240v/50w +mr16 halogen lamps

If there is not a ban, there d**n well should be.

They are simply wasteful of our energy stocks.....

All incandescents should be banned as modern CFLs and LEDs can fill the role completely....

There is no ban. Australia is discussing the idea of banning all incandescents, but as is normal for wasteful societies, talk is cheap.

The UK has a de facto type ban (in true British fashion, one might say!). The percentage of lighting in a building which can be "non energy efficient" is limited to 5%. Stupidly, there are creative accouting ways around this though.

Interestingly (and correctly), only compact fluorescents above 13watts are considered energy efficient (due to the inherent control gear loss becoming a larger percentage of circuit power as wattage decreases).

If you must use halogen please try and buy the best brands; cheap Chinese imitations may be half the price but will only blow in a few hundred hours increasing the already appalling waste. Replacing lamps is an enormous hidden cost in time and of course energy.

LEDs rule the world. Truth be told they are only just now becoming as energy efficient as a CFL, but this is changing almost on a daily basis. In a few years thankfully (but unfortunatley without the benefit of Government legislation) you won't buy anything else.

A good and interesting post.

With regard to the mercury, there should be some sort of "money back" on ANYTHING containing heavy metals, to encourage people to save and return them....

Naturally this will increase the price and they are expensive enough already you will say...then please make a better suggestion, I am willing to listen to anything that makes good sense....

Dear Sir

All the popular bulb manufacturs do not produce 240v/50wMR16 halogen reflector lamps so we have to go to chinese market,,do you have any idea why they stoped that particular type?

Warm Regards

Simply because they are completely uneconomical to use (too much current being wasted as heat, approximately 95%) and the danger of fires and burning......

Modern LEDs and CFLs do a better job with far less energy being wasted. The lighting system needs to be probably slightly changed for these modern lamps, use more of them and/or closer to the area to be lit....

CFLs use only about 20% or less of the energy for the same light output as a Halogen or incandescent (only 1% difference between incandescent & Halogen!), LEDs very approximately 5% or maybe less for the same light output....

In China, they do not yet have a "Green" environmental finger, it will probably take another 50 years or so!!! So they continue to produce such lamps!!!

Came across this wonderful graph just a few minutes ago. It illustrates the rate of development of LEDs versus other forms of lighting.

Note that most technologies have plateaued. Fluorescent development IMHO has just done the same; the latest T5 technology I feel will be the last.

Note low pressure sodium (LPS or what we used to call SOX) is defunct. So LED has outdeveloped virtually everything, and just in the last few years!

LED is not just another technology - it is a completely different approach which will result in radically different lighting. We are not far away from LED "paint" - just spray and invent your own lighting!

The first LED "lightbulb" has been produced. Have a look here for this and other alternatives to MR16 lamps. http://www.superbrightleds.com/MR16_specs.htm

Thanks, I have bookmarked the page for future study....

Now tell me, what is the T5 technology about? (Apologies if the info is on the page I just bookmarked, its late and I am being lazy!)

The term "T5" refers to tubular (T) lamps of 5/8 inch diameter. These are gradually replacing the older T8 (8/8" or 1 inch) which in turn replaced T12.

T5 lamps are (generally) more efficient than their T8 counterpart and require high frequency control gear in order to operate. Being smaller they have lower material content (especially mercury) than T8, and the resulting fitting is also smaller, again saving in material.

T5 technology has been developed over 10 years. We are rapidily coming to a point where LEDs will repalce fluroescent lamps, in just half that time. LEDs are replacing neon strip lighting (check out BP petrol stations if they are in your locale). In a short time they will be ready to compete with T5. The end is nigh....

IMHO

now you have explained it to me, I have seen them, and used them (unknowingly) in a dining room cupboard that I made with a lit viewing area for some nice porcelan that my wife likes to display. It was a way of using the end wall of a room which was broken with a chimney flue in the not quite exact, middle. Now the flue is not seen at all and the wasted space is a set of cupboards!

I used OSB boards, which are a fantastic building material!!! and finished pine doors from a DIY market....