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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?

#291

Post by droithomme »

masklinn wrote: post #249
droithomme wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going from a Class A to an A+++ washing machine would save ~500Wh/cycle. The major energy cost for clothes washing is heating the water. A rooftop solar water heater dramatically reduces energy use, often more than one would get from using the same space to install solar panels. A front loading washing machine uses less water than a top loading one and will also use less energy for water heating.

> The major energy cost for clothes washing is heating the water. A rooftop solar water heater dramatically reduces energy use, often more than one would get from using the same space to install solar panels. Most modern washing machine are cold-water only, washing machines with a hot water inlet tend to be prosumer. Same with dishwashers.

OK, that's very interesting. It's not true in the US, never seen a cold only machine.

Wait, are you talking about the machines that have an electric heating element inside the washer? And you can still wash warm and hot cycle, but they don't require a connection to the hot water heater? Or are you talking about machines (which I've never seen but am willing to accept exist in other countries) that actually only offer cold cycle as a washing option?

If we're talking about ones with an internal heating element, those generally use about twice as much energy to operate than ones that rely on a hot water intake. But with the two input machines one has to figure out the energy to heat the water as a separate cost, which is what I was mentioning. Gas heated hot water heater will be more efficient than electric heated, and solar heated will be most efficient of all.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#292

Post by phasetransition »

lucb1e wrote: post #227
phasetransition wrote: post #105

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.

Since the article never answered the question, do you know what happened to the 100k hours LED bulbs? Were the initial estimates just over-optimistic? Was it all marketing hype?

I can only guess that the marketing department wanted to put the biggest numbers forward against what was plausible calculations for the early LED lifetimes.

I know for a fact that some of the testing houses have done extended on/off cycle testing for some of the big box retailers looking to keep the lamp vendors honest on real lifetime performance of A19 class bulbs. I've been in such a test chamber.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#293

Post by rmu09 »

brianpgordon wrote: post #278
rmu09 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be the driver is designed for a specific range of equivalent series resistance of the capacitor. High ESR could help with peak current and EMC.

You have to add a resistor across the cap anyway according to the wiring diagram. I think dfox is probably right that it's a voltage rating thing.

That's a bleed resistor to discharge the capacitor when turning off, else it could keep dangerous charge for a long time.

ESR limits current inrush into the capacitor, with ceramic caps you would need some additional current limiting.

Voltage should not be that much of a problem, but there may be other issues with ceramic caps (like cracking due to thermal stress, voltage dependent capacity, microphoning, ...)

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#294

Post by rb808 »

Steltek wrote: post #33
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".

Yes Please for DC power. Especially if it can remove all the power adapters. I think I have more adapters than wall sockets in my house now. Phones, Tablets, electric toothbrushes, shaver, router & switch, wifi access point, rasp pi, cameras, Laptop, Monitor, streaming device, reading light, electric piano, toy train. good grief

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#295

Post by Animats »

tempestn wrote: post #228
tzs wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I replaced around 25 bulbs in my house with cheap Walmart "Great Value" LEDs just under 3 years ago and they've all been fine. Previously, I had replaced around 4 bulbs with Cree LEDs from Home Depot, and half of those were dead within a few months. The Walmart bulbs without any special pricing were way cheaper than the Cree bulbs from Home Depot, but even better, there was some sort of automatic rebate or something…

Those early Home Depot Cree bulbs were definitely defective. We bought a ton of them and have since replaced nearly all under warranty... twice. The first round they replaced with identical ones, which also quickly failed. (Always the same; started with an intermittent flicker, which progressively got more severe and regular.) More recently we've gotten a new design back, which seem better. Fortunately, after the fir…

Yes. I have six failed ones I need to send back. Power supply failures on every one of them within a year of installation.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#296

Post by olyjohn »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #199
mikeash wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't even trust that the company will be around in 5 or 10 years. Or that they won't come back with some BS why they won't honor the warranty, and how it's my fault the bulb is bad. Long warranties are basically worthless anymore.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#297

Post by Shivetya »

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…

two usage cases, one obvious to me but one wasn't.

the first being, areas with vibration meaning near doors and garage door openers. great locations to eat LED bulbs. this might be related to your heat sink adhesive issue.

the second is the upside down tulip light fixtures common in bathrooms, apparently they cook quite well unless ventilated at the top.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#298

Post by phasetransition »

Pheide1j wrote: post #137
phasetransition wrote: post #105

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.

More of a non-technical question, do you see demand for outdoor lights at the red end of the spectrum? Supposedly that's better for night vision, light pollution and various animals. But everywhere I go I see yellowish sodium vapor lights replaced with white LEDs.

We've certainly been asked about amber LEDs for coastal environment projects, so I think there is some demand. Amber LED performance, on the other hand, is a different story.

The lumens out of a legacy high pressure sodium lamp are very high. It is still an engineering challenge to get comparable lumens out of LEDs at price point the market will bear.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#299

Post by droithomme »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #283
droithomme wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you can drop off burned out CFLs in recycling bins at Home Depot and Lowes. However yes, most people don't know about that and just landfill them.

>"we asked to more than 1,000 people at the end of 2009. Then, 68% surveyed threw their last energy saving light bulb in the bin." (Which? [0]) // Bit out of date but indicative of the UK situation I imagine. The best I could do for the USA situation was that [1] shows about 1.5M recycled CFLs in 2010, vs [2] shows about 300M sold in 2009, 0.5% recycle rate ... [0] https://conversation.which.co.uk/home-energy/do-you-…

The problem here is that no one knows where to recycle them. There's only a few locations in the US that recycle them and they don't accept consumer drop offs. Local recycling centers and waste centers generally don't accept them separately and just tell you to put them in the main trash. I had 15 years of bulbs stashed in a box in the garage because I didn't want to dump mercury in the landfill even though they told me that was perfectly fine, which I knew was wrong. Eventually an acquaintance told me that they had seen small tube collection boxes near the customer service desk at Home Depot. This is not advertised and is not known to the recycling centers. So the experts just tell people to landfill them when asked. If people knew where to take them it would be more than 0.5% doing it. It wouldn't be 100%, but maybe 50%.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#300

Post by ams6110 »

tzs wrote: post #203
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…

I replaced around 25 bulbs in my house with cheap Walmart "Great Value" LEDs just under 3 years ago and they've all been fine. Previously, I had replaced around 4 bulbs with Cree LEDs from Home Depot, and half of those were dead within a few months. The Walmart bulbs without any special pricing were way cheaper than the Cree bulbs from Home Depot, but even better, there was some sort of automatic rebate or something…

I bought about 100 regular incandescents in various wattages at Lowes before they were banned. I wish I had bought a lot more. They were about $0.25 per bulb at the clearance sale prices. CFLs and LEDs are poor substitutes from a quality-of-light standpoint. Also AFAIK there is no hazardous waste in a burned-out incandescent. You can throw it away with a clear conscience.
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