dong

Bro, I would strongly advise you to get the slim aluminum LED Strip bar that already has the LED incorporate in...rather than your suggestions of getting a aluminum casing to fit in the $28/m flexible strip. Too much work for you, and at the end of the day, you may have to worry whether your flexible strip will peel off etc.

The bulbs with bulit in electronic ballast are screw based, meaning the bulb socket have to be either E27 or E14. The general downlights have a standard bulb socket meant for compact fluorescent, 2 pin type. So you are unable to convert the standard bulb to the electronic type easily, as you have to take down ALL downlights and change the sockets to a E27 or E14 holder. The pros of a electronic bulbs is that you do not require a ballast, which in turn saves you the trouble of wiring and/or replacement of the ballast when it is faulty. Electronic lamp always does not flicker, and averagely saves you more energy and last much longer. The cons is that these lamps are 3 to 5 times more expensive than the standard PLC lamp (2pin).

Legrand lah...Clipsal price too high. Legrand is just as good, manufacturer from France. I'm using Legrand with no problems at all

I would opt for a slim T5 fluorescent instead of LED. Sure brighter than LED Strips. Unless of course, you have to worry about the height, and easy conceal of the fitting, you may consider a slim aluminum LED Strip bar, with a depth of only 15mm!! Length wise, you do not have to worry, as the market available ones are ranging from 300mm to 1200mm. The LED Driver is small enough for your contractor to think of a solution to hide them.

I also hack the wall to conceal the electrical wirings on almost 80% of my power socket / swtiches point. No ugly casing hanging from false ceiling down to a surface mount plastic box! Another way is to run the casing from the floor skirting, it will not look too noticeable.

The Daylight version for any type and brand of LED will always be brighter than the warm white by at least 20%. The noise you are experiencing actually comes from the dimming switch rather than the LED. Unless of course the electronic componets of the LED is of low quality and not suitable for standard dimming switches. Most standard buy-off-shelves dimming switches are using TRIAC Dimming or LEADING EDGE dimming methods, which is consider the "Lower end" type, and will work fine with halogens and incandescent but not all LED. For any type of dimming swtich, there is a min LOAD of at least 40-60Watts power.......LED wattage is too low for the dimming to handle, and thus flickering and noise may occur. $100 for a GU10 LED Bulb? And you're willing to pay?

Hi tan_ann, Does the cost includes the Granite Floor tiles too??

Hi xmtan, You can try Philips GU10 - 7Watt. It claims to be dimmable......coming from Philips, i trust it should be more reliable. But it's expensive also.....in the range of S$60-70 Each. So far, my little experiment with LED is that a 3W can only just barely replace a 20W halogen. Cheers

LED Fluorescent tube are way too expensive for the change now. Also it really depends on your lighting application, for example, indirect lighting - fluorescent tube installed inside the cove, this case, the normal T5 or T8 fluorescent tube will work much better. Reason is fluorescent lighting gives out uni-directional light distribution, and it will greatly enhance the lighting behaviour on cove lighting. Wherelse LED is directional, and the max beam angle is 120 degree....compare to our normal fluorescent which is 360 degree. LED provides 100 lumen per watt only on raw data.....that is the bare LED tested in a PERFECTLY CONDITIONED Lab, and is tested by passing a current through the LED in a split of seconds, while the computer capture the lighting intensity and make claim. However when LED are being fitted on the luminaire (Light fitting) and being use for the REAL WORLD application, there are so many factors to consider that can affect the lumen depreciation like Heat, Optic Lens, diffuser etc, i would safety say the ACTUAL delivered lumen will be in the range of 40 - 60 lumens. NEVER trust "cowboys" LED lighting company when they tell you their LED is 100 lumen / Watt or higher. The World's largest lighting manufacturer - PHILIPS and OSRAM also never claim their LED product to be over 70 lumen / Watt. (Complete package Products). Cheers

Most lighting nowadays are using energy saving bulbs, like downlights, T5 fluorescent, LED etc. For living rooms, I would prefer using "Indirect" lighting, that means cove lighting with T5 fluorescent, it will illuminate the entire room with no harsh or direct lighting on any particular angle, thus protraying cosy and comfortable feel. Warm white, 3000K color temperature is my preferred choice. For bedrooms, i would use downlights installed at the 4 corners, and allow the wall to "Wash" the lighting effect, and it will be easy on our eyes, yet gives you the Architectural feel. Complete your lighting with a table lamp. You can choose to switch off all your lights and on only your table lamp. It will be very COSY. Pillow Talk kinna thing. Warm White color too. Kitchen, you will have to use cool white or daylight color lighting. This is the "white white, bright bright" light that we asians are all too familar with. White lighting gives you the "ON THE GO" feel, and kitchen is consider task lighting, and it has to be white. At least for me. Best to get a Ceiling mount lighting for HDB, while Condo aldy has false ceiling, you could get downlights with either cool or daylight color tubes. 4000K and above color temperature. Hope this helps!

Never! LED still has not reach a a stage whereby it could replace a 50W halogen in the MR16 bulb shape. However, there are a few good LED MR16 that could replace a 20-35W Halogen. Have to be careful though, to use a Magnetic Transformer instead of electronic transformer to light up these LED. Reason is LED wattage is too low for the electronic transformer to handle, and users may experience light flickering. Good luck in your hunt!