LED Bulb Review

I discovered these bulbs recently as I was looking for the ultimate MR16 Halogen replacement and found they lived up to their claimed rating so well I thought I'd review them and share my results.

The bottom line is there is a lot of false claims made for the performance of LED bulbs in the lower price range of the market (High priced solutions usually meet their claims as you'd expect). My simple rule now is drop the claimed wattage by 50% and you will be close to the real rating. As soon as I get my hands on a new bulb I measure the current draw and multiply this by the voltage and you get the wattage assuming 100% efficiency which LED's are very close to. I had already invested heavily in 3x3W MR16 bulbs only to discover when I measured the current drawn that they actually were closer to 4.5W rather than the claimed 9W.

The problem with the 3x3W configuration is heat output and the size of the required heatsink. To get a decent wattage the heatsink needs to be much larger as seen on the left of the first picture. This can cause some issues with replacing MR16 Halogens if you have height restrictions. In the example above I had to make some wire extensions to add to the retention springs for holding the bulb in place with the downlight fittings I'm using.

The bulbs I'm reviewing were purchased from Eco Online http://www.ecoonline.com.au/

3X3W CREE Led globe SKU: LED01

When I tested the current draw my 50% rule got thrown out as these bulbs actually rate slightly higher than their claimed 8W. The colour temperature is definitely warm white (Maybe a little warm for my liking) with a slight pink tinge. Not stark white like some and colour is even across the beam angle, no yellow fringing around the edge of the beam.

I have tried the bulbs in 2 different downlight fittings I had on hand and they fitted fine in both but I'd suggest getting a sample first to make sure they will fit your fittings.

Something to be aware of as well is most electrical retail stores are fairly clueless when it comes to LED's, in their defence the whole industry has been slow to embrace LED's and perhaps because of the false claims being made by some Chinese manufacturers.

To summarise these bulbs are the best I've found to date for output, colour temperature, beam angle and price. BTW I'm not affiliated with Eco Online in any way I'm just very happy with their product and keen to share that knowledge.