Serious Readers, serious prices

Thanks to everyone for throwing some "superior light" on this.

The suspect bulb is indeed a 12v 5w MR16 - not something I have in stock but no doubt I can get one when the Corona dust settles.

I will aim to check the power supply first, however, and the Ikea will serve for the time being. I think I caused some confusion above: the Ikea replacement is a whole lamp ie base, gooseneck and integral bulb.

Howard Lewis:

I took your first standard to be standard as in standard lamp - sorry for any confusion!

As it happens, I have a vintage Anglepoise which could find a permanent home on my desk and, with some modification the SR could make a useful machine lamp.

Edited By ega on 14/04/2020 21:05:25

Google GU5.3/MR16 5W LED pick a beam angle and "colour"

e.g. https://www.ledbulbs.co.uk/products/philips-5w-led-gu53-mr16-very-warm-white-71063 (I don't know this supplier, do your due dligence)

At a few quid it's worth a punt. pretty sure it will fit and OK electrically.

Robert G8RPI.

Edit MUST TYPE FASTER!

Edited By Robert Atkinson 2 on 14/04/2020 21:08:03

Thanks for the tip. This does seem to be a commodity market which was probably not the case when I bought my SR unit in c 2013.

I have found the craft light company to be good.

**LINK**

Serious Readers are very expensive as others have said. I must admit, I don’t understand why people buy them.

Howard, I don't want to derail the thread - I PM'd you.

I was discussing this very subject with Serious Readers about a month ago. They claim that High Definition LED lights, which they use, give very accurate colour rendering, with a CRI rating of 100. Ordinary LED score 75-85. This may well be so, but I use a white LED in my reading light, with which I am completely satisfied, for the princely sum of £3. They didn't like that. They claimed that the quality would be remembered after the price is forgotton. As they charge £400 for a desk light, and £600 for a floor-standing light, it would be a long, long time for me to forget those prices...

If I remember the old ads, Serious Readers made a song and dance about the spectral properties of their lamps. Perhaps it's important. Perhaps it's a matter of taste. With MR16 LEDs, you can choose from a range of LED spectra ('warm white', 'cool white', etc., etc.). It's worth experimenting, they're so cheap - some (earlier?) 'cold light' LEDs made some colours look horrible, but I find no problem now.

Just a caution, IIRC, there was discussion here about there being both 12V and 220V LEDs in MR16 packages. AFAIK, 12V is the usual type.

Edited By Kiwi Bloke on 15/04/2020 06:52:01

Reading being very largely a black-and-white matter, seems to me they should - if their 'CRI' actually means anything real - rename the company Serious Lookers At Pictures?

ega, give The Light bulb Company a call on 01869 36222222.

Eric

Thanks to Stuart Smith 5 and Lambton for their recommendations and others for the interesting comments.

I see that there is considerable scepticism about the value of the SR product and I shall not buy their replacement bulb before trying the much cheaper mainstream offering. As to beam angle, this does seem to vary widely with the narrower beam more common.

My SR desk lamp is imposingly heavy but on examination most of this comes from the 180mm dia steel disc in the base which interestingly seems to be either laser or water jet cut.

For that price I would expect each LEDto be individually hand-crafted by acolytes trianied for years in the art of hand-etching semiconductor wafers.

On the apparently popular subject of silly LEDs

Here is a rather powerful one from YUJI [*]

**LINK**

https://youtu.be/bBV-1VNWscA

MichaelG.

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[*] who also make high CRI devices, as I recently mentioned on another thread:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=154966

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 15/04/2020 23:02:44

ega - Since it appears that there's an appreciable amount of beer tokens already sunk in this lamp, you might consider passing over a few more...

Tunable LEDs are interesting - the spectrum emitted can be altered. It seems that a spectrum with a lot of blue wakes you up in the morning, but should be avoided in the evening, when a more red-heavy spectrum will prepare you for slumber. Plus, you can alter the 'white balance' if doing something when optimal colour fidelity is required.

Isn't there something about too much blue led light causing macular degenerations? If one wants to be able to keep on reading....

pgk

I think that's conjectural, however, here in NZ, the sun's bright and we're a bit close to the ozone hole, so I took up the option of a filter coating on my specs to 'prevent' macular degeneration. It makes the reflection, off the front of the lenses, of light sources look purple. Expensive rip-off? We'll see (I hope).

Tunable LEDs: I think this kind of feature is also available for your computer screen; TV too, of course.

It is very difficult for the layman to sort the cod science and bullshit from the truth in many areas. We cannot know everything about everything but we can keep our bullshit detectors tuned and ready for action. Where we were once only able to ask a few mates or go down the library to do a bit of research we can now ask google. This is also full of people who think they know what they are talking about but in fact don’t. A bit of careful research should sort the truth from the rubbish. A piece of equipment like these lamps are rather outside most peoples knowledge so claims are easy to make unchallenged so could be the absolute truth or a total pack of lies, who can tell? If a car salesman told you a 1litre micra ate Ferrari’s for breakfast most people would suspect a lie but it’s difficult to dispute claims about lighting and eyesight, just be suspicious.

Mike

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Many areas; but not Colour Rendering Index ... it is extremely well documented.

Specific claims might be economical with the truth, but CRI can be measured in the lab, against internationally agreed standards.

MichaelG.

Ian Parkin:

Belated kudos to you for your suggestion that the SR power supply was the culprit!

Having previously eliminated the MR16 lamp and, as I thought, the PSU, I had decided that the switch was faulty. I have now installed the unit, shorn of its heavy base, on my lathe powered by a Maplin adapter. Incidentally, the price of a spare MR16 from Homebase was £6 and it promises 25 years' life! As you may recall, the SR item was £44; I can only wonder what they charge for a replacement LED driver.

Exhuming an old thread.

A partially sighted friend has just told me that the lamp in her Serious Readers Table lamp has failed.

Fortunately there was a spare in stock (Out of a two pack, so her late husband must have replaced one, either in this lamp, or the Standard lamp.  )

(The column for the Standard Lamp wobbled, so I made and fitted a split sleeve to fix it. But that's another story! )

The original Halogen lamps are still available

The lamp that fitted was a 2.8 watt G9 LED

They appear to available from a lot of sources, Farnell, Scrrewfix, Toolstation, Amazon, to name but a few, with multi packs at a fraction of the price quoted in the original message, for just one..

Shortly, we shall make a trip across town to lay in a stock of spares..

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 02/01/2023 12:38:40