Astro vote

[Noz]

A new vote has arrived. 

Clear pink

Yellow red

Pink blue. 

Not very imaginative. 

Must vote by Monday. 

I'd like a pink blue myself as I've already got both the others. 

What are your thoughts? 

[MonsoonStorm]

Yeah, I looked on amazon and ebay there's only 35w and one brand of 50w in the mini version of GU10 - I'd accidentally bought 40w normal GU10s and they are too tall.  Halogen bulbs are becoming more scarce, they really need to rethink their system going forward (and provide a retrofit kit/service)

I have an older base but struggled finding bulbs that didn't sit too high - the old bottles had a bit more clearance.

I guess I'll give the 50w a go and just start on very low dimmer then work up slowly until I find the sweet spot.

[Noz]

That's weird. I've got 40w standard gu10s and they fit fine. Just shows the different bases and heights they've had over the years. 

The 40w ses bulbs fit great in my 2010 astro base but sit too high in earlier crestworth bases. 

You're right as halogens slowly disappear, it's going to be very difficult to get them. I reckon I'm good for about 10 years with my bulb stock, but after that who knows?

I don't bother buying them from M. Because when I do more often than not they are delivered smashed or broken or just don't work. Amazon and ebay actually supply better bulbs. But eventually we will be tied to M bulbs. 

[MonsoonStorm]

Yeah I only bought from Mathmos once thinking they'd be decent bulbs.  It blew within a month and they are ridiculously expensive... I have one brushed aluminium base that I just cannot find a bulb that works for, I've pretty much given up on that one.

As an update, my pink clear is pretty much normal now (although the heating is higher now since it's gone colder again, so that's possibly a factor!)  The green/red is still a bit sluggish.  The 50W bulbs arrived yesterday so I'll throw one in there and stick the dimmer on.  Maybe a few hotter runs will give it a bit of a boost.