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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?

#311

Post by nkurz »

I'm surprised that there is no mention in the article of "filament led" bulbs (and very little mention in the comments): https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/led-filament-bu.... They are based on the simple idea of stacking enough small LED's that they can run on mains voltage. You still need a rectifier to go from AC to DC, and a capacitor for smoothing, but no voltage conversion means there are fewer parts to fail. And multiple smaller LED's makes the heat dissipation much easier, so they tend to run cool.

I've been using them for a couple years, and think they are so much better than the previous generations of CFL's and heat sink LED's that would quickly fail, especially in enclosed fixtures. I'm buying cheap ones from Amazon, and occasionally I get early failures, but lifespan after initial burn in has been excellent. Like others, I often wonder why they haven't taken over the market: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/why-haven_t-filament-led-b...

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#312

Post by tdhz77 »

djtriptych wrote: post #93

My experience has been totally positive, although limited to an early release of the full color Philips Hue bulbs which are like $50/each. The Hue app kinda sucks but those bulbs have been going strong for 4-5 years. No failures of course, and one bulb that was left outside (covered) in NYC and always on for almost two years. No issues at all, and runs very cool.

Economically it’s a disaster but technically Hue lights are a wonder. Every bulb is a Hue @ my house. I can make it a 80’s Miami nightclub or make the rooms feel bigger with bright light. It’s nice.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#313

Post by vanderZwan »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #27
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. Getting a more efficient fridge, washing machine, TV or (in our profession) computer typically has a much bigger effect on electricity expenses. And that is assuming your heating and cooking is done with gas. The switch from using tiny space heaters for light to using LEDs that consume a tenth of the power was a…

I have to admit that I have used only CFLs for decades (with a few exceptions where the produced heat was a positive side-effect, not a negative) and had not considered there are plenty of households that still use incandescent light bulbs.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#314

Post by Guereric »

lucb1e wrote: post #218

... so what happened to the 100k hour LED bulbs? 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, bu…

It's implied in the conclusion that 100,000 hours are not necessary because the progress of technology results in more efficient, brighter, and higher CRI bulbs.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#315

Post by robocat »

tlb wrote: post #101
vvanders wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, it's entirely a function of voltage. But the safe limit for DC voltage is lower for two reasons: - A shock from a DC supply will cause heart fibrillations at lower voltage than AC, because of the way muscles receive signals from nerves - An electrical arc from a DC line will burn continuously, while an AC arc tends to self-extinguish at each zero-crossing. So in practice, 120 VAC or 48 VDC are the limits for hou…

> So in practice, 120 VAC or 48 VDC are the limits for household wiring

About 20% of the world uses 110-120 V and 60Hz. The rest uses mostly 240V at 50Hz.

Although 110V is safer, the US seems to ignore many of the safety features I see used elsewhere in the world.

How that translates to deaths per million people per year comparing to similarly rich countries, I don't know.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#316

Post by pistachiopro »

mrb wrote: post #235

Lifetime isn't even my #1 concern with LED bulbs. It's strobing/flickering. I film all the LED bulbs I buy in slow motion at 240 fps with an Android phone, and play the movie back on a PC with mplayer using the dot(".") key to move frame by frame. Here is a shot I made comparing 2 brands of LED bulbs: https://youtu.be/QbenId_F2RQ (Edit: yeah you don't have to transfer to a PC, just playing back in slow motion on the…

I completely agree, flicker has been the most distracting part of switching to LEDs, for me.

Here are two good sites that posted graphs of light intensity over time for a bunch of different bulbs: http://www.ledbenchmark.com/ http://sle.se/michael/led/ (Swedish)

Unfortunately, they both stopped updating around 2015. Anyone know of similar sources for more recent bulbs?

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#317

Post by pitaj »

nkurz wrote: post #311

I'm surprised that there is no mention in the article of "filament led" bulbs (and very little mention in the comments): https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/led-filament-bu... . They are based on the simple idea of stacking enough small LED's that they can run on mains voltage. You still need a rectifier to go from AC to DC, and a capacitor for smoothing, but no voltage conversion means there are fewer parts…

These result, generally, in a 120Hz flicker, which some people are sensitive to.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#318

Post by Jedd »

mrb wrote: post #235

Lifetime isn't even my #1 concern with LED bulbs. It's strobing/flickering. I film all the LED bulbs I buy in slow motion at 240 fps with an Android phone, and play the movie back on a PC with mplayer using the dot(".") key to move frame by frame. Here is a shot I made comparing 2 brands of LED bulbs: https://youtu.be/QbenId_F2RQ (Edit: yeah you don't have to transfer to a PC, just playing back in slow motion on the…

A metal working friend told me recently that in Australia we're not meant / allowed to use fluorescent lights above lathes, as the flicker can disguise movement.

This is slightly worrying.

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#319

Post by Guereric »

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.

What do you think of the Phoebus cartel? Is a form of it still continuing nowadays?

Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?

#320

Post by phasetransition »

ceph_ wrote: post #303
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.

What's your take on why so many dimmable LED bulbs have flicker/buzz issues? I've tried through 5 different MR type LED bulbs and every one of them had an extreme flickering issue. All of them were labeled as dimmable. I've had better luck with the standard A type bulbs. But only because there were more thorough reviews available.

There's a myriad reasons why flicker and buzz occur, because there are a number of ways to achieve dimming. But all of this comes down to cost.

If dimming is important to you, there are a number of architectural grade bulbs that offer deep dimming to 5% or 1%.

Personally, for this application, I've had good luck with Cree bulbs of this type at home (on Leviton dimmers). And in the house of worship environment with Cree bulbs on Doug Fleenor dimmers (http://www.dfd.com/dmx8dim.html)

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