{"id":21196,"date":"2015-10-26T08:07:40","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T00:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=21196"},"modified":"2017-02-25T00:22:14","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T16:22:14","slug":"the-minton-post-renovation-one-year-on-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2015\/10\/26\/the-minton-post-renovation-one-year-on-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Minton \u2013 Post Renovation One Year On \u2013 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing on a widely spaced thread on our Minton home, post-renovation one year on. The last post in the series is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If there is any one aspect of our home renovation that has not worked well, it’s been our choice of supplier for the LED downlights. We picked them up from a large supplier located in the Ubi area, and had them installed by our ID’s general electrician. As I recall it, the first units started failing barely 3 months into our moving in, and along the way, several more did. Our initial experiences of the LED downlights are here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ll have to do an accurate tally of the units that failed, but here are the failure numbers off the top of my head:<\/p>\n

\"downlights\"<\/p>\n

The 8 failures are over the 18 month stretch, and I think roughly split between the LED light emitting unit, and the driver unit. As I recall it, the first four failures (all 3-in-1s) occurred in the first year, and were exchanged without complaint at the warehouse. The remaining ones zonked out about this year – after their guarantee period – which meant we had to look for options.<\/p>\n

Clarifying our usage too: the lights are not<\/strong><\/em> heavily used. In fact, two of the dead units were in a part of the living hall and were rarely switched on. One of our Minton neighbors got their LED downlights from the same supplier and experienced failures of their 3-in-1 lights too.<\/p>\n

We scouted around for alternatives, and eventually settled on a Qoo10 supplier who has a new warehouse over in Woodlands. This supplier has a web site<\/a> – which gave us a slight bit more confidence than the previous supplier which had nothing of this sort, though the web site still states their old Jurong warehouse address. We’ve had enough bad experiences with 3-in-1 types now, unfair as it might sound to tarnish all lights of this type because of one bad experience with a supplier. The new units, according to their supplier, have some components made in the US while assembly is in China.<\/p>\n

Pictures of the new units:<\/p>\n

\"xxx\"
The 6200K temperature of these Cool Daylight units meant that they are very slightly warmer than the units they are replacing. We ended up replacing all the 3-in-1 units in the study with these single-color types, and keeping the 3-in-1s that were still working as spares.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"xxx\"
Output watt is the same at 12W, and size too. The panel design though is different – though one would have to be looking hard up at the ceiling lights to tell!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"xxx\"
The output here at 24-48V DC is slightly higher than the old driver types of 21-45V DC though rated current is identical at 300mA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This time round too, we picked up spares so that we can replace them on our own if it comes to that later. Funnily; these replacement lights at about $19 each cost less than the old ones at $28. Our neighbor – who shared the similarly bad experiences with the old LED lights – helped us install the replacements, and judging from what’s involved, I’m fairly confident that I’d be able to do the same later if I need to. Oddly though – the traumatic experience<\/a> our ID’s general electrician had last year when installing the LEDs seem unfounded. Our neighbor was able to mount\/dismount the old lights with relative ease.<\/p>\n

Oh well. Hope these new ones work better this time round. And if not, at least we have spares to replace several more.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing on a widely spaced thread on our Minton home, post-renovation one year on. The last post in the series is here. If there is any one aspect of our home renovation that has not worked well, it’s been our<\/p>\n

Read More The Minton \u2013 Post Renovation One Year On \u2013 Part 2<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,526],"tags":[515,337],"class_list":["post-21196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-at-home","category-new-home","tag-minton","tag-renovation","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-526-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/downlights.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}