Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is definitive proof. They over-drive the LEDs which is why they die so quickly. If they were under-driven they last much much longer. It's the heat that kills them IIRC.
WTF do you mean? All led lamps are PWM meaning they flicker meaning they are not at 100% over time.
How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
311–320 of 324 posts
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
WTF do you mean? All led lamps are PWM meaning they flicker meaning they are not at 100% over time.
https://blog.1000bulbs.com/home/current-underdriving-and-ove...
That barely answers anything. If you want more light make the pwm cycle on longer, even up to just driving it with the smoothest dc you can.
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
PragerU isn’t libertarian. This indicates you don’t understand their biases. The “Akschually” snark indicates both that you don’t observe HN guidelines and that you are not arguing in good faith. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
You assume too much stuff, man. This is just an internet forum for us technology well paid proletarians, you shouldn't take it that seriously.
Non-answer
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not on people to watch hour long youtube videos to rejoin your argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
Good point, but this would apply to ongoing debate. In this case person jumped in into conversation with the premise "I don't have time to listen to arguments but here's mine opinion". The thing is, all the theories of communication for persuasion (Social Judgement Theory and Elaboration Likelihood Model mostly) boil down to "hear your audience". If you really want to convince or persuade anyone, the starting point i…
> And here this free lunch is thrown away just to be replaced with "here is my opinion and I don't care about arguments" communication style. That's not a starting point for debate at all.
I'm sorry if it came across that way but I absolutely didn't mean it like that. I'm happy to have my point refuted. I am a (mechanical) engineer but haven't worked in this specific field professionally, so I felt I might be able to contribute, as making devices sturdier is something I think a lot about. I normally don't mind watching MKBHD's videos, at that point of time I was in a silent place where I couldn't have done it.
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#315> Now an old fashioned light bulb shouldn't be expected to last a decade, but an oven? Funnily enough, there actually was the Phoebus cartel [1] which sought to reduce the lifespan of incandescent light bulbs to around 1,000 hours and raise prices. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
The candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long. The converse is just as true of tungsten filaments as it is of candles.
I know this is a common pop-history thing to cite on the Internet, but I would think hackernews would understand the benefits of standardization.
If every brand's lightbulb has different luminousities how on earth would architects decide how to space fixtures?
This "cartel" is how we avoided a dimness war, like the loudness war we had in digital music a decade or so back
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm convinced this happened recently with LED bulbs as well, even though I've found no definitive proof. The LEDs I installed in my house 10-12 years ago are still going strong, but every newer one I've purchased gives up the ghost within a couple of years. And I only purchase brands with a good reputation, like Feit and the like.
There's a variety of reasons: - Lower-quality components (especially capacitors) being used to meet the lower price point. This is by far the most common failure mode I have experienced, it's never the LEDs dying but the power supply. - Higher-quality LED light is usually result of driving the LEDs harder, causing them to fail earlier. - Probably some other reasons too.
From what I've seen, it's usually skimping on the heatsink over the rectifier.
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, electronics design does not operate outside the bounds of economics. Given a target retail price of ~$1.25/unit -- many of these bulbs are the best design possible. The existence of poor quality products does not indicate malice -- many buyers demand low end products. Cost/quality/performance is an engineering tradeoff without a "correct" answer. The answer is up to the opinion of the customer.
I think that argument only holds when the customer is informed about those specific tradeoffs. The customer will choose the cheap bulbs because they can't be sure the expensive ones are better quality. They often aren't. Buyers want cheap bulbs, they don't want crap bulbs. If that means $1.25/unit is impossible, so be it.
Sounds like their competitors need to advertise better
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
It barely glows. The "lightbulb cartel" was basically a consumer protection because barring major inventions, any deviation from the thousand hour lightbulb would have severe drawbacks in terms of power efficiency or light output.
This, to me, is a red herring. The free market is designed for this. If the bulb lasts 5000 hours, but burns 1/2 as bright, consumers can easily decide what they prefer. And further, the cartel did not have exceptions for product enhancements, or improvements, which might have enabled > 1000 hrs without any drawbacks. Why are people defending this cartel? Market collusion is generally frowned upon.
They absolutely sold long lasting lightbulbs. There were horrible and no one bought them except for specialty scenarios.
The standards were set around what could be sold as a standard lightbulb.
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're rolling out the arbitration clauses like mad recently though. There was an HN post a few years ago about going to arbitration and winning, so it's not a complete lost cause but I guess the damages would be less.
Arbitration is great for companies for multiple reasons: - it avoids costly class actions in "big" cases - it avoids costly discovery in "big" cases - it avoids sky-high damages claims in extreme cases - it allows small everyday fuck-ups to be handled more cheaply than a court However, I'd argue that for this kind of issue, arbitration isn't necessarily worse. Especially in a clear-cut case, you don't need the court…
I admit I'm too lazy to Google, but are arbitration services regulated, so that if they flagrantly refused to rule in favor of a plaintiff in a case where (999/1000) lawyers would agree, can the arbitration service be sent to review the same way a doctor or lawyer could be disciplined? I can't imagine how you could legally sign over the right to sue to an agency that fails to apply basic principles of justice.
Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
#320> Now an old fashioned light bulb shouldn't be expected to last a decade, but an oven? Funnily enough, there actually was the Phoebus cartel [1] which sought to reduce the lifespan of incandescent light bulbs to around 1,000 hours and raise prices. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
I recall reading a quasi-debunking of this. I didn't go down the rabbit hole far enough to understand all the details, but it seems the situation was more complicated than just corporate greed. [1] The topic has been discussed here in the past a few times, including [2] and [3] 1: https://readmedium.com/en/the-phoebus-cartel-was-never-reall... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596792 3: https://news.ycombinat…
>but it seems the situation was more complicated than just corporate greed
Then their strategy worked - if you really believe it's more complicated. Haven't investigated this particular subject, but many others subjects are _made_ complicated to achieve a particular outcome. Along lines of: 'let's protect the children' argument.