast majority are geared towards power efficiency and looking white while not handling all colors correctly. Some power LEDs, such as Nichia, are producing LEDs with acceptable CRI for using with art work, but you'd need to do some research into the specific 12volt fixture using high CRI LEDs. Otherwise, you'll find your art work looking bland and lacking good color but have spent a fortune in MR-16 LEDs.

gks · Nov 30, 2008

I use the Solux MR 16 halogens. They look awesome. Only problem is my electric rates are not cheap and I'm burning 2500 watts at once to keep the Gallery lit. Can't wait for the day I find affordable LED replacement.

Thanks

Ken_McE · Nov 30, 2008

gks said:
I use the Solux MR 16 halogens. They look awesome

Could you move the lights closer to the work, or go for a tighter beam, and shift over from the 50 watt Solux bulbs to the 35 watt bulbs? Would you have any interest in putting the lights on motion sensors and having them come on and off as people come in and out of the gallery?

blasterman · Nov 30, 2008

Can't wait for the day I find affordable LED replacement.

Sounds like I should be designing such a head myself and selling it given the demand :thinking: The right RGB LEDs mixed together would work for this purpose.

You can get really high CRI values with LED (and CFL) by mixing lights with different kelvin temps and letting their spectra over lap to fill in the holes. 2700k + 4100k CFL (compact fluorescent) when diffused together for example produces a light with much higher CRI that the two by themselves. It's actually, very, very good. However, CFL bulbs vary so much in terms of manufacture that you really have to play with different brands to get a feel for the light. That's one hack.

There's a variety of high end full spectrum fluorescent solutions that would be acceptable in a gallery, but the light is diffuse in nature and typically bounced off the ceiling and lacks the 'specular' nature of Halogen that shows off art work so well.

2xTrinity · Nov 30, 2008

blasterman said:
Sounds like I should be designing such a head myself and selling it given the demand :thinking: The right RGB LEDs mixed together would work for this purpose.

I beg to differ on this. In my experience to render most color well, amber will need to be added to the RGB mix, making an RAGB cluster. Under RGB lighting, wood in my house looks ORANGE rather than its natural color. With a separate amber added to the mix, everything looks good.

IMO the best possible mix for CRI I've been able to make (temporarily by holding various flashlights side by side or aimed at the ceiling) is neutral or warm white, plus cyan, plus red, with the cyan in red both very low in proportion to the white.

Cyan is just about the only major spectral gap in the warm white LEDs, red is then added to offset the blue-green tint created by introducing the cyan.

You can get really high CRI values with LED (and CFL) by mixing lights with different kelvin temps and letting their spectra over lap to fill in the holes. 2700k + 4100k CFL (compact fluorescent) when diffused together for example produces a light with much higher CRI that the two by themselves.

I'd be surprised if this gives dramatically different results compared to using a good quality 3500k CFL. The spectral lines are the same whether the CFL in question is a 4100k or 2700k, it's just a matter of which wavelengths are more heavily weighted. A phosphor blend inside a single lamp that is roughly "in between" the 4100k mix, and the 2700k mix, should be the same as blending two separate lamps together.

Although, for artistic effects, sometimes it is nice to use different color temps -- eg cool area lighting, along with warm accent lighting to emulate direct sunlight + skylight.

There's a variety of high end full spectrum fluorescent solutions that would be acceptable in a gallery, but the light is diffuse in nature and typically bounced off the ceiling and lacks the 'specular' nature of Halogen that shows off art work so well.

I agree that this is why LEDs are great in theory, the only problem is that there are only a handful of LED's I'd consider suitable for artistic viewing. these are the high CRI SSC, which is almot ideal, but unfortunately it's barely more efficient than the bestg halogens.

The best compromise between quality and efficiency I've seen is the 5A bin Cree LED. The lower color temp LEDs I've seen tend to have less accurate CRI in my experience. The higher color temp LED, such as the cool white LEDs in just about every commercially available MR-16 are downright terrible for CRI by comparison.

R33E8 · Dec 1, 2008

May I recommend Lamina SoL's? I have seen them in person and they are pretty nice.. I would suggest buying the TruColor version's since they have the same brightness as the cool white's and a higher CRI than the warm whites. This is the only LED company I am aware of that has products used in museums and galleries. I don't know if this is in your area but they have studio set up in NYC where you can make an appointment and view their products in use... I must say the bulbs are pretty expensive... Like $50 a piece… You will get a large discount if you buy in bulk though. They also have a real warranty and will send you new lamps if they ever fail.

blasterman · Dec 1, 2008

I beg to differ on this. In my experience to render most color well, amber will need to be added to the RGB mix, making an RAGB cluster.

My point was/is, a composite RGB head, or composite head using any combination of LEDs to obtain a high CRI value, is what's needed. What we are trying to do here is simply over lap different emission spectra and likely tweaked intensity levels of each LED to get a decent CRI. What specific LEDs we have to use is kind of acedemic, but my experiments with my RGB PAR64s make it highly plausible. They just have to be designed for the purpose, and right now, nobody does this with LEDs.

Cyan is just about the only major spectral gap in the warm white LEDs, red is then added to offset the blue-green tint created by introducing the cyan.

Exactly. For instance, my LED PARs *cannot* be adjusted to produce a perfectly neutral white without either a red or cyan secondary cast, but they do fill in the red/deep red/blue/cyan gaps just fine, and I'd bet much better than any single high CRI LED we can bring to the table. However, this is a case of simply not tweaking a multi LED head for what you want it to do - not because it can't be done. A high CRI single LED otherwise would seem to me to be somewhat of an oxymoron. Same with CFL. Also consider that current CRI standards are very out-dated and no longer appropriate by modern standards.

I'd be surprised if this gives dramatically different results compared to using a good quality 3500k CFL.

Actually it does, but only because high CRI 3500-4100k CFLs are not exactly easy to find. With multi CFLs as per my example you are correct in that we are simply trying to stack phosophors to get as even a spectra as we can, but using multiple tubes to get what we want rather than all the phosphors in one tube. A high CRI 3500-4100k tube would do about the same thing, but I've yet to see one in the flesh. High CRI CFL or fluorescent seems limited to the 'daylight' category at 5000k or higher and from limited sources, and this is not a good color temp for aethestic viewing.... contrary to marketing.

A phosphor blend inside a single lamp that is roughly "in between" the 4100k mix, and the 2700k mix, should be the same as blending two separate lamps together.

Color rendering I get from mixing a 2700 and 4100K CFL by bouncing/mixing them through a photographic umbrella is much better and broader than any 3500k I've used - especially reds/magentas. There are some obvious bands of color deficient in the 3500k that show up with the 2700+4100k. Again, nothing matches my Solux when evaluating my ink-jet prints for gamut range, but the CFL mix is at least tolerable.

If we were talking about the same production line in China using the same chemical mix of phosphors to get different color temps to keep production costs low, I'd also agree with you about the similiar spectra. However, CFLs just aren't that consistent as evidence by some of the radical differences I've seen form one brand 2700k from another. God knows what the chinese are coating those things with (likely related to what they spice up the mongolian beef I get for take out) but one look at a Sylvania -vs- Feit CFL with the same color temp tells it all.

I really need to test the Nichia and Cree you mentioned alongside a my LED PAR and CFL set-ups. A big box of colored crayons tells no lies

Ken_McE · Dec 1, 2008

blasterman said:
Sounds like I should be designing such a head myself and selling it given the demand :thinking:

I think there'd be a good market. Other than R33E8s Lamina SoL's there doesn't seem to be much in good CRI LED fixtures. With an RGBA setup you could try to get around the fringing problem by using lots of small emitters that were close to one another, drive each of them optimally to make it efficient. We know someone is going to get stinking rich off a bulb like this, maybe it could be you... :devil:

NoShoulder · Jan 18, 2009

What about pure power? Which LED MR 16 would come the closest to the halogens in terms of brightness alone. I've checked some out and they're not really near what they claim - but, they seem to be getting better. I saw a solar powered security light (2 light) at Sam's Club that uses (I think) Nichia 3-LED lights that were very white - looking - and seemed bright in the well-lit store for $69. This included the two LED "bulbs", the fixture and the solar cells. It seemed pretty cheap and made me wonder if the weak economy is benefitting LED lovers. Ideas?

NoShoulder

blasterman · Jan 18, 2009

Which LED MR 16 would come the closest to the halogens in terms of brightness alone.

Cree MC-Es and SSC P7's can easily compete with 35watt Halogen MR-16s. 50watt halogen MR-16's are a different matter because even though the powerfull quad emitters can keep up it takes the cooler color versions to do so, and I simply don't consider them appropriate for replacing a halogen MR-16 in your living room.

Another issue is the driver built into LED MR16's and 11s that converts to 12volt are very erratic in quality. Personally I won't buy them because of this reason alone. Asian manufacturers would be better of just to design a sub track fixture consisting of 3 or 4 LED heads on a rail about a foot long that attaches to an existing track, and then using a single more reliable power supply to run those in series.

When the economy gets crappy western companies tend to slash R&D and quality of components tends to plummet. It remains to be seen what will happen with the LED market, although the recent dive in the energy futures market is taking the glimmer off the crusades to lower lighting costs.

ponygt65 · Jan 22, 2009

If you like the lumen output of a 50W MR 16 (EXN, EXT, EXZ, etc.), but don't want to pay the energy bill, I suggest you look into an MR16 IR lamp. The 50 Watt equivelant would use only 37Watts. They are more expensive, but well worth it IMO. Our local Art museum uses them primarily.

CRSElectronics · Feb 12, 2009

I've noticed how much discussion takes place in this forum about LED MR16s and thought I would chime in. As a guest speaker at numerous conferences on LED lighting and president of CRS Electronics, I get agitated when suppliers of LED products mislead / misrepresent. We have a very high performance LED MR16 that we actually manufacture in North America, not offshore. For those of you concerned about CRI, single white LEDs from Nichia are able to achieve CRI of 95 in warm white at high efficacy. If you doubt this, check out our website at www.crselectronics.com to see the actual test data from the lab (USDOE certified). Our newly released LED MR16s are now able to achieve 300 lumens of warm white (2800K), high CRI (around 90), with a CBCP of 1800 cd. And they do it at more than 50 lumens / watt of temperature stabilized, delivered light.

Someone mentioned in this thread about the SSC high CRI LEDs. While they measure high CRI on the spectrometer, we found they still don't look quite right when compared to halogen. I'm not saying ours is the "end all be all" as we are constantly working to improve our products so they make art, food, etc. look better - but there was a very specific reason we chose the Nichia parts - and that was quality of light, bin specs, and performance.

For those of you really into the LED MR16 thing, the USDOE has a fantastic benchmark report available to you free of charge. Just type "USDOE SSL" into google and then follow the links to get to the CALiPER benchmark report for replacement lamps. There you will find that up until last fall (when the report was issued), the highest lumen output available out of all the LED MR16s tested was 159 lumens. This is a far cry from many of the claims being made in the market as can be seen in the report where the USDOE compares the claims vs. reality. Unfortunately by simply searching Alibaba, Global Sources, or any number of search engines, one can find thousands of overseas suppliers of LED MR16s - all at fantastic prices. Most of them don't last very long (unacceptable color shift, lumen depreciation, or catastrophic failure) due to grey market components or poor design - we've tested about 100 of them. The problem is that anyone with enough money to order 50 pcs can now be a "manufacturer", and have absolutely no test equipment, engineering, or lighting knowledge. Many "manufacturers" can't even get their wattage numbers right let alone their lumen output, CRI, CCT, and long term color point stability.

There is one point of comparison between halogen and LED that is a bit of a sticking point - and that is total lumen output. Our research has shown that an LED MR16 can have a similar beam angle (FWHM), similar CBCP, yet lower total lumens than a halogen lamp. This is due to the fact that many halogen lamps emit significant amounts of light backwards, which, in many cases does nothing for the application. So an integration sphere test would demonstrate a superior performance from the halogen, while a goniophotometry test including only forward projected light would indicate otherwise.

So buyer beware as usual. Thank goodness the IESNA has released IESNA LM-79, a new standard for testing LED products that was designed to assist consumers.

Ask your supplier for their LM-79 test report.

Cheers.

Scott Riesebosch
President,
CRS Electronics

holiday light express · Feb 12, 2009

CRSElectronics said:
I've noticed how much discussion takes place in this forum about LED MR16s and thought I would chime in. As a guest speaker at numerous conferences on LED lighting and president of CRS Electronics, I get agitated when suppliers of LED products mislead / misrepresent. We have a very high performance LED MR16 that we actually manufacture in North America, not offshore. For those of you concerned about CRI, single white LEDs from Nichia are able to achieve CRI of 95 in warm white at high efficacy. If you doubt this, check out our website at www.crselectronics.com to see the actual test data from the lab (USDOE certified). Our newly released LED MR16s are now able to achieve 300 lumens of warm white (2800K), high CRI (around 90), with a CBCP of 1800 cd. And they do it at more than 50 lumens / watt of temperature stabilized, delivered light.

Someone mentioned in this thread about the SSC high CRI LEDs. While they measure high CRI on the spectrometer, we found they still don't look quite right when compared to halogen. I'm not saying ours is the "end all be all" as we are constantly working to improve our products so they make art, food, etc. look better - but there was a very specific reason we chose the Nichia parts - and that was quality of light, bin specs, and performance.

For those of you really into the LED MR16 thing, the USDOE has a fantastic benchmark report available to you free of charge. Just type "USDOE SSL" into google and then follow the links to get to the CALiPER benchmark report for replacement lamps. There you will find that up until last fall (when the report was issued), the highest lumen output available out of all the LED MR16s tested was 159 lumens. This is a far cry from many of the claims being made in the market as can be seen in the report where the USDOE compares the claims vs. reality. Unfortunately by simply searching Alibaba, Global Sources, or any number of search engines, one can find thousands of overseas suppliers of LED MR16s - all at fantastic prices. Most of them don't last very long (unacceptable color shift, lumen depreciation, or catastrophic failure) due to grey market components or poor design - we've tested about 100 of them. The problem is that anyone with enough money to order 50 pcs can now be a "manufacturer", and have absolutely no test equipment, engineering, or lighting knowledge. Many "manufacturers" can't even get their wattage numbers right let alone their lumen output, CRI, CCT, and long term color point stability.

There is one point of comparison between halogen and LED that is a bit of a sticking point - and that is total lumen output. Our research has shown that an LED MR16 can have a similar beam angle (FWHM), similar CBCP, yet lower total lumens than a halogen lamp. This is due to the fact that many halogen lamps emit significant amounts of light backwards, which, in many cases does nothing for the application. So an integration sphere test would demonstrate a superior performance from the halogen, while a goniophotometry test including only forward projected light would indicate otherwise.

So buyer beware as usual. Thank goodness the IESNA has released IESNA LM-79, a new standard for testing LED products that was designed to assist consumers.

Ask your supplier for their LM-79 test report.

Cheers.

Scott Riesebosch
President,
CRS Electronics

A few things:
1. You can't post your website here unless you are a sponser.
2. The data from your report is very vague. It never tells what exact bulbs were tested. There are a ton of different LED MM16 on the market, some good, some bad. Well, most are bad. All the refferences are older, so I am guessing they tested older style bulbs. LED technology gets better and better all the time.
3. I will agree 100% that the buyer needs to be aware. Most LED bulbs are not UL approved, so they can tell you just about anything to get you to buy them. Make sure you do your homework before purchasing any LED product.

Ken_McE · Feb 12, 2009

CRSElectronics said:
We have a very high performance LED MR16 that we actually manufacture in North America, not offshore.

Scott, why no prices on the site?

purduephotog · Feb 12, 2009

CRSElectronics said:
Ask your supplier for their LM-79 test report.

Cheers.

Scott Riesebosch
President,
CRS Electronics

Hi Scott-

I'm in the process of evaluating LEDs for application and task lighting in military installations. Whom should I contact for more information from your company in regards to this?

Jason

ledstein · Feb 13, 2009

CRSElectronics said:
So buyer beware as usual. Thank goodness the IESNA has released IESNA LM-79, a new standard for testing LED products that was designed to assist consumers.

Ask your supplier for their LM-79 test report.

Cheers.

Scott Riesebosch
President,
CRS Electronics

What LEDs do you use in the MR16 led spot?

Its nice there is a standard for testing but is there a standard for testing machines?

CRSElectronics · Feb 13, 2009

Ken,

Our agents and distributors do the selling. I realize that most people looking for LED MR16s are used to seeing prices because you're usually visiting a website of a company that just imports stuff and sells it online. However, you cannot go to the website of a legitimate lighting manufacturer (typically) and get pricing. If you call our office one of our staff will most certainly help point you to a distributor or agent in your region.

Hope that helps.

Scott.

CRSElectronics · Feb 13, 2009

Sorry about putting our company name in my post. I did not realize it was against a policy. It won't happen again.

I'm not sure what you mean by vague information in our report. If you would like more lab reports just let me know and I would be happy to send. We also have IES files available.

As for old info, our data is from last summer on our existing product, and the new product is just being released now. The DOE benchmark report was issued last quarter, so I would assume they tested as much as possible up to that point.

Scott.

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