Posted on 01/06/2019 4:01:30 PM PST by Jamestown1630
Forgive me if this is a very ignorant question, but I don’t know very much about lamp wiring, LED bulbs, etc., and am hoping someone can give me advice.
I recently purchased some of these lamps from IKEA:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00323887/
They're very nice for my purpose, but I can’t stand the unshaded LED bulb. Ikea’s lamps seem to be all LED, and they sell the bulbs for them. The bulb we bought is an E12, 200 Lumen, because that’s what the display lamp had. But they have lots of different bulbs with those same specifics, just with different names.
The lamp says that it can only be used with ‘dimmable’ bulbs; and I’m wondering if there’s a dimmable incandescent bulb I can buy that will work in this lamp.
I don’t know anything about LEDs – we stock-piled incandescents when the govt. made the nutty decision to ‘outlaw’ them; but I know that decorative ones are still available. I just don’t know if lamps like this are only wired to work with LEDs, or not (yes, I’m that ignorant.)
I’d actually like something sort of amber colored – I have an old lamp that uses amber chandelier lights, even some that flicker. (One of the reviews of this lamp suggested that it was possible to achieve a flickering aspect that really simulated a kerosene lamp, but we haven’t seen any ability for this lamp to do anything but be headache-bright, or slightly less bright - if you dim it as low as possible, after awhile it just goes out - and we may have been directed to purchase the wrong bulb. But I'd really like to get away from the LED, if I can.)
Thanks to anyone who might be able to help. Any thoughts would be helpful, as I have another, different kind of lamp from Ikea that I’d like to change-out as well.
-JT
Thanks; I’ll check.
And thanks to all who responded. I appreciate the sharing of knowledge/experience very much.
Thanks for a very informative (and layman’s approach) post.
Good to remember - if the base is too hot, reduce the watt.
We are into the windy season and the power may go out. I have the marine batteries inside with inverters. Have some clamp lights with LEDs in them so at least we can have light without running the generator all the time. I’m getting used to the LED lights. Cooler in my office during the summer, and a lot less energy used when running off the batteries.
LEDs have advanced a lot in the last decade. In addition to the normal on/off, there are three-way LEDs and dimmable versions - though the lower power dimmables may need a dimmer specifically built for the very low power of LEDs.
https://www.energyearth.com/general/categories/lighting/learn-more
2700k is a yellowish light that corresponds to a standard incandescent, or maybe a bit yellower. 5000k is a bright white light, and 6500k has a spectrum like sunlight - which is harsh for lighting at night, but good for lighting in an area where you want to see the actual color of an object.
Lower k-values than 2000 are generally comparable to candle-light.
Many stores like Home Depot have displays showing the color differences so that you can actually see them yourself before buying.
We have some LED E12-size lamps in the candelabra that are very nice and dimmable from a fair white to a golden glow.
have they improved upon the battery-operated votives and candlesticks?.
Regular LEDs with a 3-way lamp are going to turn on and off with every other click: Two clicks full on, and two clicks full off.
There are 3-way LED bulbs, though I find sometimes the upper two ranges are too close together, so I had to hunt for ones that doubled for each higher setting.
Brilliant! lol
Yes... I did go off topic a bit didn’t I?
I hadn’t considered voltage fluctuation, such as a drop from other appliances kicking on. This would probably affect these dimmers more so.
But everything electrical creates heat as the juice passes through the parts. Maybe only slightly but they do heat up a bit. Anytime you have a mechanical connection such as the dimmer switch to the electronics inside there is a chance for heat to slightly affect the variables and tolerances to affect the resistance slightly.
I used to run into this with motor controllers quite a bit, and a motor speed control is basically a dimmer switch, a potentiometer. Sometimes they would have to be readjusted once after warming up then they would stay stable after. :)
One final tip...
Most LED bulbs are deficient in the red portion of the visible spectrum. That’s why things can still look a bit odd... especially human faces and certain objects with some red coloration.
The better bulbs, with a better, more even color spectrum distribution, have a high CRI, or color rendering index.
A CRI of 80 is OK. A CRI of 100 would be perfect, but doesn’t exist for LEDs. Energy Star labelled LED bulbs (will be a blue logo on the packaging) have BOTH at least an 80 CRI AND are dimmable.
Thank you for the ideas.
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