Bulbs slip out of downlight

[flob]

I'm at my wits end with these downlights. I finally cracked how to get the bulbs out (literally brute force pull them down somehow, no twisting here sadly) and went to replace them with some decent bulbs to find that the new bulbs just slip straight out. Am I being a moron and are these downlights designed for a specific bulb type? The socket is obviously GU10 but I can't figure out why a 'standard' GU10 bulb just flops itself back out... very frustrating

 

[Murdochcat]

You really have 2 optiond

1. Buy some of these

Crompton Lamps LED GU10 Bulb 4.9W Long Barrel 74mm Cool White 100° (50W Eqv)

An energy efficient 4000K long barrel LED GU10 spotlight bulb with a diameter of 50mm and length of 75mm. Designed to replace a long necked CFL GU10.

www.lightbulbs-direct.com

2. Replace the downlights - but don’t buy sealed units as they are the work of the devil

 

[ericmark]

The conversion from tungsten to compact fluorescent resulted in a longer bulb, to get these to fit some sort of conversion was required, or they would stick out of the holder, in your case it seems a spring clamp to grip the barrel of the bulb, so as @Murdochcat has shown, there are also surrounds with circlips which I found here but may be easier just to swap the lights.

 

[flob]

Thanks both, yeah in my old place we had what I would deem the 'nice' ones where you just twist the inner bezel and it popped out. These are just plain awful because sometimes there's not even a gap between the bezel and the light so getting something up behind them is a pain!

I think for now I'll just shell out the extortionate cost for the 'fatter' bulbs, I think long term plan though will be to replace all my downlights with normal ones.

 

[ericmark]

I don't in general like down lights, my son changed the lighting in the kitchen from a 22 watt 5 foot LED replacement for a 58 watt fluorescent to 16 down lights, and the lighting was no better as it is simply absorbed by the floor.

Nothing wrong with GU10 bulbs, in a pod aimed at dark areas they work well, but when pointing down, you need a light with a good spread, and area matters, so 5 inch is better than 2 inch, and a foot square even better. I have looked at the gx53 LED bulb, never tried them, but look better than the GU10.