What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#71

Post by tialaramex » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #39

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.

All my LED lighting had better efficiency numbers than CFLs. There's not the same saving as going from incandescent because obviously you can only make that saving once. But they're definitely better.

LEDs also don't care about cycles. A CFL doesn't like being cycled on and off very much. So that leaves a temptation to say well, I'll be back in here again in a minute and leave it switched on. No temptation to do that with LED.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#72

Post by sevensor » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #48

Steltek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> until I'm reminded that DC power loss over a distance can hurt bad, even 48VDC telecom power. If you had AC to your house, then a rectifier for a 100V/200V DC circuit through your house, the losses wouldn't be any worse. DC losses are less than AC losses at the equivalent voltage, because the resistance seen by DC is less than the AC impedance.

Certainly at the household scale this is true. I cringe at the inefficiency of rooftop solar panels, hooked up to inverters, powering transformers that supply phones, lights, and electronics. AC in the house is great for an electric oven, vacuum cleaner, or fridge compressor, but so many modern electronic devices would be happy to run off of 5V or 12V.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#73

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#74

Post by Filligree » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

vvanders wrote: post #46

Steltek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Isn't that a function of voltage and not modulation? There might be a cost argument, I'm not sure if solid state step-down DC-DC converters are cheaper than good old cheap transformers.

It's a function of both. At equivalent voltage, DC has much lower loss than AC.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#75

Post by pkaye » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #31

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 c…

Phillips is pretty good on warranty. They either give me a cash back or replacement bulbs. I didn't even keep the receipt so they just ask for a picture of the bulb id information.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#76

Post by 2019ideas » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

I bought some G9 bulbs, and they are not performing like the halogens... It doesn't give me the full RGB like halogens and my house looks pale white(lacks red) instead of full color.

I might go back, I do not like the look of my house, and I find myself turning on my living room lights AND dining room lights. The brightness wasn't there.

There is massive improvement to be made on LEDs still.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#77

Post by mikestew » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

i000 wrote: post #29

BurningFrog wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is precisely Bill Gates attitude, he called it "cute" https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/05/05/bill...

Of course a person with a house the size of Gates' would think it cute. Every house in Medina, WA could switch to LEDs, and the carbon footprint of Gates' house would make the savings a rounding error for that town.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#78

Post by heartbreak » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #45

umvi wrote: post #37

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…

It would have to be high voltage DC. Low voltage just can't send enough power - you need wires as thick as garden hoses. High voltage DC is not useful for the things people use.

I have 48vdc on my phone line which is thin wire and plenty enough power (amps) for very bright lights. This 48vdc phone line has been in my house for twice as long as I've been alive.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#79

Post by taxicabjesus » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #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

> as long as your output colour temperature is in between 5500 to 6000 Kelvins

color temperature is really important. I despise 3300K+ headlights and bulbs.

Philips has a dimmable LED bulb where the temperature varies between 2200K and 2700K. I've also found standard 2200K bulbs. But mostly I prefer using single-color red orange and yellow bulbs.

My understanding is that white LEDs are basically blue/ultraviolet LEDs with phosphors to knock down the energy level of the photons. Do you have any links about the phosphor components used for different color outputs?

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#80

Post by nine_k » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

momentmaker wrote: post #36

The same could be said about every product... Appliances back in the days could last decades. Now you're lucky if they don't break in a few years. What do they say about the best type of customer? The best customer is a repeat customer :)

Just recalculate the price of the built-to-last appliance from 1980 into 2018 dollars. For the same amount, you'll buy a very decently made device today, too.

By the same token, all the large CFL and LED lamps in my house are expensive high-CRI lamps. I've seen two CFLs go due to a failure in internal electronics, likely as a result of a power glitch. The longest-running CFL I had to date ran for 7 years, for 12+ hours a day.