12v/24v vs 240V LED lights (not strips)

[gc100]

So my first fix electrical is just starting and I'm desperately trying to figure out my lighting. I had naively thought that these days all lighting would be low voltage. However looking online it seems 98% of lights are still 240v with integrated drivers in the bulbs themselves . I really thought this was a bad idea mainly due to the quality of the inbuilt drivers vs getting an external dimmable driver unit to power several lights. I had just presumed these days that would be the way forward.

 

Am I missing something? 

 

The only thing I can think of is to use the MR16 12v LEDS - is this the only option? 

 

[Conor]

We got 240v LED spots put in our last house. Moved out 5 years later and all were still working perfectly.

[gc100]

2 minutes ago, Conor said:

We got 240v LED spots put in our last house. Moved out 5 years later and all were still working perfectly.

 

My experience is not very good with them personally, its impossible to get a constant dimming across all lights at the same time, and most flicker. Hence I'm trying to avoid them. Having a single driver that is 0-10v or DALI/other makes for consistent dimming across a set of spots. 

[wozza]

1 hour ago, gc100 said:

 

My experience is not very good with them personally, its impossible to get a constant dimming across all lights at the same time, and most flicker. Hence I'm trying to avoid them. Having a single driver that is 0-10v or DALI/other makes for consistent dimming across a set of spots. 

 

Vari light pro dimmer with 6 Aurora GU10 works very well for me

 

Also a Lutron Pico remote dimmer and switch dims a Aurora MPRO1 and MPRO2 perfectly.

 

Have you tried fitting a ballast to your circuit?

 

Downlights.co.uk have plenty of test videos for various leds and dimmers - never purchased from them though.

Edited July 14, 2020 by wozza

[dpmiller]

^ similar experience here, got free "non- dimmable" Aurora GU10s with a batch of downlights and found that they dimmed very well.

[PeterW]

10 hours ago, gc100 said:

MR16 12v LEDS

you may struggle to get these  as single units -  I have..! Seem to come as sets of 3 or 5 on a single driver. 

 

I’ve found the flat panel LEDs better for dimming and they don’t flicker. 

Edited July 15, 2020 by PeterW
Clarify

[joth]

18 hours ago, gc100 said:

 

My experience is not very good with them personally, its impossible to get a constant dimming across all lights at the same time, and most flicker. Hence I'm trying to avoid them. Having a single driver that is 0-10v or DALI/other makes for consistent dimming across a set of spots. 

 

I went through an experimentation phase with DALI drivers and LEDs, but my experience was:

a) all the parts are 5-10x using a simple dumb mains dimming (even though the solution is technically simpler and more elegant, the market volumes of mains dimming keep it super cheap)

b) I got burnt a couple times by ordering things I thought would work well together but didn't, just because there's so many params you need to line up (constant current vs voltage, what the max voltage will be if contant current, how many LEDs you can put on one string, and that's even more starting on tunable white colour temperature and driver inter-compatibility )

c) the overall system was more complex (more wires to each fixture, more levels of indirection to program it - partly my own fault for going via KNX to DALI)

 

once it was working, the smoothness and graduations of the dimming is undeniably nicer than you'll get with any mains-dimmed LED

 

I still have a month or so until 1st fix, and I'm 99.999% set on DMX driven triac dimmers now.

 

If in your shoes, at this point I'd consider putting in 5-core DALI cable and running that radially to each light fixing (daisy-chaining any that are "obviously" only going to be used on one circuit). This way you can use central main dimmers, DALI, 10V analog dimmers, wireless dimmer drivers (various protocols), or at a push DMX to the fixtures (YMMV*). You have from now until 2nd fix to decide among those options, or, use a mix, or vary from one to another over time as standards come in and out of vogue.

 

Do you have a central wiring closet for it?

 

*- for perfect future proofing you'd send DALI 5 core + CAT6 to each fixture, then you can use DMX, KNX or Loxone Tree (Rako?) etc.  wired control buses too. 

Edited July 15, 2020 by joth

[gc100]

3 hours ago, joth said:

 

I went through an experimentation phase with DALI drivers and LEDs, but my experience was:

a) all the parts are 5-10x using a simple dumb mains dimming (even though the solution is technically simpler and more elegant, the market volumes of mains dimming keep it super cheap)

b) I got burnt a couple times by ordering things I thought would work well together but didn't, just because there's so many params you need to line up (constant current vs voltage, what the max voltage will be if contant current, how many LEDs you can put on one string, and that's even more starting on tunable white colour temperature and driver inter-compatibility )

c) the overall system was more complex (more wires to each fixture, more levels of indirection to program it - partly my own fault for going via KNX to DALI)

 

once it was working, the smoothness and graduations of the dimming is undeniably nicer than you'll get with any mains-dimmed LED

 

I still have a month or so until 1st fix, and I'm 99.999% set on DMX driven triac dimmers now.

 

If in your shoes, at this point I'd consider putting in 5-core DALI cable and running that radially to each light fixing (daisy-chaining any that are "obviously" only going to be used on one circuit). This way you can use central main dimmers, DALI, 10V analog dimmers, wireless dimmer drivers (various protocols), or at a push DMX to the fixtures (YMMV*). You have from now until 2nd fix to decide among those options, or, use a mix, or vary from one to another over time as standards come in and out of vogue.

 

Do you have a central wiring closet for it?

 

*- for perfect future proofing you'd send DALI 5 core + CAT6 to each fixture, then you can use DMX, KNX or Loxone Tree (Rako?) etc.  wired control buses too. 

 

Sounds like you are ahead of me in terms of actually trying things and time spent on this subject. The electrician(s) where on site today and we need to make a start on the wiring the lights up otherwise my builders will be sitting around to had to make some decisions on the spot in the end.

 

So what I have decided is in the 'lesser' rooms to just wire up daisy chain the lights that are going to be on the same dimmer as you would normally. Wire in for 240v (1.5mm) 3 core. In the kitchen/living area and the master bedroom where I have much more extensive lighting setup, we're wiring up radially to hidden wiring area, and then from there to normal wall dimmer grouped together in what you would normally daisy chain. This way I can use either drivers and low voltage lights, or 240v with individual drivers.

 

I spent a long time looking at all the home automation and all the dimming options, my conclusion is that if you are going outside of the installer driven products , its much much hard to get hold of the devices and lighting (and much more expensive). Going with more consumer orientated solutions the market is in massive flux with established solutions like z-wave/zigbee and lots of new IP orientated solutions. Then there was DMX and DALI. I was set on using DALI as it seems plenty simple enough and nice easy wiring, however in the end I just had so much trouble finding controllers and switches/dimmers, and given the older state of the technology my final conclusion is that I will just upgrade wiring points, drivers and switches with probably zigbee devices in the 2 main rooms to the grouping and scenes that I want with a reasonable control of the dimming for each device. I'll probably go with TRIAC's as well vs 0-10v etc simply again because there are many more devices on the market and I don't need the extra wires.

 

Its not really what I wanted, but it seems without going in the full on installer only setups I don't have much choice. I think most of the technology thats going to be coming on the market will be 98% retrofit solutions, so it should work out fine. As you said it would be good to run cat5/6 and and couple of more lines to each light, switch, etc but I think given most of the products coming to the market in the next 10 years or so will be retrofit orientated, there probably isn't really any point.

The way I see it is as so long as I can group the lights how I want, control the switching and dimming then I can do all I need. Given the market is providing solutions for retro-fitting and pretty much all moving to wireless/RF/bluetooth mesh then running physical wires for control/dimming seems a little pointless.

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by gc100