Hi, I just converted a 5-light low voltage halogen puck light set (the kind you see mounted under kitchen cabinets in home kitchens) to LED. Here is a picture of the light kit I started with:
I got this kit on eBay with shipping for $19. It came with 5 fixtures with 10w halogen bulbs, wiring, a 12v AC (alternating current) power supply, and mounting hardware. The bulbs have G4 base.
I thought it would be fun to try to convert this set to LED "bulbs", so I ordered some round (flat disk) G4 LED bulbs on eBay for less than $2 each with free shipping - the bulbs have 12 each warm white 5050 SMD LEDs. These bulbs run only on 12v DC (direct current).:
The LED bulbs turned out to be marginally too big to fit in the fixture... but it turns out by removing the black plastic spacer on the two pins, and cutting about 3/16" off the pins, the bulbs fit perfectly.
The following pictures show the steps to the conversion:
Removing the black plastic spacer...
Clipping off the pins...
LED bulb installed...
Testing the lights with a 12v DC power source. The bulbs are polarity sensitive, I colored the ends of the positive leads red...
The light set came with a 12v power supply (left), but as expected it puts out AC rather than DC. However, I had a 1.25A 12v DC power supply laying in a drawer (right) which I wired to the light-set.
Completed conversion. In real life these are blindingly bright (I had to mess with the camera settings to get this picture).
The original light kit used 50 watts; the converted set uses about 10 watts. I was going to use this converted set in my motorhome, but I'm now thinking I may put it in my home kitchen, and do another one later on for the motorhome.
Best wishes....
* This post was
edited 04/03/12 11:15pm by NetBoy *
I want to say how great and easy this was. My halogens were blowing in the rv due to heat and higher volts when plugged in. One of the pucks was damaged (partially melted) and this was just the ticket for my conversion. The same lamps on eBay are now under $11 and a ten pack of the 5050 SMDs was $18. So for less than $30 I converted/replaced 4 lamps and can do five more for another $11. Pretty dang good!
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