Dollarama has LED bulbs now.

Hi everyone, today I took a walk to my local Dollarama store and I see now they are selling LED bulbs, they offers both 40w and 60w bulbs. Its Luminus brand and it's actually Energy Star rated and offers 3 years warranty. The price is $7.42 for the 60w bulb, I'm not sure how much is the 40w one but they do take the $5 Ontario Energy Star LED bulb coupon so the price is actually $2.42 + tax after coupon which is really nice deal, I bought 3 myself just to see how good they are.

Here is the Package.


It has dark spot on the top of bulb.


Side by side with Philips 60w LED bulb, its a little bigger than Philips bulb.


I've tested with my wattage meter, the package says 11w and its actually draw 11.5w, and the color stated as 3000k but I kind of feel that it's little bit too yellow, it's more like 2700k. I tested with my camera to see if it shows any flickers but surprisingly it seems the bulb has no flickers or at least my camera doesn't show any flicker phenomenon when I put my camera close to the bulb. Also I tested with my 3 levels touch dimmer lamp and it actually work perfectly with 3 levels of brightiness and has no buzzing sound as some of my other LED bulbs that I own has some buzzing sound on the first 2 levels of brightness.

Just an update, I went back to the store and bought some 40w LED bulbs to try it out, as it turns out both 40w and 60w bulbs are same price($2.42 after energy star coupon + tax), but the 40w bulb is not dimmable and with quick camera flicker test, it shows really heavy flicker phenomenon, so I believe the 60w bulb is much better bulb and value to pick up unless you really need a 40w bulb.

Here is the package of 40w LED bulb.


Side by side with 60w LED bulb.

May I ask which city you found these in? I checked my local store, and sadly, they had no stock.....

I'm from downtown Toronto, I've checked 3 different Dollarama stores around my area and they all has them in stock, and 2 of stores even have the Ontario Energy Star coupons on the shelf where the LED bulbs are. Just yesterday they start having candelabras bulbs too, I'll post the pictures of it later, they have both E26 and E12 base for the candelabras 40w replacement 2700k and its dimmable. Same price for all 3 type of bulbs.

Hi everyone, this is the 3rd update. I went back to Dollarama yesterday and notice that they now have candelabras LED bulbs in stocks now, and the price still the same as other 2 bulb types I posted above, it's good to see that they have both E26 and E12 base types and it's dimmable with 2700k color. I test with my touch lamp and it works perfectly with 3 levels of brightness with no buzzing sound, tested with camera flicker test, there is some slight flicker lines on the first 2 levels of brightness from my camera but once at max level, it seems the flicker line is gone, over all I'm pretty happy with this candelabras bulb.

Here is the packages of 2 different base candelabras bulbs:



Side by side of 2 bulbs:

The store in Brantford has all 3 kinds as well. And the $5 off coupons at the display. These aren't the world's fanciest bulbs, but I'm happy with them for the price.

I recognized the brand. Costco used to carry a recessed can light conversion insert made by Luminus

Regret to rain on the parade but: the 11W bulb I tested generates horrendous RF interference, pretty much wiping out a nearby FM receiver and a VHF weather receiver. No other LED bulb I've tested (a couple of dozen) has been nearly this bad. I can't comment on any of the other bulbs. Other services use VHF spectrum besides broadcast (police, fire, EMS, aeronautical) and this is not good news for them either. Dave

Dave_H said:

Regret to rain on the parade but: the 11W bulb I tested generates horrendous RF interference, pretty much wiping out a nearby FM receiver and a VHF weather receiver. No other LED bulb I've tested (a couple of dozen) has been nearly this bad. I can't comment on any of the other bulbs. Other services use VHF spectrum besides broadcast (police, fire, EMS, aeronautical) and this is not good news for them either. Dave

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I see, its good to know as I never thinking of RF interference in LED bulbs, and my family doesn't listen to any radio to notice the problem, I guess I'll find a radio to do the test or if anyone has proper equipment can do more test on the bulbs will be great.

UPDATE: Yup I can confirm the 60w bulb has some RF interference with radio, I do not have any device can do AM radio which I know the RF interference seem do more effects to the AM not really on the FM but I tested it anyways. I tested FM radio with my cell phone connected with head phone. When the bulb is on and I put my head phone wire close to the bulb and in the range about 2cm away it does start to cut out the radio and almost completely cut out the radio when the wire touches the heat sink. The other 40w bulbs doesn't seem to have this problem, the head phone wire touches the 40w bulbs completely and the radio still sounds clearly without any statics. On the package on all bulbs it does stated that the bulb is complies with Part 15 of the FCC rules, but it seems the 60w bulb has stronger RF interference.

I went to 2 Dollarama stores in Hamilton today but they do not sell LED bulbs, only CFL. :scowl:

Remington597 said:

I went to 2 Dollarama stores in Hamilton today but they do not sell LED bulbs, only CFL. :scowl:

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Hm.. not sure but it seems so far only in Great Toronto area Dollarama have LED bulbs in stock, Hopefully other area of Ontario Dollarama will have LED bulbs in stock later on. My co-worker went to Dollarama yesterday around his house and he said he even see bulbs with different colour temperature (He said the package stated "Bright White" instead of "Warm White") so maybe I'll pass by Dollarama later again to check if they have new bulbs in stock.

I can't imagine these are going to last very long... the bulb working, that is. I've bought cheap LED bulbs like this in the past, but no more. Why? Because I've seen them burn out after a few months. Not worth the bother, IMHO.

xevious said:

I can't imagine these are going to last very long... the bulb working, that is. I've bought cheap LED bulbs like this in the past, but no more. Why? Because I've seen them burn out after a few months. Not worth the bother, IMHO.

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Realistically it is a $8.00, $5-10 bulb. Dollarama is a low margin retailer, so that is not much cheaper than a Philips Slimstyle. For $3.00 for an LED candelabra, even if they do burn out, it is not the end of the world. Regular candelabra are very inefficient.

Semiman