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…
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.
What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
371–380 of 519 posts
Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I've found to help weed out the worst of the worst is to only buy dimmable versions of the bulbs. They cost more but because they have to support dimming they're almost required to have a better power supply to handle the usual triac based control that most dimmers have.
Not sure this always holds. The worst bulbs I've personally seen for flicker were dimmable ones. The non-dimmable variant from the same range had no noticable flicker. Price paid also seems to be no indicator of quality – I've had premium LED bulbs from major makes, bought from a reputable wholesaler, that have died after 6 months within days of each other. I've had cheap no-name imports that have lasted years and ha…
Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Are they worse than CF bulbs? Those seemed like they should have been a nightmare for RF.
Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#374Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#375Lifetime 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 saw a test in a Swedish newspaper lately that showed IKEA's cheapest lightbulbs as one of the less flickery ones in the test. IKEA art.nr 303.887.64. So much for the price to guide you.
Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#376As others have mentioned, it seems all backwards that each bulb is converting AC/DC internally, and does not appear to have much in the way of heat dissipation for the converter or the LED chip(s). I've built a lot of LED lighting setups, and even with the most efficient chips and converters, extremely underdriven, the footprint required to run efficiently and dissipate heat in a way that will let them last 10-20 yea…
I've thought about the idea of wiring my entire house with DC for the lighting parts, for exactly this reason. But the fact that I'd have to sell my house one day stops me.
Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah gas discharge lamps (CFL, neons, halides) will flicker at twice the mains' frequency on a single-phase circuit, makes it very dangerous to use them as e.g. factory lighting. You can mitigate that by using 3-phase power supplies, high-frequency controller, or by supplementing the basic lighting with incandescent bulbs around machinery. The stroboscopic effect is really fun right until you're in a place with lots…
I do some occasional wood-turning, but usually augmented with ambient daylight - along with the dubious safety advantage of having a very noisy electric motor.
Plus I'm old enough to have used a timing light hanging off a distributor on my first car. Try explaining that to the kids of today. ; )
Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#378Lifetime 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…
The rotating / reciprocating mass may appear stationary at some RPM.
Just a reminder to only ever use incandescent or halogen lights around machinery you can touch while in operation: drills, lathes, mills, slotting machines, etc.
Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah gas discharge lamps (CFL, neons, halides) will flicker at twice the mains' frequency on a single-phase circuit, makes it very dangerous to use them as e.g. factory lighting. You can mitigate that by using 3-phase power supplies, high-frequency controller, or by supplementing the basic lighting with incandescent bulbs around machinery. The stroboscopic effect is really fun right until you're in a place with lots…
Absolutely - the way he described it sounded like a horrendous accident waiting to happen, especially for smaller / home shops where the operator may not be aware of the problem. He was under the expectation that LEDs solved this problem, though he is using drop-in LED tubes that may have some better persistence through the off-cycles. I do some occasional wood-turning, but usually augmented with ambient daylight - a…
Re: What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
These result, generally, in a 120Hz flicker, which some people are sensitive to.
There’s no reason they can’t smooth out the power like other lamps (except space). The linked article mention manufacturers already doing this in 2014, surely you’ll find flicker-free versions. These are all over home improvement shops over here.