James S
Flashlight Enthusiast
Hi Folks,
Just rummaging thorough the interesting stuff at my local HD and discovered some CF replacement bulbs from "feit" electric for MR16 as well as GU10 bulbs. The MR16 ones were 12v and claim to run as bright as a 50 watt incandescent. All for under $9
Well, the claims of 50 watts of output are WAY overstated. heh, well I suppose that specifically what they say on the packaging is "replaces up to 50W uses only 5 watt" but it's still plenty bright and even more interestingly is that it happily runs on DC as well as AC. I measure that it's only using about 220ma at 12v so that would put it around 2.5 watts on DC. I haven't measured the power it uses on AC yet, but I can't see any obvious difference in output. 250ma from a gell cell will last a long time. I guess it makes sense to be pulling around half the power on DC? The lamp itself doesn't seem to mind, though I've only had it running that way for a half an hour.
My thoughts are that this could easily be used in some lantern building, or even in modifying outdoor, low voltage lights. The color temperature is listed at 3500k which is pretty cool for such a dim lamp, but is still serviceable.
Just rummaging thorough the interesting stuff at my local HD and discovered some CF replacement bulbs from "feit" electric for MR16 as well as GU10 bulbs. The MR16 ones were 12v and claim to run as bright as a 50 watt incandescent. All for under $9
Well, the claims of 50 watts of output are WAY overstated. heh, well I suppose that specifically what they say on the packaging is "replaces up to 50W uses only 5 watt" but it's still plenty bright and even more interestingly is that it happily runs on DC as well as AC. I measure that it's only using about 220ma at 12v so that would put it around 2.5 watts on DC. I haven't measured the power it uses on AC yet, but I can't see any obvious difference in output. 250ma from a gell cell will last a long time. I guess it makes sense to be pulling around half the power on DC? The lamp itself doesn't seem to mind, though I've only had it running that way for a half an hour.
My thoughts are that this could easily be used in some lantern building, or even in modifying outdoor, low voltage lights. The color temperature is listed at 3500k which is pretty cool for such a dim lamp, but is still serviceable.
