Posted: 10 August 2011 8:02 PM Subject: G4 SMD-LED lamps
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I am changing my G4, 10 watt halogen in the cabin of my motorhome to G4 "warm white" SMD-LED
How do I choose the number of elements 10, 12 or 24 for the best results
Go here, I have found this company excellent with both goods and service, they may be best placed to answer your question, but you can see the equivalent light output of the units on their site. Lot's of junk out there though, both goods and so called led specialist retailers, so don't make the first expensive mistake I did.
Posted: 11 August 2011 7:50 AM Subject: RE: G4 SMD-LED lamps
Location: MODERATOR - 2015 Rapido 640F LHD 2.3ltr 150bhp
Alectrician - 2011-08-10 8:02 PM
I am changing my G4, 10 watt halogen in the cabin of my motorhome to G4 "warm white" SMD-LED
How do I choose the number of elements 10, 12 or 24 for the best results
It's quite possible that your choice will be restricted by the physical dimensions of the LED 'bulb', rather than by the number of LEDs the bulb carries.
If you look at the 6, 10 and 15 LED 'flat' G4 bulbs advertised on the Aten Lighting website referred to by 1footinthegrave, you'll see that their diameters are, respectively, 23mm, 32mm or 44mm. Many of the light-fittings installed as standard in motorhomes and using a G4 capsule halogen bulb are pretty compact and you may well find that only the smallest diameter LED equivalent will be a viable replacement for the halogen original. Certainly that's the case with my Hobby: it's only practicable to use a G4 side-pin LED bulb with a maximum diameter of 25mm and, even then, with the smaller Hobby-installed light-fittings, those bulbs are a tight fit.
If bulb-size isn't a limiting factor for you, then I strongly suggest you opt for a quoted output that's at least equivalent to that of your original halogen G4s. As far as I'm concerned, you can never have too much light in a motorhome and, as LED bulbs run cool and are low on current-drain, if you can shoehorn a 24-element LED bulb into your light-fittings, then go for that.
Posted: 11 August 2011 11:48 AM Subject: RE: G4 SMD-LED lamps
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Posts: 5852 Location: West Sussex: Hymer B678 Dynamic Line, 150hp Auto
Alectrician - 2011-08-10 8:02 PM
I am changing my G4, 10 watt halogen in the cabin of my motorhome to G4 "warm white" SMD-LED
How do I choose the number of elements 10, 12 or 24 for the best results
It's a case of weighing up light output verses current draw/power I went for 12 they give as good if not better output than the 10 Watt halogens they replaced. 12's are usually 1.2 - 1.5 watt 24's probably will be double that.
Posted: 1 January 2012 3:56 AM Subject: RE: G4 SMD-LED lamps
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Location: Seattle WA
I think you'd better to pay attention to their light output, not the LED quantities, since the brightness can be significantly different when using different types of LEDs. for instance, a SMD5050 LED will be three times brighter than the SMD3528 LED. In general, 1 watt brightness = 15-20Lumens, and 200 Lumens per unit is enough for anyone. Last year, I replaced my old halogen G4 with this 2.4W 10 SMD 5050 LEDs G4 lamp, they are bright enough for my use.
Posted: 1 January 2012 9:33 AM Subject: RE: G4 SMD-LED lamps
Location: MODERATOR - 2015 Rapido 640F LHD 2.3ltr 150bhp
ethan7557 - 2012-01-01 3:56 AM
I think you'd better to pay attention to their light output, not the LED quantities, since the brightness can be significantly different when using different types of LEDs. for instance, a SMD5050 LED will be three times brighter than the SMD3528 LED. In general, 1 watt brightness = 15-20Lumens, and 200 Lumens per unit is enough for anyone. Last year, I replaced my old halogen G4 with this 2.4W 10 SMD 5050 LEDs G4 lamp, they are bright enough for my use.
Happy New Year and welcome to the Out&AboutLive forum.
I think your lumens-per-watt rule of thumb relates to G4 halogen bulbs, as a 10W G4 'capsule' halogen bulb generally seems to be advertised at around 130-160 lumens, while a 20W capsule is quoted at 300-350 lumens. The equivalent ratio for LED G4 equivalents appears to range from 60-100 lumens-per-watt depending on the colour, with cool-white LED bulbs outputting more lumens per watt than warm-white ones.
has useful information about LED-bulb replacement and detailed descriptions of the products being advertised. I note that their most powerful G4-replacement side-pin LED bulbs have a diameter of 44mm and would probably not fit into the light units used in European motorhomes.
I also notice the "...we received three unprotected Ultra-bad burnt-out LED bulbs..." comment towards the top of the 12V/24V LED Bulbs webpage and I'm guessing that "Ultra-bad" is a subtle reference to the UK company "Ultraleds".
I've bought LED bulbs from Ultraleds in the past and one of these (an MR16 bulb in a over-bed reading-lamp) suddenly failed, producing acrid smoke and with the LED-carrying circuit board falling out of the glass part of the bulb to hang on its melting connection wires. My wife was reading in bed at the time and the failing bulb was directly above her head, so she was not best pleased. I've had several of the SMDs fail on other Ultraled-supplied MR16 bulbs too.
I did contact the company about this but, as all the bulbs were out of warranty (though none of them had done much 'hourage'), didn't get much sympathy (or, in fact, any sympathy!) from the Ultraleds representative I spoke to.
I'm not going to say "Don't buy from Ultraleds", and the remaining bulbs bought from them are still working OK, but forum members may wish to view the following:
Posted: 1 January 2012 11:13 AM Subject: RE: G4 SMD-LED lamps
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Posts: 549 Location: Yorkshire
I've used Leds for about 10 years from various sources & they have improved, & I will second 1footinthegraves post with another vote for leds from aten
ps it saves me writing the same
1footinthegrave - 2011-08-10 8:08 PM
Go here, I have found this company excellent with both goods and service, they may be best placed to answer your question, but you can see the equivalent light output of the units on their site. Lot's of junk out there though, both goods and so called led specialist retailers, so don't make the first expensive mistake I did.
Posted: 9 October 2015 3:07 AM Subject: RE: G4 SMD-LED lamps
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I did contact the company about this but, as all the bulbs were out of warranty (though none of them had done much 'hourage'), didn't get much sympathy (or, in fact, any sympathy!) from the Ultraleds representative I spoke to.
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The 16th China International Lighting Fair (Autumn Fair) will be held from 22-26 October, 2015 at the Guzhen Convention and Exhibition Centre in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province.
Posted: 9 October 2015 8:09 AM Subject: RE: G4 SMD-LED lamps
Location: MODERATOR - 2015 Rapido 640F LHD 2.3ltr 150bhp
This 2011/2012 discussion has been resurrected by nathes2016 in order (so it would appear) to advertise a lighting exhibition in China. The text of nathes2016 entry is an extract copied from my 2nd posting above that included comments about my own experience of buying LED bulbs from Ultraleds.
All the bulbs I obtained from Ultraleds were purchased prior to 2012 (when I last posted to this thread) so my near-4-years-old comments about the company may be completely irrelevant nowadays.
I bought some 501 led sidelights off them about 12 years ago, they lasted about 6 months before they started flickering, due to undersized cheap resistors probably. Back then most LED replacement bulbs were unreliable and had poor light output. Undeterred I bought some LED brake light replacements off them after believing the blurb about how fantastic the light output was. They were redder but not as bright as the original brake lights. I left an honest review about them and the next day it had been removed.
Just goes to show non independent reviews can be totally rigged and I never read them now.
Have you seen how much it costs to take, and bring back, a Motorhome to the Guzhen Convention and Exhibition Centre in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province?
On the plus side - it is free parking outside the Centre.
