What's In Your Light Fittings?


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Went past Bulwell Northern cememtery on Hempshill Lane last night & the graves were lit up by hundreds of solar LED lights. My Wife Sue who's Dad is buried there was very impressed at how good it looked, we parked up for a better look, even cynical me thought it looked good, I thought a fitting tribute to those who have passed on. We took two up & put them on Father-in-laws grave today..

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Basfordlad, yeah I thought they'd probably update the IEE regs to suit modern tech, most of the reasons for pull switches stemmed from the size of UK bathrooms, wasn't enough room to swing a cat...LOL

More than recoup the costs in energy and replacement. BUT, my primary reason is less energy, I'll be on battery soon. No idea what a lamp costs in the UK, but stateside they have dropped dramatically

Bulwell Cemetery ? Those LED lights will be gone next week. This is Bulwell, no respect for the living, never mind the dead.

Do ghosts need lights??

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Funny thing is it didn't look spooky, well not to me anyway. I walked through the cemetery in Bestwood Village one night in a power cut, that made the hairs on my neck stand up as my imagination ran a bit wild. Don't know if ghosts need lights John as I've never seen one. Went ghost hunting in Newstead Abbey one night: didn't see a thing.. :)

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# 55.

Yes they'd be there for anyone to nick but they're only a pound or so, so probably not worth the effort of pinching them. You see some quite expensive vases & things up there but they seem to stay. I put a vase thing on Mam & Dads grave at Bestwood Village, looked very nice, then a branch broke off a tree in a gale & smashed it to pieces. Bad luck or they didn't like it. Sawed the branch up for fire wood as we had a coal fire back then, spat a bit though..

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  • 11 months later...

This chinese company are selling cheap power supplies.

Trait

$3.70

T-SPS-113-1__Power-Supply-Transformer-fo

I bought the same supply from a UK ebay seller for £4.99, and I thought that was cheap.

I got free tracked delivery via Hermes, which would have cost them £3?

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What do you want with a cheap Chinese switching power supply Mick???

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Be very careful of those Chinese switching supplies Mick, they are cheap and nasty, poor quality components, risk of fire, they create lots of hash on the power lines. Saving money is one thing, but when buying switching power supplies fork out a little more and get quality.

I'd have gone with a linear power supply, low power, they are not that expensive but at least the output is safe, transformer isolation.

When a switching P/S fails, you could end up with 240 volts on the output!!.

If you use enough leds, all you really need is an isolating transformer and a current limiting resistor, that's how the replacement LED tubes work, full mains power and a current limiting resistor.

Good quality switching P/S have an over voltage protection across the output, commonly known as a "crowbar" as thats what it does, shorts the output and causes a fuse to blow. Composed of an SCR. I doubt the cheap units have this protection.

As you can see, I'm not a fan of switching P/S's, I much prefer linear P/S, much safer and more reliable.

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They are not transformers, the cheaper versions usually have very poor quality capacitors in them. The one in my old monitor failed through bad caps, replaced them, ran for a few months then the semi conductors gave up the ghost.

The ones in my ham radio's are better designed with filtering and over voltage protection, aka "crowbars". the cheaper ones don't have any of that protection. Computer P/S are cheap and nasty, I often wonder about them taking the computer out when they fail, so far been lucky!

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Just read that Notts county council are in the process of replacing all low pressure sodium street lights with LED's, Nabbs Lane in Hucknall has changed over in the last few days. We've got a low pressure sodium light on the footpath at the front of our house, & a high pressure light on the road at the back. Cant say I'm all that struck on the LED streetlights, they seem to glare to me, I prefer the soft orange/yellow of the low pressure sodium ones..

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Well they have many advantages Steve, efficient, long lasting, bright... I'm happy with the flouro tubes I changed out for LED tubes, much brighter and lower running costs.

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# 64, Colly we've had those LED lights in Mapperley Park for quite a long time now and they're in some areas of Arnold too. When they were first changed I didn't like the light the gave out very much at all but have got used to them now. The white light is rather eerie, bit like Narnia.

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We've had them on Hucknall Rd for about a year. At first, I thought they seemed dull, but they just seem normal now.

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I suppose I'll get used to the LED's eventually, haven't got much choice have I? Cant see them ever changing back. I've noticed when coming into Hucknall from Watnall that there's not such an orange glow over the Nottingham skyline as there used to be, still pretty though, well it is to me as I like city skylines at night..

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You can get different colours using lenses. Lights over a couple of years old won't have the latest generation of LED drivers.

When LED's first hit the market, they were used as indicators in control units, ie power on, healthy circuit etc.

We never thought that one day they would be bright enough for general lighting.

Nearly all new cars/trucks, if not all, have all LED lights, from the indicators to the head lights, they have even downsized the alternators, as the load on them now is 1/3rd what it used to be.

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So are the heavy glass or plastic head light assemblies.. But every new car I've seen lately has all LED lighting, headlights, side lights rear lights, stop lights, courtesy light and instrument panel lights.

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Re #65 Ayup

They have replaced all the flouro tubes with LED tubes where my Wife teaches line dancing, I quite like them in that setting. They've also replaced the gas heating boiler with a woodchip one, they got a grant from the government to do all the eco changes..

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I'd have thought gas was cleaner than woodchips...LOL Not very eco friendly.

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How can wood be carbon neutral, me finks these loonys must be breathing too much smoke, whacky baccy smoke....LOL

Someone needs to educate those loonys, coal starts out as wood, so using their logic coal is carbon neutral too.

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