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What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

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Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#11
post #4

Personally I love the heat that an incondecent bulb emits, I can actually keep my hands warm on my keyboard while lowering my room heat. 75 watt bulb with heat versus a 3000 watt space heater.

Depending on where you live, the energy “inefficiency” of a light bulb is no such thing.

In the UK, for example, during winter (and spring and autumn) the heating is appreciated! However, it is 2-3x more costly than using gas central heating. (However however something something whole house vs room-specific heating.)

In the summer, it’s a complete waste though.

Directed infrared heating panels may be the most efficient because they do what you describe - heat you up directly, rather than heat the air in the room.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#12
I've taken every single LED bulb that has failed on me to pieces and it's always the same failure mode. The heatsink compound isn't applied properly to the back of the LED board. The LEDs immediately in the gaps smoke out.

Alas this isn't a problem. If a lightbulb goes, Amazon send me a new one out now free of charge and tell me to throw the old one in the trash.

This is one manufacturer, prevalent on Amazon, the Long Life Lamp Company. Long Life my ass.

They have been replaced by Philips and Ikea LED bulbs now which the oldest are 5 years old now and still going strong.

Edit: one thing to note is the really cheap ones run pretty hot. They have 105 oC rated capacitors in them. If you look at the derating curves at the running temperature they are clearly designed to last just past a year.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#13
post #2

What's the short answer?

Although the article talks of LED wearout, I think the key data was a survey of outdoor LED systems: 10% of failures are the LED itself, the other 90% is support components that fail causing shorter lifetimes.

I'm curious how it compares to the LED filament lighting which can use much simpler power supplies with fewer components which should mean much lower failure rates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_filament

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#14

> Plus, they’ll more than pay for themselves in electricity savings compared to the old, inefficient LED bulbs they replaced. Sure, eventually, but without further context this obsession with light bulbs always sounds a little bit penny wise and pound foolish to me. The relative cost of lighting on the monthly electricity bill is tiny so those savings are pretty small. Getting a more efficient fridge, washing machine…

I think people are always overly focused on things they personally touch and see.

Thus environmental policy centers on shopping bags, straws, and light bulbs, rather than things that objectively have real environmental impact.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#16
post #9
post #2

What's the short answer?

The AC-DC or DC-DC converter will likely die long before LED's junction. Primary failure mode is capacitors "drifting" and closing the mosfet inside the buck converter too early. This is why I tell people to buy simple "driverless" LED bulbs. A shitty constant current driver is worse than not having it at all.

But don’t they flicker a LOT?

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#19
I once worked for an offshoot of Sunfor - a chemical company making LED phosphors.

The first driverless, flicker free LEDs on the market were their invention. Basic idea is that if you fine tune phosphor components, and their ratios, you can make a direct 120hz AC driven LED with close to no visible flicker for as long as your output colour temperature is in between 5500 to 6000 Kelvins

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#20
post #12

I've taken every single LED bulb that has failed on me to pieces and it's always the same failure mode. The heatsink compound isn't applied properly to the back of the LED board. The LEDs immediately in the gaps smoke out. Alas this isn't a problem. If a lightbulb goes, Amazon send me a new one out now free of charge and tell me to throw the old one in the trash. This is one manufacturer, prevalent on Amazon, the Lon…

Do not buy "bulbs," they are hopeless. Just buy a whole fixture with a big aluminium PCB and directly bonded chips.
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