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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#921

Post by wil421 »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #774
wil421 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greater than 95 or including 95? Most of the Philips brand dimmable LEDs have a CRI of 95. The eco smart is crap at 80 and that’s to be excepted from the cheap house brand. The in ceiling lights I bought to replace a bottom dollar Amazon light was are 94 and I’m pretty sure I bought the cheapest I could that would change temp to match my existing ones. Your friend has shared a link to a Home Depot product they think…

Wifi bulb with an App? Now I have to worry about light bulb security and it selling me out?

No one is forcing you to use it. I have WiFi switches and bulbs. I prefer switches over smart bulbs but I like automating both.

If your paranoid out them on a VLAN that doesn’t have access to your network or don’t connect them at all.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#922

Post by Dylan16807 »

thrashh wrote: post #914
Dylan16807 wrote: post #901

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A few dollars" is a bad way to describe the difference between $2 and $25.

I consider $3.75 for a Phillips 95+ CRI bulb a few dollars more. A Home Depot bulb is like $2.75. I hate that you have to research bulbs but you’re making it out way harder than it is.

But those $3-4 bulbs aren't the ones people were talking about.

Unless you claim they are the same tier as the waveform bulbs?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#923

Post by brodouevencode »

Spooky23 wrote: post #868
brodouevencode wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have those HD bulbs. They are nowhere near as bad as what you just described.

That’s the problem - sometimes they are great. They are more complex devices that use parts from random Chinese suppliers. Incandescent bulbs were very simple. Cheap vs name brand. White vs soft white. 120v vs 130v. LEDs have at least 7 attributes, some of which are not documented well or at all. Tell me what LED bulb is ideal to produce 1500 lumens of output in an outdoor semi-enclosed fixure? It will take about 10…

In the 6 years I've been in my current house, having installed these everywhere in the house upon moving in (total around 80 bulbs), I've had less than ten to flicker or otherwise go bad. Maybe I'm just lucky.

I would prefer incandescents though. The only thing I don't miss about them is the heat. Everything else was superior.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#924

Post by jtbayly »

RHSeeger wrote: post #362
DougN7 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just an anecdote, but I’ve had multiple “10 year” LED bulbs fail after just a year or two. I suspect much of the claims for these bulbs are theoretical as they just don’t hold up, probably for reasons the grandparent poster is pointing out.

Others have commented, but to reiterate - Older LEDs house bulbs were much worse than newer ones; far more prone to failure from "things". I had many of them fail after only a few months because our power was "flickery" and their power supplies could not handle it. That's _far_ less common now. - The power supply / controller circuitry is not a fan of heat. Don't mount them upside down (so the heat floats up to the c…

I’m sorry, but your solution to bad bulbs is to say “you’re holding/using it wrong.”

It’s not my fixtures’ problem.

It’s these crappy bulbs.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#925

Post by jtbayly »

smolder wrote: post #478
jhartwig wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could say that. I have a 3 year old house that is about 3k square feet wiht alot of bulbs. Every bulb installed was LED and I have replaced most of them at this point, and some more then once. I have even had the electrical company come out thinking there was something wrong with the power in my house or the breaker box. Nothing...

I'm repeating myself a lot in this thread, so I'm sorry. What fixtures are the bulbs in? Are they a generic design meant for incandescents? A huge number of fixtures out there don't allow for enough heat to convect away and the bulbs overheat.

“New bulbs came out, everybody replace all your light fixtures.”

No. I like the fixtures I have, and I have no desire to throw them in the landfill so that I can be “environmentally friendly.”

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#926

Post by amluto »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #806
pwg wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but that’s problematic when the next owner tries to screw in a standard bulb - what happens when it sees 48V DC? If by "standard" you mean a incandescent tungsten filament bulb, nothing at all. For a true LED driver power supply, it would be constant current, so the tungsten filament would see 25mA (or whatever the constant current is set for) of DC, and nothing bad would happen (the filament also would not likely…

48V without a current limit shouldn't be nothing , but you should expect less than 10% brightness. For constant current, you'd need to drive at least 9 watts so it would be more like 250mA if not higher. A 1600 lumen LED module might take as much or more current than a 60w incandescent. If your constant current supply can output between 0 volts and input volts, and it's set for a bulb with such a module, it would be…

I suspect the results would be quite poor. Incandescent filaments increase their resistance when they get hotter, so driving them at constant RMS voltage means that the power will decrease as they heat up, which will give them a degree of stability. At constant current, though, the power will increase with increasing temperature.

(Of course, they’re quite hot and radiative cooling increases like T^4, so this isn’t necessarily a show stopper. But it’s probably not helpful.)

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#927

Post by smolder »

ubercore wrote: post #795
smolder wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they in fixtures designed for incandescents? "Boob lamps" for example are highly efficient LED bulb destroyers, since they don't breathe, and the bulbs overheat.

More anecdata, but I had ~20 lights, of various quality (many Hue, some cheaper Home Depot specials) in boob lamps that survived at least 11 summers in a New England house without AC. Still there probably, but I moved out so I can only vouch for 11 years.

That seems especially lucky. I'd guess they're slightly different in design or installation from the ones in my previous apartment (also northeast) that killed several and various LEDs... They stopped dying when I had the idea to shim the cover and create some ventilation. Mine were fairly heavy glass domes and had some insulating material against the ceiling.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#928

Post by garaetjjte »

robocat wrote: post #815
brianwawok wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wiring up a house with 48V for lights and 120V for plugs would be such a pain. Pulling 2 different wires to every room. Weird circuit breakers. Yuck.

Already happens in New Zealand: lighting is usually low current 1mm2 wiring, and everything else is heavier gauge. Circuit breakers mostly care about Amps (all breakers could be rated to mains voltage if you wanted to avoid “weird”). Also low voltage wiring can legally be done by anyone in NZ (a bonus when doing your own work, and a pitfall when buying a house?)

Do not use AC breakers for DC! (they lack arc extinguisher)

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#929

Post by garaetjjte »

rvba wrote: post #797
phoyd wrote: post #168

>If you’re lucky, the LED will have a CRI of 90 or higher EU has banned incandescent lights years ago and the situation for LED buyers is much different here. My local drug store chain (Rossmann in Germany) sells 1000lm E27 bulbs under their own Rubin brand with CRI>97 for 4.99€. No flickering and available as 2700K or 4000K. My Opple Light Master 3 even reads CRI 100. So for me right now, it's just going to the drug…

As much as I like EU, the new bulbs are flickery shit. I bought a stockpile of 150W incandescent bulbs marked as 'shock resistant' (they are definitely not) and they give decent light. The 100W LEDs give more like 50W and flicker too..

>'shock resistant' (they are definitely not)

It's not allowed to sell incandescent for home use in EU, so they are usually marked as some "industrial shock-resistant" bullshit.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#930

Post by MichaelZuo »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #599
zippergz wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please link me to a 95+ CRI bulb available at Home Depot or Lowe's.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%253Ahomedepot.com+CRI Cree, GE's "HD" line, Phillips' high CRI line, and I believe "Feit", the HD brand, also has high CRI bulbs. You can only get Cree bulbs from HD via shipping; they don't stock them in store, at least in my area. Phillips and GE HD bulbs are available in a lot of local hardware stores and even pharmacies.

I don't see any 95+ CRI 100 Watt replacement bulbs on their site?
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