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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#751

Post by roryisok »

This post reads awfully whiny to me. Who cares if the new bulb that's 90% more energy efficient than your old incandescent is not exactly the same color as the totally unnatural electric light you grew up with? Sure, there are some niche areas like the gallery mentioned, where the color and evenness of the light is quite important to display a work of art properly, but the bulb in your downstairs toilet not being yellow enough is not something to get worked up over.

This is as vapid and facile an argument as petrol heads complaining that electric cars don't sound right.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#753

Post by TylerE »

roryisok wrote: post #751

This post reads awfully whiny to me. Who cares if the new bulb that's 90% more energy efficient than your old incandescent is not exactly the same color as the totally unnatural electric light you grew up with? Sure, there are some niche areas like the gallery mentioned, where the color and evenness of the light is quite important to display a work of art properly, but the bulb in your downstairs toilet not being yel…

And even if you are… I use Wi-Fi smart bulbs that cost less than $10 each, full then as well as a white temperature adjustable from an extreme warm orange to piercing blue. 90+ CRI too.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#754

Post by aimor »

mcguire wrote: post #746
aimor wrote: post #633

Some people seem to have different memories than I do of what it was like buying lightbulbs before LEDs came out. I remember incandescents also having a variety of color quality, lifespan, and decorative options. I remember having the choice between bargain bin bulbs and luxurious options, making sure to outfit a room with a single brand so everything looked the same, realizing it's more difficult to read with this o…

Can you get 3-way LEDs? I have some 3-way lamps and I've been casually looking for bulbs but haven't found any. (Yes, I know I could search online and order them. It's not that important.)

Yes, but not at bargain bin prices.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#755

Post by derbOac »

vel0city wrote: post #344
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…

So far I've had better experiences with integrated lighting than individual bulbs. Normally the integrated lighting means they've got more space to try and cram things like power supplies in there and can use a lot of the actual fixture to cool down the electronics. Meanwhile, fixtures designed to not care about the bulbs getting hot roast the LED bulbs and can cause early failure.

Maybe we've just had bad luck. Our integrated lights all failed in less than a year, whereas our bulbs have all lasted a few years at least so far without any failures or apparent changes.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#756

Post by bagels »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #502
chongli wrote: post #465

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? 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…

>It is possible (and not very difficult) to design LED bulbs that will practically outlive their owners It is also possible (and not very difficult) to design incandescent bulbs that will outlive their owners. In fact, the first mass produced light bulbs generally lasted 2,500+ hours. In the 1920s, the major bulb manufacturers formed the 'Pheobus Cartel' in Geneva and secretly colluded to limit the lifespan of bulbs…

2500 hours is 100 days. I hope I live longer than 100 more days :(

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#757

Post by dredmorbius »

Joker_vD wrote: post #558
Zak wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to cram all the infrastructure for an LED lamp into the shape of a light bulb is a bad idea, even if the input power is DC. Good designs for LED lighting have larger surface areas for heat dissipation and some physical/thermal separation between the LEDs and the power supply. A quality power supply does not produce flicker. As other comments have noted, dimming, or even predictable output requires some sort of…

> Trying to cram all the infrastructure for an LED lamp into the shape of a light bulb is a bad idea, even if the input power is DC. Absolutely, the incandescent light bulbs have that shape for a reason: the screw is small because there is nothing to put in it and it doesn't heat, the bulb is large to dissipate all the light and heat it generates. And the LED light bulbs have exactly opposite problems: almost all of…

There are finned LED bulbs which can fit standard Edison Screw sockets, e.g.:

https://www.designboom.com/technology/self-cooling-100-watt-...>

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b5/c2/c5/b5c2c5d69fb240a571ba...>

It's also helpful to recognise that existing lighting fixtures and lamps were designed around the constraints of incandescent bulbs. The first generation of LED bulbs and lamps largely conform to these. As LEDs mature, both fixtures and lamps which address the limitations and requirements of the technology (transformers, perhaps dedicated 12v circuits, heat dissipation for the transformer rather than lighting elements themselves, and better light-temperature and intensity regulation) should emerge.

We're presently in the somewhat-messy half-emerged state. Think horseless carriages, wireless, and the days of dual gas/electric lighting and lamping systems (yes, these existed, and yes, the failure modes were ... much as you might imagine).

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#758

Post by Someone1234 »

foobarian wrote: post #66

I had an epiphany this year that I don't need to conform to the lightbulb socket interface any longer, now that things like straight-wired LED modules [1] are available. They waste a lot less space on unnecessary hardware, and can therefore fill more space with useful light producing material. I've been slowly converting my big round ceiling fixtures and the light and dimming performance is nothing short of miraculou…

So now changing the "lightbulb" becomes an infinitely harder task, and in some areas requires you to pull a permit and or hire an electrician (e.g. do you think a retiree is going to change this themselves?). This seems nice predicated that LEDs last 10-years or longer, which per the article and elsewhere isn't the case.

This movement away from standard bulb-sockets to direct wiring is short-term-ism at its finest. Least of all because very time you rewire this, you're going to degrade or shorten the wires.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#759

Post by zaroth »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #700
zaroth wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean… just here in this comment section are suggestions for suppliers of premium LEDs that I would trust based on the karma rating of the people who posted the links. Googling for “premium LED high ratings 95 cri” or searching on Amazon definitely isn’t going to work, because they will just send you to the highest bidder, or the most proficient scammer.

The comment section is great , but if I need to find out quality of a random consumer product, what is the chance I will find it in this comment section? like 1%?

You go where the people who might know better talk about these things!

AV forums for picking a TV or projector, cooking forums for picking a knife set, and HN, you know, for picking the contrast level of your text.

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