211–220 of 519 posts
Two of my Cree bulbs failed a couple months from each other about five years into a 22-year advertised life. I realized it wasn't worth it to pay to ship them the bulbs for replacement, so I just decided not to buy more Cree bulbs.
You literally ganked yourself, here.
And they pay shipping.
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 :)
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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".
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…
I always imagined homes would migrate to 12VDC and converge electronics with RVs.
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To convert from AC to DC you need a transformer and a rectifier and there will be energy loss during the conversion.
You only need a rectifier, the transformer is only needed for isolation, if you need that.
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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…
A competing manufacturer can always offer a product that last longer and warranty it, and people might choose to purchase it depending on the price. 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.
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.
It never answers the question. It has an anecdote about the author's own lamps that ran an estimated 15-20k hours with an advertised lifespan of 30k and have degraded to the point where they will replace them. That's n=1 and nowhere near 100k hours, or even 50k as the author mentions early-adopters will remember seeing advertised.
The article contains a lot of info, but does not actually answer the original questions it poses in the title and the second paragraph.
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…
As an amateur radio operator, LEDs have been the absolute bane of my (and thousands of other city-based hams') receiver. Those same modules not only produce ungodly amounts of heat, but also loads of radio-frequency interference that has been contributing to the increase of the global HF noise floor over the last decade. And it's not only hams, but also other radio spectrum users, like mariners - http://www.professio…
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So which led light bulb do you install in your house?
Ikea when the size is available, for reasons I cannot discuss here.
- longevity - when used with a dimmer - when a large load is applied to the same circuit
Most other bulbs fail one of those, but I haven't had an ikea branded bulb do poor in any condition.