There's something off about LED bulbs • Hacker News Board

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#31

Post by iamerroragent » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

eig wrote: post #6

The irony of this article is that the author is suffering from “too much choice”. LEDs have so much more capability than fluorescent and halogen bulbs that the burden has fallen on the consumer to sort out what dimmability, temperature, and lumens they need. It used to be that you only had one option so you didn’t have to think about it. Anyone who works in stage lighting or art knows that light is complicated. We sh…

Yup.

It's unfortunate many of us are not used to terms like lumens that are objectively better than using terms like wattage.

However I do feel over the past few years they have become much better at displaying the important terms on the front of the package.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#32

Post by roflyear » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

gtk40 wrote: post #21

roflyear wrote: post #4

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?

We have a pet tortoise that we use incandescent flood bulbs to heat and provide light. The only consistent place we can find them is at a small mom and pop hardware store (similar to the reference in the article). I just checked our supply and they have a weird import sticker and have text in multiple languages.

Haha, well makes sense I guess!

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#33

Post by timw4mail » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

There is a problem with LED lamps: they need their own power supply to convert AC to DC. This is where a lot of the issues happen. Low quality filtering caps, or just circuit designs with a lot of ripple lead to pulsing. When the filtering cap fails, the bulb often does as well.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#34

Post by dghughes » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

pcmaffey wrote: post #16

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?

I have an old floor lamp that I converted from halogen to LED. It has a dimmer knob but even when off it didn't turn off the light it was very faint. I thought it was the potentiometer/knob leaking current. I think I also had the issue on a room that also had a dimmer switch, an actual light in the ceiling not a lamp. So it seems to be the dimmer feature that is the issue for me.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#35

Post by timw4mail » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #24

There's a lot wrong with LEDs in general and retrofit (E27 bulbs) in particular. In no particular order - 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 wit…

Not to mention space constraints for power supplies, and cooling the LEDs enough.

For all the benefits of LED lights, incandescent bulbs are infinitely simpler.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#36

Post by BozeWolf » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #27

pcmaffey wrote: post #16

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?

Long story short: Its the wiring. 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. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bgUy6zA0ts

Short story longer: if the led is connected to a dimmer, it can also be that the led is not-dimmable. Or not compatible with the dimmer.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#37

Post by drcongo » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

I don't recognise any of the issues mentioned in this article at all and there must be a hundred odd LED bulbs in my house. I'm wondering if this is a US-specific thing, I'm in the UK.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#38

Post by thrdbndndn » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #24

There's a lot wrong with LEDs in general and retrofit (E27 bulbs) in particular. In no particular order - 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 wit…

> LED emitters driven hard for cost reasons

> Power supplies driven hard for cost reasons

Can you elaborate? What does "hard" mean here, I don't understand.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#39

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

pcmaffey wrote: post #16

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?

Unscrew the bulb. Is it still glowing? If so, it's the persistence of the phosphor. That's been my experience.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#40

Post by willidiots » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 1:46 PM UTC

Majromax wrote: post #25

jmclnx wrote: post #5

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…

> 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. 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…

Glad to see someone referencing BigClive's teardowns and explanations.

As for the business rationale, I think it's less about consumer demand and more about the recurring revenue for the light manufacturers. Products like this exist where mandated - see his video on the Dubai LEDs - but aren't made broadly available.