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Incandescent bulbs are used for other things than light. Like heating sometimes. Specific applications but I wonder if you'll still be able to get them?
Some of my LEDs continue to glow faintly when off. I assume the efficiency of the bulbs is converting a small trickle of power into light. Has anyone experienced this? Anything to be done?
Some of my LEDs continue to glow faintly when off. I assume the efficiency of the bulbs is converting a small trickle of power into light. Has anyone experienced this? Anything to be done?
- LED emitters driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly
- Power supplies driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly
- Poor CRI and SSRI
- Flickering
- Dim-to-warm is uncommon
- Poorly designed power supplies that age and fail quickly
- The same light quality is vastly more expensive to achieve with LEDs, even if you account for high electricity prices. Good indoor lighting is now something only people with plenty of disposable income can afford.
- It is quite difficult to even buy high quality LEDs as a mere mortal
- Retrofits generally work poorly on principle
- LEDs mix exceptionally poorly, making things even more expensive
I have heard that newer LED Bulbs now have some kind of built in obsolescence. This is from someone I know who is an engineer working for the US military. I told him I had bought some LEDs (started moving over 2 years ago) and that is when he mentioned that. I guess I will find out, so far so good. I did stock up on 100 watt incandescent years ago and have a many left just in case. I found LEDs cause me eye strain, b…
BigClive covers this issue a fair amount on his Youtube teardown videos. It's not exactly built-in obsolescence, so much as being built to cost.
The cheapest way to build an LED bulb is to minimize the number of components. Instead of spreading the light emission out over a couple of dozen LEDs, it's cheaper to use a handful of LEDs but really overdrive them with high currents.
The result is a bulb that's cheap to make, but in ordinary use the chips and phosphors inside will run at high temperatures and degrade much more quickly. This effect will be even more pronounced with enclosed fixtures (like ceiling lights) that have little to no ventilation.
Manufacturers could design their way out of this by increasing the component count (spreading the light generation over more LED chips at lower current), but that's an expense that doesn't translate well to a brand or marketing claim. As it stands, ordinary consumers are unlikely to try to exercise their warranty on a bulb that fails after 1,000 hours rather than a rated 3,000 or so; there's no reason to expect that "this bulb is more expensive but will last a really long time" would make it in the consumer-facing market.
Some of my LEDs continue to glow faintly when off. I assume the efficiency of the bulbs is converting a small trickle of power into light. Has anyone experienced this? Anything to be done?
If you are using the bulb itself to adjust the power level, like with some smart bulbs that you are supposed to leave switched on, it's possible that they never turn off the power completely for some reason. LEDs are dimmed using PWM so they may have an off setting that is like 1% of duty cycle or something, who knows.
Some of my LEDs continue to glow faintly when off. I assume the efficiency of the bulbs is converting a small trickle of power into light. Has anyone experienced this? Anything to be done?
Could be a number of reasons but the most common is either its wired to a dimmer or similar which is leaking some current when its "switched off" or its switched on the netural side and the wiring is acting as a capacitor and letting some current flow.
I am sensitive to low refresh rates - back in the crt days I would visibly notice low refresh monitors and it would give me headaches. Some (low cost?) led bulbs give me the same effect- I can see the rapid flicker. Some hotel rooms are notorious for this. I have led bulbs everywhere (new build, recessed lights). Thankfully they don’t have the flicker effect I’ve seen on other bulbs. And I’ve found that I actually pr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm finding this true with the bulbs I've bought in the past 5 or so years. The first one I bought about 15 years ago is still going, but most, if not all more recent LEDs have died. Even the ones in the basement that are mounted with no case to increase the heat around them. I read the "guarantee" when I buy new bulbs but who keeps receipts or track of light bulbs?
I'm starting to suspect that it's not the LEDs themselves that are failing but the transformer packed inside the base. I haven't really dug in though. Are there any good brands of LED bulbs these days -- bulbs that are likely to work as long as is claimed on the box? I've already scratched GE and FEIT off the list.
LED bulbs make me made because I can't yell at my kids to turn off the lights like my dad used to do to me.
Sure you can. My wife yells at me all the time. I says they are LED stop complaining. She says they are still wasting energy, doesn’t matter the amount.