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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#601

Post by distortedsignal »

> The impetus is on you to decide when things have started to look uncanny. “I wish that would be addressed by the industry — like, maybe if it reached a certain light-loss factor, it would just shut down, you know?” Nelson said. “Or if it shifted in color past a certain point, it went into failure mode.”

This is complicated, and I don't think the consumer knows what they're asking for. From my understanding (and watching a lot of Big Clive lightbulb teardowns on YouTube), this would require an active sensor in the bulb. Most of the circuits in these bulbs are embarrassingly simple - 3-4 mostly passive components, and 1-2 silicon based chips or raw transistors. If you add an active sensor to that system, your cost balloons significantly. Then you have to calibrate the sensors. Then we get into the "printer cartridge" problem, where "my light bulb won't turn on because it's insufficiently cyan, but I only want a red light."

We didn't know that we wanted things when we had incandescent bulbs. Now that we're being forced to switch away from incandescent bulbs and use a new technology, users are able to ask for things. I think that's partially exciting (users having preferences is good!), but it's also potentially complicated by companies not providing low-cost solutions that are as good as the old thing. So, overall, good and bad.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#602

Post by [deleted] »

6510 wrote: post #594
xxs wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

incandescent light bulbs efficiency increases with their temperature/current. At low enough current they will last long enough but waste a lot energy as well. You can dim them, and provide a slow start to prevent the inrush current (which is like 10times more than nominal with tungsten resistance increasing due so high 2500K temps).

put them in series

[deleted]

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#603

Post by elcritch »

_rs wrote: post #492
notatoad wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just because somebody decides to geek out about LED bulbs, does't mean all those stats that are theoretically measurable actually make a difference. the 4-for-$10 A19 LED bulbs from amazon or ikea are flicker free to my eyes. i've bought some fancy bulbs with big metal heatsink bases, supposed "high CRI" ratings, equivalently high price tags. to my eyes, i can't see the difference. the super-cheap bulbs from one of t…

> are flicker free to my eyes Very rarely will bulbs visibly flicker in my experience. What happens instead is after several hours I'll start to get headaches and feel fatigue without knowing exactly where it's coming from. Since I replaced my Hue bulbs (which flicker, and I proved it by just using my smartphone camera even) I've felt so much better at home

I second the A19 and other bulbs from Ikea. I live right next to an Ikea and it turns out their bulbs are pretty good. Even the housing feels better than Phillips or others.

I used to have an expensive Phillips light alarm and it flickered like no other. Especially if you lower the dimming you'll tend to see more flickering or just notice an "ick" feeling with crappier bulbs.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#604

Post by com2kid »

chongli wrote: post #465
jghn wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem for me is, as a consumer, how do I know that brand X is producing quality bulbs that'll last a long time? I'm very happy to pay more for that. How does one sift through marketing to get to actual quality? And then how do I know that they stick with the high quality approach? What happens when a brand decides to rest on the laurels of their brand name and start slipping in lower quality parts?

The big problem for me is, as a consumer, how do I know that brand X is producing quality bulbs that'll last a long time? The issue is that LED bulbs aren’t simple devices like incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs have an electronic power supply inside which drives the LEDs at a constant current. Power supply design is a major subfield of electronics engineering and there are all kinds of tradeoffs you can make to optimize…

Take a time machine back to 2001, any LEDs you bought back then will likely last over 60 years.

Of course they won't be as efficient, and output very little light, but they will last forever. (also, no white, but hey, win some lose some!)

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#605

Post by Thrymr »

cogman10 wrote: post #222
JohnFen wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all LED bulb failures are because the power supply died due to overheating, not the LEDs themselves. I harvest the LEDs out of dead bulbs to use in hobby projects. With Edison-style bulbs, anyway, the orientation they're mounted in makes a huge amount of difference. They're last a lot longer if they're oriented upright (base down) than in any other orientation because it reduces the heat buildup in the power s…

This is the frustrating thing about LEDs that IDK we can change. If there was a "DC" light socket in the house we could have LEDs outlasting owners, and for cheap. Nearly all the expense of LED bulbs is the power supply. Everything else is dirt cheap. A single home DC power supply with ~200W of output could light an entire house, flicker free. What's even more frustrating is I think we could fix it. A national regula…

We _could_ even have standard DC bulbs for lamps with built-in standard power supplies, but they don't really exist.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#606

Post by com2kid »

Tarball10 wrote: post #528
jghn wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem for me is, as a consumer, how do I know that brand X is producing quality bulbs that'll last a long time? I'm very happy to pay more for that. How does one sift through marketing to get to actual quality? And then how do I know that they stick with the high quality approach? What happens when a brand decides to rest on the laurels of their brand name and start slipping in lower quality parts?

California's JA8 certification requires LED bulbs to meet specific criteria related to efficiency, lifespan, and light quality. - Efficiency >= 45 lumens per watt - CRI >= 90 - R9 Color Rendering value >= 50 - Rated life >= 15000 hours - Minimum dimming level - Flicker Theoretically if a bulb is listed as JA8 compliant (and the certification isn't fake) you know it at least meets these thresholds.

> - Rated life >= 15000 hours

And what do you do when the lightbulb burns out after only 3 years? The product has long since changed SKU, the manufacturer gets to claim they fixed any deficiencies (and it'll take years to find out if they are telling the truth), and you long since lost any proof of purchase.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#607

Post by ghayes »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #213
derbOac wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar reaction to the article. I actually am opposed to bans on traditional incandescent bulbs but vastly prefer LEDs and have no desire to go back to them. Using LEDs was a shock to me initially mostly because, as you point out, with traditional household incandescents there wasn't a whole lot of options. So suddenly when I had to pay attention to color profiles and so forth more carefully, I wasn't expect…

> I actually am opposed to bans on traditional incandescent bulbs AFAIK, there are no simple bans on them [ EDIT: in the USA ]. What exists are energy performance standards, which these bulbs do not meet. If you want, you can say that this is nit-picking, and that of course that's a ban. But when we have energy performance standards for, say, cars, nobody says it is a ban on cars, just a effective end to the producti…

But if we said cars need to achieve over 1000mpg, then it would be effectively a ban on ICE, right?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#608

Post by kldavis4 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #458
Agentlien wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a lot of the other comments here before yours and they all seemed to describe a reality very different from my own experience. Then I saw yours and it suddenly makes sense. I am also in the Europe, most other commenters seem to be from the US. Here I find it is very easy to find good LED bulbs with the strength and color profile of my choice and I have used LED in all rooms of my house for the last 10+ years w…

I'm in the US and every single LED bulb I've ever bought - some ten years old - still work fine. I also don't buy the shitty cheap bulbs. I buy mostly Cree's high CRI dimmable bulbs, Phillips high CRI dimmable, or GE high-CRI bulbs if I can't find the Crees (Home Depot stopped carrying them in-store.) The problem is that both the author and a ton of people in this discussion buy shitty, cheap, no-name bulbs and then…

actual Amazon customer reviews of Cree's TBR30-14050FLFH25-12DE26-1-E1-MP (25,000 hour rated life, 90+ CRI):

- Fails after 12 months - Nice and bright while they last - 6 months in, 2 already burned out. - I've already had two die in less than 6 months

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#609

Post by marcosdumay »

drjasonharrison wrote: post #525
jghn wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem for me is, as a consumer, how do I know that brand X is producing quality bulbs that'll last a long time? I'm very happy to pay more for that. How does one sift through marketing to get to actual quality? And then how do I know that they stick with the high quality approach? What happens when a brand decides to rest on the laurels of their brand name and start slipping in lower quality parts?

I was going to dismiss your comment as being naive. Because every generation before us had to deal with the problem of "how do I know that I'm getting quality item X from supplier Y?" See the clay tablet complaining about the quality of a bronze shipment. The answer really is "you have to test it" and frankly return policies at stores generally support purchase, test, and decide to keep or return. An option that many…

> Because every generation before us had to deal with the problem of "how do I know that I'm getting quality item X from supplier Y?"

Up to 70 years ago, item X had an extremely low complexity, and up to some 30 years ago, supplier Y had reliably constant quality between its products.

No previous generation had to deal with the problem we currently have.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#610

Post by antisthenes »

dashundchen wrote: post #571
antisthenes wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, although I'm pretty sure the Sun still trumps any kind of LED grow light output, especially during summer months. That being said, maybe it's a good idea to use a plexiglass UV filter when using it as a workshop light.

My understanding is outside, your pupils will dilate as the light increases, protecting your retina from increased UV. If you had a strong emitter of UV in a relatively dim room, your pupils wouldn't shrink and would allow more damaging UV to hit your retinas.

I'm not sure where you got this understanding from, but the LED lights I'm talking about (grow lights) are definitely bright enough to make your pupils shrink.

> If you had a strong emitter of UV in a relatively dim room

A 150 watt LED right above your head is the opposite of dim.

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