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UKCA (or CE) marking required for LED ceiling lamps?

Andrew J

One for the sparkys here in the UK: does an LED ceiling lamp sold in the UK market require a UKCA (or CE) marking?  Any other marking to show regulatory compliance, if necessary?

I ask, because I have received a LED ceiling lamp that has 7 arms with LEDs in a round metal holder at the ends.  It is intended for direct connection to the 240V lighting circuit with the full voltage going to each metal holder at the end of the arms (no earthing point in those metal holders.)

The ceiling rose is also metal, has no earthing point, has 30AWG (or close) out to the LED holders intended to be connected to supplied (but not fitted) slightly thicker wires which then need to be connected to the lighting circuit.  Frankly, it looks dangerous to me and I'm not installing it; really I ought to have known better but there you go, impulse purchase.

I'm going to push for money back and wanted to know if a lack of regulatory marking was something I could add to the evidence.

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  • 0

    I've not been following the latest, but I think UKCA might be (or becoming) unessential now, provided the CE mark is there. All a mess. But for sure there should be either CE or UKCA on it, if not both. But I don't have a reference you could point them to : (

    We use 5-arm ceiling fixtures, but went with retro-fit, i.e. each stem has an Edison E14 socket on the fixture.

    Now big problem with that, is that the LED bulbs with E14, are not as good as LED bulbs with E27. Simply because there's more space for electronics+cooling with E27.

    But the traditional multi-arm fixtures are more commonly E14. The solution there was to insert in E27-to-E14 adapters. They don't look too bad, although obviously the bulb will protrude from the fixture slightly.

    The adapters that we used came from cp-lighting.co.uk (they seem reasonable, nothing spectacular).

    image

    EDIT: Hm, those adapters are out of stock. But I'm sure there must be other manufacturers of those. 

    image

  • 0 in reply to shabaz

    They’ve used SMD LEDs.  By popular demand, here’s a couple of photos.  I would have to find a safe way to connect those tiny wires to mains circuit wires - there’s a small number of those dunce cap type connectors included and presumably I’m supposed to connect 7 pairs of these to mains wiring in one cap.  The chips are unmarked and there are no parts on the back of that card.  I don’t trust any of this to stick it on a downstairs ceiling underneath our bedroom.  To be fair, I wouldn’t put it up anywhere.

    image

    image

  • 0 in reply to Andrew J

     This is where the ferules you used in your roadtest of the Knipex crimpers and Wago connectors really shine.  That 0.25mm wire is just too tiny for my chubby fingers. Laughing

  • 0 in reply to Andrew J

    looks like a typical circuit:

    live voltage -> rectifier, smoothing capacitor with bleeding resistor -> LED driver with current sense/set resistor.

    I bet that the wire is sufficient for the low current that this takes: +- 12W at 240V is way below 100 mA

  • 0 in reply to Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps said:
    I bet that the wire is sufficient for the low current that this takes

    The issue perhaps is when you connect it to a lighting circuit and your fault current exceeds that wire gauge in the light fitting. If there is no fuse between the fitting and the circuit, then you end up with a fire starter.

  • 0 in reply to beacon_dave

    In Europe, it's very rare  to have a fuse there. Same with appliances and utility plugs: fused at the fuse box, 

    I know it's different in UK installations.

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