20W G4 Halogen LED Replacements

mena661 wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:

About 2 years ago I bough a 3.5W Phillips capsule, put it in my kitchen under the cabinet and it has so far stood the test of time.

Kinda off topic but I ONLY use Philips LEDs at home with the oldest being 4 years old. They consistently seem to meet their claims. Plus they get all the awards for efficiency.

To the OP, thanks for the update!

Yeah, the 3.5W Philips capsules were my first attempt at finding a LED replacement which would be close to the 20W halogen which were in my puck lights. I could not use them, the ceramic body of the capsule makes it ever so slightly too large to fit into the fixtures..

So, I decided to make a home made "holder" for a capsule and mounted it under one of my home kitchen cabinets. We often will turn the stove light on (9W CFL) during the evening so we don't need to turn all the kitchen lights on..

Once I mounted the capsule under the cabinet it now is being used instead of the stove light.. Easily gets 5-6hrs each evening, Philips does seem to have their act together on the capsules!

idaho_camper wrote:
Thought I'd come back and update this thread.

I took Gdetrailer's advice and purchased a set of THESE 20w G4 replacements. It took about 4 weeks for the bulbs to arrive. But that's ok - the RV has been put away for the next couple of months so I was in no hurry.

I am VERY pleased with these LEDs. They are just as bright as the original 20w G4 halogens, and the color of light is spot on, too. They are a warm light, not the harsh blue.

Thanks again, Gdetrailer!

Your Welcome!

Mine are now installed in my TT puck lights, they fit perfectly and can't tell the difference from Halogens in brightness or color..

Downside is won't get to try them out until spring.

But I do have a few puck lights under my kitchen cabinets in the sticks and bricks that I might slip a few in to start time testing them.

The downside is I have to replace the high frequency transformers that came with the puck lights (Westek brand), the LEDs don't like the 20khz AC output of the Westek power supplies :M . The Westek supplies are designed to work with 120V AC triac based dimmers which I never needed.

The upside is I have a bunch of small 9V-12V DC switching supplies which should work fine with these LEDs. Just have to make some time to play with them..

Hoping they will last but just in case I did buy a few spares.

Gdetrailer wrote:

About 2 years ago I bough a 3.5W Phillips capsule, put it in my kitchen under the cabinet and it has so far stood the test of time.

Kinda off topic but I ONLY use Philips LEDs at home with the oldest being 4 years old. They consistently seem to meet their claims. Plus they get all the awards for efficiency.

To the OP, thanks for the update!

Thought I'd come back and update this thread.

I took Gdetrailer's advice and purchased a set of THESE 20w G4 replacements. It took about 4 weeks for the bulbs to arrive. But that's ok - the RV has been put away for the next couple of months so I was in no hurry.

I am VERY pleased with these LEDs. They are just as bright as the original 20w G4 halogens, and the color of light is spot on, too. They are a warm light, not the harsh blue.

Thanks again, Gdetrailer!

Thank you. I'm gonna look into these.

Gdetrailer wrote:
I am assuming you have small "puck" type light fixtures?

Perhaps take a look at THESE LEDS, they are not as cheap as most folks here like to brag about at $4.17 each but they make up for that in the very compact size and are extremely BRIGHT.

I was looking for LEDs which could fit in the small under cabinet puck lights I have and not be like a dim nightlight..

The LEDs in the link uses six 5730 .5W LEDs with a constant current regulator and can operate from 8V-30V safely.

Each 5730 is rated at 55-60 lumens so the light has a potential of 330-360 lumens per HERE.

12V 20W G4 pin Halogens actually are rated at 350 lumens per HERE and Xeon versions may have a lumens as low as 200.. per HERE

At 12.0V I measured the light drawing .140A (140 ma) which is 1.68W draw. Since this light uses a constant current regulator it will operate as "buck" or "boost" and as the input voltage rises the light will draw less since the regulator will go into "buck".

I put it head to head with a 20W G4 Halogen bulb and the LED was pretty much a dead heat for brightness. The Halogen was just a slight bit brighter but ever so slight.

The circuit board measures just under 23mm (about 7/8"), I did have to trim the pins a bit as they are supplied longer than needed.

If you need back pin instead of the side pins they do make them, just search Amazon for that brand name.

One warning though, they come from outside the States and will take a few weeks for shipping time (Amazon noted about 4 weeks but they showed up in 2 weeks).

As far as longevity goes, the jury is out, I have not had much time to run them since I got them only a month ago (hopefully they will last longer than other white LEDs I bought years ago which was only a few days of use)..

I went with some of the Revolution LED lights.
http://www.rvledbulbs.com/category-s/46.htm

There are many replacements that probably work, but I really like the heat sink copper strip that is on these. Heat is the enemy of LEDs. I feel these will really last and I don't feel bad about leaving them on for an extended time.

Never said they were the most efficient
What I said was power used as I measured it.. matched the calculated use "power per number of LED's", as compared to the stated power use of the complete strip
the whole strip 5 meters long 300 leds listed at 72w
i have 30 leds replacing the tubes in the small Fl fixtures and measure approx 600 milliamps or 7+ watts of power

Using these cut power use from 18w to 7w in the small fixtures
And from 30w to 10w in the large fixtures

Yes I have some $20 120v Cree 5w LED's screw right into the socket, that produce more light output than the 5w ...21 LED strip from the reel

But those can't be used in my 12v fluorescent fixtures

Everything has too be put in perspective

My post was the LED power use matches what the seller says

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
I don't know about other seniors but I need white light to read by. Warm white doesn't work.

Mex, All you can do is try one of the 6000K modules, it might work for you. What I have noticed is there is no real hard and fast rule that the LED manufacturers stick to so that 6000K could turn out closer to 5,500K or it could be closer to 6,500K. It all depends on the quality of the batch and how the rejects are classified.

Basically when they make white LEDs the color is highly dependent on the phosphors, these phosphors can vary batch to batch along with the color of the UV light that the LED produces.

In a nutshell, white LEDs now days uses the very same idea as fluorescent bulbs by shooting UV light into a phosphor coating. The phosphor then in turn glows emitting the light (you do not directly see light from the LED junction in this case unlike other LEDs).

Quality of the light varies greatly and the manufacturer will grade each LED and the manufacturers will sort them according to color and efficiency (and charging more for the ones making the top grades).

MrWizard wrote:
The 12vdc strip LED lights from another thread
Are spec at 72 watts per 300 LED's, this works out to 7.2 watts per 30 LED's, which is ten segments, two segments five per strip
And matches my measurements of the strips I put in the 18w fluorescent fixtures

Two strips of 7 segments , 42 LED's measured just under 800 milliamps, just over ten watts,
Base calculations from specs indicates should be 10.08w aka 733 milliamps, so far I'm very happy with them

They match the sellers claims, for power use, and brightness meets my needs

Current draw or wattage is not a useable spec without knowing the lumens.

Many of those "strip" designs are using the 5050 LED chips which are not all that efficient.

Per HEREthe 5050 white leds draw up to 60 MA at 3.6V with a lumens of 10-20.

That is .22W per led and at 10-20 lumens for the one chip you get 45 to 91 lumens per watt. Pretty poor efficiency especially if it is on the lower part of the spec (which MOST of those cheapo strips will use).

There are more "efficient" white LEDs.

Wattage is not a good specification when looking at lighting.

Efficacy (lumens per watt) is the specification needed for comparing lighting types or manufacturer claims.