Conventional Fixtures Incandescent globes. what to replace them with?

[Crisp image]

G'day all,
With the phasing out of incandescent globes in the domestic market (globes for around the home) what are people replacing them with?
Background is the school is wanting to hang some light fittings and have them practical. I suggested they need to have incandescent globes but they are getting hard to find these days with all the energy efficient LED globes.
Has any one tried dimmable led globes in fixtures attached to a dimmer? If so what was the result. They don't need to be super smooth in dimming we just want them to be duller at some stage and bright at others.

Regards
Geoff

 

[Les]

I have never tried LED's in practicals. I can only assume that the end result would be very choppy. Luckily in the US incandescent lamps are still pretty easy to find, plus we still have a lot rattling around our lighting storage areas. In fact, this inspires me to stock up on incandescent Rough Service lamps to use only for practicals. 100 should last the rest of my career. If you can find incandescent lamps at all, I suggest you do the same.

 

[SteveB]

G'day all,
With the phasing out of incandescent globes in the domestic market (globes for around the home) what are people replacing them with?
Background is the school is wanting to hang some light fittings and have them practical. I suggested they need to have incandescent globes but they are getting hard to find these days with all the energy efficient LED globes.
Has any one tried dimmable led globes in fixtures attached to a dimmer? If so what was the result. They don't need to be super smooth in dimming we just want them to be duller at some stage and bright at others.

Regards
Geoff

Incandescent globe type lamps are still available. The Bulbtronics website lists quite a few. https://www.bulbtronics.com/Search-...pe=INCA&mfg=&specs=&specsValue=&gridview=True

Will they be available in 5 years ?, anybodies guess and dependent on the manufacturers sales.

LED will dim, but potentially be steppy while fading out, have a really different curve then an incandescent and will likely not pop on until you are 2-3 seconds into a fade up. You can set the at "dull", but it might be a level of 12%-15%.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Could you list a designation or show a picture of what you mean by "incandescent globe" or confirm that Steve B's assumption is correct - lamps like G40's.

Your mains dimmers will have a lot to do with how well they dim. Some LED retro-fit lamps with some mains dimmers will work OK - I think acceptably based on your post. Other combinations will dim like crap. The only way to know is test. Are your dimmers modular, doestehmanufacturr offer a higher performance module, and could you afford to replace a module or modules?

 

[alich]

You mean like G40s, or just glass globe fixtures with a socket in it?
There are some LED E26 bulbs that work well with triac dimmers, it's just usually hit and miss, and in my experience varies by manufacturer.
I've seen bulbs work with Sensor dimmers but freak out when put on Lep pack, and vice versa. Cree used to make a range of E26s under the 4Flow name that worked well without ghost loads on everything, I'm just not sure they still make them.

 

[DrewE]

Keep in mind that LEDs do not change color temperature as they dim, which of course can have a rather substantial effect on the overall look of the practical and scene. It can make them look less bright but not "duller" in quite the same way that incandescent lights do.

 

[tjrobb]

We retrofitted Philips LED's into our house and lobby system. Can't say much for the lobby system since it never goes very dim, but the house cans are happy with the Sensor D20's we run. There is a definite pop-on quality that can be annoying, but being community theater we can't afford a full fixture replacement. The lamps are PAR38 style in 3000K, I believe 18W; they were installed 6 years ago and we haven't had any early deaths.
(Lobby is basic 9W A-lamp on Leprecon dimmers, a couple early deaths but we did start with 40 so the percentage is low. No complaints to speak of).