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ACTEW Free LED Downlight Bulb Installation
Currently ACTEW have a deal installing LED bulbs for free, just saw it in the house rules ad break. It will be interesting to see how this goes as we have had nothing but problems with LED downlight bulbs/globes. To the point where we do not replace just The Bulbs In Downlights, we remove the entire old downlight + transformer and replace with a completely new sealed LED Downlight light kit. I will go over the issues we have been having later on.
The main issues we came across when replacing LED bulbs happened generally when clients had bought their own LED bulbs and just wanted us to install them. They would flicker slightly or flash non stop and this could be fixed generally by installing a OSRAM Redback transformer (Image below *2).
The next issue we would have, was with dimming the bulbs. A lot of cheap $1 LED bulbs do not have the extra electronics needed to dim smoothly. So if a dimmer is on that switch all the lights would flicker or just not turn on. The easiest way to fix this was to disconnect the dimmers. I don’t recommend this especially when you can get free LED bulbs from ACTEW! but they sell for around $1 on ebay. I just want to confirm, I Do Not Recommend Buying Lights From Ebay.
THE NEW LED BULBS?
The next issue we would have, was with dimming the bulbs. A lot of cheap $1 LED bulbs do not have the extra electronics needed to dim smoothly. So if a dimmer is on that switch all the lights would flicker or just not turn on. The easiest way to fix this was to disconnect the dimmers. I don’t recommend this especially when you can get free LED bulbs from ACTEW! but they sell for around $1 on ebay. I just want to confirm, I Do Not Recommend Buying Lights From Ebay.
If I was organising to get the replacement, two good questions I would ask about the free LED bulb replacement would be –
1. What is the lumen output of The New LED Bulbs? Halogen 50W bulbs have a lumen output of around 800 lumens anything under 650 lumens is noticeably dimmer.
2. Are The Bulbs dimmable? This is important as non dimmable bulbs will flicker.
See what they say. If anyone reads this blog and has had the free replacement done I would like to hear how it went send me an email at [email protected]. In the meantime I will try and get my hands on a FREE bulb and do some tests on it and get back to you as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading.
PS. Overall I think this is a great move for ACTEW as it will drastically reduce the bills of many households. I just hope the quality of the bulbs is high as problem lights may tarnish LED lights. Some manufactures are producing extremely high quality lights, that will last years and years and it’s a shame when I hear people say LED lights are rubbish. If you are in the market do your research, check the manufacturer is a member of the Lighting Council of Australia and you will ensure a quality product.
LED Solutions.
Canberra
Some LED Downlights we use and are happy to recommend, see below.
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