LED Kitchen Lights

I have always suspected that240 volt  LED lights used more power than their rated value.
  Connected one of our kitchen main LED lights to a power meter yesterday. They are rated at 14 watts ea.   It was drawing close to 24 watts and that is 71% more than the rated power....It is going to be interesting to check a few more of these LEDs
   The accuracy of my meter is +/- 1%

Hi Adrian
I've fitted many LED hard wired lights.As you mentioned 2 of them were the large oyster style in the kitchen but I think they were rated higher maybe 24W from memory.My biggest concern with these is the poor quality and flimsy wiring and fire risk associated with a fault.Legally I usually put a quick connect surface socket hard wired and then attach a plug and fit an earth if required.What do you think about the safety of these and also the fluoro style fittings the aluminum gauge is like foil.

I never used the recessed halogen down lights because of the heat generated near the base. I did replace my normal in room incandescent,s with halogen and they were fine but then changed to the curly fluoro type that simply were not bright enough and took too long to get up to max level and cost waaaaayyyyy too much and did not last anywhere near as long as stated by the manufacturer.
So then I changed to the LED type which seem to be lasting a reasonable time but still at 14 watts advertised (actual 24 watts for my globes) they are also not bright enough. I have not been able to find any of these locally, rated higher than 14 watts.
Woollies and Coles stock LEDs that wouldn't light up the inside of my letterbox.

when I was growing up the old girl and the old man would constantly yell at us kids ,turn the blo#dy lights offfffff!!!!!
Globes that were 75 watts, 100 watts /hr burning for hours on end.
I don't stress to much now about leaving the odd light on as it equates to about 6-8 hour burn for a single incandescent globe from the "OLD" days.
life's [lights] good


cheers morelite

Yeah Dad was the same; we could not leave a light on unless someone was in the room and we did not have higher than 60 watt globes and in the hallway and dunny 40 watts was the limit.
The 14 watt globes that I have at the moment are from Bunnings but they are only selling to Tradies as of the last time I tried to shop there. They have a bloke standing at the entrance stopping every person trying to get in and checking if they are a Tradie .
I am pissed off with this BS, like I can shop at the reject shop that attracts a lot of people but can't go into Jaycar (that is lucky to have more than 6 shoppers at any one time) unless for Click And collect.

If your watt reading is just amps by volts, then it would be the power factor (leading/lagging current) giving you the 24W reading/Calculation.

True power which is in the units of a Watt is calculated by multiplying your current squared (1.414²) by the resistance (60Ω) in your circuit. Your equation should look like this: 1.414² x 60 = 119.96 W. This can also be expressed as a percentage therefore you multiply 0.71 by 100 giving you a power factor of 71%.

Yeah I know about power factor.
My trusty meter also checks power factor.
Power factor for the 14 watt LED is 61 and for the 60 watt incandescent (that I compared it to ) is 100.

Odd thing is that the LED is reading 15 watts today. It has been running for a few hours so maybe it takes time to settle down ??

Teah not a problemo

I RED IT FLU INTLY


Cheers moredeep

My dyslectics was not as bad as normal reading your note Dav.  

I can read that almost as fast as normal writing/spelling. I can also read print upside down! Maybe there's something wrong with me! Lol. Is problem spelled wrong, or, is that just me too?