LED Bulb Retrofit For Halo 998 Eyeball Trim

This instructable describes how to modify Halo 998 eyeball trim pieces to accept the LumiSelect PAR/R16 dimmable light bulb from earthled.com.

The LED bulb is too large to fit through the eyeball opening of the trim piece, but with a little bit of effort and some machine screws, you can make the bulbs fit perfectly in the eyeball trim, and they look like they were made just for this purpose.

For each light, you will need:
(1) Halo 998 Eyeball Trim Piece
(1) 4" Recessed Can, such as H99RT
(1) LumiSelect PAR/R16 Dimmable LED Light Bulb
(2) 4x40 3/4" machine screw
(4) 4x40 nut

Step 1: Remove Lamp Socket

The trim piece has a lamp socket that the light bulb screws into. This socket needs to be disconnected from the trim piece.
On the particular trim pieces I have, the lamp socket is held in place by two rivets. Using a drill bit, carefully drill out the rivets, freeing the lamp socket from the trim piece.
Be sure to remove all metal shavings from the trim piece and lamp socket.

Comments

[DrJeff]

This article describes exactly the solution I am looking for, but I can't find anything on the earthled.com website that matches either "PAR" or "R16". Since the size and shape of the bulb are pretty important to making this instructable work, I'm trying to figure if there is a LumiSelect bulb on the site that would work (it doesn't look like it), or if the ZetaLux 2, for example, would work in the Halo eye-ball fixture.

[jeremybrooks]

I don't see the bulb that I used listed any longer. I suggest contacting the people at EarthLED. They have answered my emails promptly in the past.

[DrJeff]

I don't understand backing the first set of nuts out against the lamp socket. The bulb itself and the 2nd nuts are what holds the socket in place. The first pair of nuts aren't doing anything, and their position -- back or forward -- doesn't do anything. What am I missing?

[jeremybrooks]

It's been a while since I did this. I think I did it this way so that the two nuts hold the socket in place without needing to pull the bulb against the housing. I didn't want to put pressure on the front of the bulb.

[lightfans]

The operational life of current white LED lamps is 100,000 hours. This is 11 years of continuous operation, or 22 years of 50% operation. The long operational life of an led lamp is a stark contrast to the average life of an incandescent bulb, which is approximately 5000 hours. If the lighting device needs to be embedded into a very inaccessible place, using LEDs would virtually eliminate the need for routine bulb replacement.