191–200 of 519 posts
So, engineering lead of a (outdoor) led Luminaire manufacturer here. And our sales director used to work for one of the biggest Asian light bulb OEMs. Happy to answer specific technical questions out there that this article triggered.
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I bought a pile of cheap LED bulbs[0] when they first became available on Amazon Canada, and replaced every light in my home. They've run cheap and cold for years now, without a single failure. I suspect that there's some planned obsolescence in newer products. 0: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B01EN9L8YU?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_m...
Nobody is going to deliberately sabotage their LED bulbs because nobody really has a monopoly on them. They probably use cheap components that are only rated for the warranty period, but that isn't "planned obsolescence".
I think it gets worse as time goes on, because manufacturers gain experience with the lifespan of their components and learn exactly where they can cut. If you’re not quite sure how long something will last, you’ll probably err on the side of caution and engineer it to last longer than needed in case you got it wrong.
So, engineering lead of a (outdoor) led Luminaire manufacturer here. And our sales director used to work for one of the biggest Asian light bulb OEMs. Happy to answer specific technical questions out there that this article triggered.
So, engineering lead of a (outdoor) led Luminaire manufacturer here. And our sales director used to work for one of the biggest Asian light bulb OEMs. Happy to answer specific technical questions out there that this article triggered.
How much does it cost to make a LED bulb that runs no hotter than 45C at all times?
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Slight tangent but "in-building DC" exists, and is rapidly gaining popularity but not via the medium many assumed: Power Over Ethernet. You can buy PoE LED light fixtures now, which are both powered and controlled over ethernet. You buy a single PoE switch, run some low voltage Cat6, and you can power an entire floor's worth of lighting. EEPoE (Energy Efficient PoE) offers more efficient PoE too which claims up to 94…
you can power an entire floor's worth of lighting ? Must be either very low current lighting or that's some pretty beefy Cat6. I think the average Cat6 cable is only 24 gauge and that won't carry a lot of current very far.
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Do not buy "bulbs," they are hopeless. Just buy a whole fixture with a big aluminium PCB and directly bonded chips.
I've started doing this. Bought a large panel fixture and a separate high-quality LED current source and it has been absolutely great. Next time I build a house I'll probably run all the lighting circuits on a hefty 24VDC main power supply with small DC/DC regulators on every fixture. There's no reason nowadays why lighting circuits should be 120 or 240VAC.
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yeah, darn those pesky laws around liability getting in the way of some good old-fashioned handiwork.
The law once mandated that you hire the services of a licensed electrician to replace a lightbulb. Imagine if the same laws where applied to tech. Need to update Microsoft office? No way arround it you need to hire the services of a licensed IT professional! You might get electrocuted in the process not being a professional. So it all makes sense.
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Nobody is going to deliberately sabotage their LED bulbs because nobody really has a monopoly on them. They probably use cheap components that are only rated for the warranty period, but that isn't "planned obsolescence".
Nobody is going to sabotage them, but they’re also not going to spend money making them list one minute longer than they really have to. If you’re focused on the short term or think reputation isn’t a big driver of your sales, then your product really doesn’t have to last very long. I think it gets worse as time goes on, because manufacturers gain experience with the lifespan of their components and learn exactly whe…
However, as the article notes, people may not be interested in paying a premium for a product that lasts 10y instead of 5y or 20y instead of 10y, since the tech can change or maybe it’s susceptical to other kinds of degradation.
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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.
Look on the bright side- in terms of real power, the electric oven, vacuum cleaner, AC compressor, and fridge compressor totally swamp the entire load, waste and all, of those 5V devices. In a perfect world we'd have both AC & DC, and could use whichever was most appropriate. We could feed DC straight from the solar panels to the cell phone. But in terms of what consumes most of the power, in the typical home it's AC…