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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?

#31

Post by umvi »

izzydata wrote: post #10

This is pretty annoying as I replaced every bulb in my house with LED under the assumption that they would last at least a decade. I didn't even think to check a powered-on time rating. Not that using incandescent bulbs is a good option anymore anyway.

I did this as well and was very disappointed/frustrated when bulbs started dying only a year later. Usually they would start flickering more and more frequently until it was really annoying to be in a room with flickering light and I would remove it.

GE even had a warranty so I shipped them back on principle (shipping was nearly the cost of the bulbs themselves) and GE never responded with replacement bulbs. What a crock.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#32

Post by Brakenshire »

vanderZwan wrote: post #7

> 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…

> The relative cost of lighting on the monthly electricity bill is tiny so those savings are pretty small.

Only because of the successes up to this point. Marginal gains in LED efficiency aren't going to do much, but the shift from incandescent to LED has had a big impact.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#33

Post by Steltek »

crispyambulance wrote: post #23

I also have been disappointed with LED "bulbs". They get too damn hot in recessed fixtures but NOT because of the LED's. It's all because of the shitty power converter embedded deep inside the bulb getting too hot and failing. The industry has necessarily had to retrofit to where incandescent bulbs are supposed to go. I think that we'll start to see improvements in this area as people move away from "screw-in bulb" a…

Every so often, I come back to the "I should have DC power on demand in my house!" until I'm reminded that DC power loss over a distance can hurt bad, even 48VDC telecom power.

Perhaps USB-C PD might help? USB power adapters are compact and PD offers standard, useful high power DC. If the adapters become ubiquitous, you could see "USB-C lightbulbs".

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#34

Post by gt565k »

Seems like a capitalistic society will never get away from products with built-in planned obsolescence. It's all about the profits. Buy and replace consumers...

There's a great documentary on planned obsolescence for those that haven't seen it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdh7_PA8GZU

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#35

Post by tachyonbeam »

mikepurvis wrote: post #26
baybal2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wish there was more selection available of that kind of thing— when I last looked a year or so ago there was basically just one option at Home Depot, and it had the aesthetics of something you'd put in the laundry room. Worse than that, though, it was unusable with a dimmer switch; the whole thing visibly flickered every few seconds. I felt bad returning it because I really wanted it to work out, but the quality ju…

I have an LED fixture that I got from home depot that is dimmable, no flickering. It's connected to a normal dimmer switch. I bought it about a year ago.

My other LED fixtures were ordered through aliexpress. The fixtures were fine, but the transformers that came with the fixtures all failed and had to be replaced (overheated, melted the plastic casing). This turned out to be tricky, because the LED drivers available on ebay and aliexpress are never the same, there are constantly new shoddy ones from noname brands, and the ones I had bought before tend to be nowhere to be found when I need a new one.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#37

Post by umvi »

This makes me wonder if we shouldn't have an AC and DC circuits in the house. I mean, it could be all AC coming in, but at the box it splits into (at least) two different circuits (an AC one and a DC one).

AC circuit would still be used for things that have motors, but everything else uses DC.

Imagine how simple LED lighting could be on a DC circuit. Just an LED and resistor.

I only took a few electrical engineering classes so correct me if this is a bad idea.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#38

Post by ip26 »

baybal2 wrote: post #20
setquk wrote: 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.

There's a lot of junk to be sure but tens of Philips & GE bulbs have been doing great for me for a couple years now. They don't run that hot either.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#39

Post by ars »

vanderZwan wrote: post #7

> 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…

And why is he comparing to Incandescent anyway? He should be comparing to CFL, and against CFL LED bulbs are rather poor - more expensive, same energy efficiency, same life. Why do it?

I have LEDs in my house, but only because my local utility pays for most of them. If not for that I'd use only CFL's - they are cheaper, and just as good.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#40

Post by masklinn »

vanderZwan wrote: post #7

> 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…

> Sure, eventually, but without further context this obsession with light bulbs always sounds a little bit penny wise and pound foolish to me.

Might be, might not be, it all depends on the usage of the various items e.g. let's say I've a 100W incandescent kitchen bulb, it's lit 5h/day on average, an equivalent LED would be 12~15W for ~$5 and will save ~3000Wh per week.

Going from a Class A to an A+++ washing machine would save ~500Wh/cycle. And I can buy 50~100 bulbs for the price of the washing machine, so that'd be both penny foolish and pound foolish.

Maybe "without further context" you should avoid hard and fast assertions, should run the numbers and should help people try and profile their energy usage instead of putting down their efforts?

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