LEDs

When, some years ago, we changed all of Erin Mae's halogen bulbs for LEDs, the largest that the fittings could accommodate had 8 "blobs". They were not quite as bright as the halogens, especially in the "warm white" variety that we chose, and while the saving in electrons was certainly a desirable trade off, we found they made some evening activities a bit more challenging.

Just recently we found that Bedazzled were selling 9 blob units with the same diameter as the ones we have, but only in the cool white variety. They told me they'd got them by mistake, and wouldn't be re-stocking – it was cool or nothing, and we decided to go for it. When they arrived it was interesting to see how LEDs have moved on over 7 years.

The new ones are certainly much brighter, and we're slowly getting used to the slightly harsher cool light. Meanwhile, we faced a different issue in the bathroom. There was a fluorescent light over the mirror which had never worked well, and finally stopped working altogether.

I could never work out how to get the cover off to replace the tube. Several engineering marina departments also failed to do so, worried like me about breaking the cover. It was my friend Brian, borrowing Erin Mae for a couple of weeks last summer, who managed to get it off, and presented us with a replacement tube. But this spring, the light steadily deteriorated and finally failed. It was clear that the internal electronics were at fault.

So I bit the bullet again and found an LED lightstrip on the web. Fitting it entailed stripping out the old electronics which converted the 12 volt supply for the fluorescent tube. It was all pretty much of a doddle, apart from having to work with short leads above head level. The LED strip was exactly the right size to fit along the length of the fitting with its self-adhesive backing. If the LED life expectancy of 50,000 hours holds, I imagine both Erin Mae and ourselves will have gone to another place before that cover has to come off again!