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I bought myself a Barlast Ikea table lamp. It came without any bulbs so I went and bought 11w LED bulb. I came home and found out that the label on the wire and fixture says 8.6W Max.

Is it dangerous to use that 11w bulb with this fixture, or should I return it and get a lower wattage one?

isherwood
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K. D.
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    Does the table lamp explicitly say "Max LED bulb 8.6W"? Because 8.6W for an incandescent bulb is dim - almost like a night light. – SteveSh Apr 30 '23 at 16:24
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    @SteveSh it doesn't say anything about the type of bulb. The sticker on wire just says 110-240v 50-60hz Max 8.6W. Then there another sticker on fixture saying MAX 8.6 W. So I guess it's intended that one would use LED bulbs with this lamp. The fixture is made of plastic though, so using incandescent one with it is a recipe for disaster. – K. D. Apr 30 '23 at 16:48
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    Is the LED bulb actually 11W draw, or is it just 11W *equivalent*? LED bulbs are often sold with the equivalent rating thrown at you (lights the same as a _W bulb!!!) and the *actual* power usage in small print on the back. FWIW, an 11W LED should produce somewhere around 900-1000 lumens, which is a lot for a table lamp. – Chris O May 01 '23 at 15:28
  • @ChrisO, Practically all of the light bulb packages that I see in the stores in the U.S.A. these days are clearly marked with how many lumens the bulbs put out. But, wattage—actual watts used—is important too because it's the wattage that will determine whether or not the fixture catches fire. – Solomon Slow May 01 '23 at 23:58
  • The rating is actually for an LED, because it is explicitly designed for an LED bulb https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/barlast-table-lamp-with-led-bulb-black-white-40504560/ And the bulb in question is the E12 (40W equilvalent brightness): https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/solhetta-led-bulb-e12-450-lumen-globe-opal-00498716/ – Nelson May 02 '23 at 00:56

2 Answers2

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Usually max watts on light fixtures is for heat build up in the fixture so returning it and getting a lower wattage one is the best.

Besides the possible chance of the fixture melting or burning, LED electronics do not like heat and their life span is greatly reduced to weeks/months instead of years.

crip659
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    Even when used properly, a lot of LED bulbs die from heat before their allegedly rated lifespan. So I'd definitely be reluctant to exceed any ratings if you want the bulb to last. – Glenn Willen May 01 '23 at 01:36
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    It's an open design, open above and below, with the bulb above the base. It's hard to imagine this lamp having heat issues with an 11w bulb or with any LED bulb. It will dissipate a lot of heat nicely. You could try it and monitor surface temps with a cheap thermometer. – jay613 May 02 '23 at 02:33
  • One thing both the question and this answer lacks is the mention of an LED bulb's "incandescent equivalent" rating versus its actual power draw. If the bulb were labeled as "11W equivalent" its actual power rating would likely be in the 1.5W-2W range, making it safe for the fixture in question. That said I've never seen a bulb labeled as "11W equivalent", but I *have* seen many bulbs labeled as "75W equivalent" with an actual power rating of 11W. – Doktor J May 02 '23 at 14:06
  • @DoktorJ 11w is very low for an incandescent bulb, more in the area of Christmas/night lights, than standard/common size bulbs. I do not even remember seeing any incandescents(non special) below 40w. – crip659 May 02 '23 at 14:26
  • @crip659 somewhat of a segue, but 25W incandescents were relatively common and, while less common, you can still find [15W E26-base bulbs](https://www.homedepot.com/p/303762181) (though 15W was/is more common with the E12 "candelabra" base configuration). But notably, incandescent ratings (other than "energy savers") tended to be in increments of 5W at/above 10W, so an LED bulb calling itself an "11W equivalent" wouldn't make much sense, they'd either round and say "10W equivalent", or more likely, exaggerate and say "15W equivalent". – Doktor J May 03 '23 at 15:20
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If your only concern is about the maximum brightness of the light, you can get high efficiency LED bulbs. 8.5W is roughly equivalent to a 60W incandescent at standard efficiency levels and 11W to a 75W incandescent.

However you can get high efficiency bulbs that put out a lot more light per watt. These bulbs for example put out 1400 Lumens for 8W; which is brighter than a typical 100W incandescent bulb.

Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight
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    I'm _highly_ skeptical of that bulb's claim of 175lm/W (about double the average), especially with a warm color temp (cooler temps punch harder on the human-focused lumen scale). AFAICR, that would be the most efficient bulb yet, and all the runner-ups are very high power very cold white factory-type designs, like "300W replacements". – dandavis May 02 '23 at 03:19
  • @dandavis They're real. You can thank Dubai for pushing for super high efficiency bulbs at ~2x standard (3W for 600L), by using a lot more LED elements at more efficient lower voltages. https://www.mea.lighting.philips.com/consumer/dubai-lamp https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-lights-you-cant-buy/ – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight May 02 '23 at 04:19
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    as a bigclive fan, i've made those from dollartree fan bulbs w/their 40v chains, put 4 in series to avoid resistive voltage drop. Problem is, they need a fat 1uf safety cap dropper and a fat (>50uf@200v) filter cap or they really flicker (only getting fed at the top 10% of the sine wave, >160v). I don't see nearly enough room in those bulbs for such capacitance. The longer filaments i've seen are 60v, so in 2p2s that's 120v, anything higher (US is 175v P2P) turns to heat. That, and it's an amazon bulb from china "made" by a no-name brand; scale the listed Chinese lumens by 0.5 to get metric... – dandavis May 02 '23 at 06:10