Flickering Zenaro LED bulb

[kaneohe]

These bulbs seem to work, then later they start flickering or go out. Sometimes mechanically messing w/ the base connection......tighten, loose then tighten, or tap the bulb helps.......for a while.........or moving to another fixture helps for a while but eventually, it wins. I can't image it's the screw in base............can there be intermittent problems with internal connections within the bulb?

 

[cbo111]

I find LED bulbs to be a bit of a crapshoot. I have about a dozen multi-bulb fixtures in my home that I have slowly converted to LED. I've had to jiggle a few to calm the flickering. While they have gone down in price since introduction, I can never predict how a new LED brand will display. I recently put three GE LEDS in my dining room fixture. The effect is a bluish hue that kind of resembles a fluorescent light. It puts out a good amount of light, but I feel like I'm in the office back at W#@&!!

 

[ERD50]

I find LED bulbs to be a bit of a crapshoot. I have about a dozen multi-bulb fixtures in my home that I have slowly converted to LED. I've had to jiggle a few to calm the flickering. While they have gone down in price since introduction, I can never predict how a new LED brand will display. I recently put three GE LEDS in my dining room fixture. The effect is a bluish hue that kind of resembles a fluorescent light. It puts out a good amount of light, but I feel like I'm in the office back at W#@&!!

You have to pay attention to the "K" (Kelvin) rating and description - you want a "Warm White":

https://www.westinghouselighting.com/color-temperature.aspx

Color temperature is a way to describe the light appearance provided by a light bulb. It is measured in degrees of Kelvin (K) on a scale from 1,000 to 10,000.

At the lower end of the scale, from 2000K to 3000K, the light produced is called “warm white” and ranges from orange to yellow-white in appearance.
Color temperatures between 3100K and 4500K are referred to as “cool white” or “bright white.” Light bulbs within this range will emit a more neutral white light and may even have a slightly blue tint.
Above 4500K brings us into the “daylight” color temperature of light. Light bulbs with color temperatures of 4500K and above will give off a blue-white light that mimics daylight.

OP - are the LEDs on a dimmer?

-ERD50

 

[Animorph]

I bought 6 LED MR20 bulbs and all flickered after a week or so in my kitchen ceiling can lights with no dimmer. Bought slightly more expensive ones and they've been in maybe two years now. All my other LED's have been perfect so far.

Certainly a bad connection between the bulb and socket can cause a problem. I think bulb design is a more likely problem.

 

[RobbieB]

None of my LED's have flickered and so far only 1 has croaked. Dunno.

 

[kaneohe]

You have to pay attention to the "K" (Kelvin) rating and description - you want a "Warm White":

https://www.westinghouselighting.com/color-temperature.aspx


OP - are the LEDs on a dimmer?

-ERD50

not sure.........it's an old lamp base on floor and might have 2 positions in on.
Old bulbs ,incandescent, fluorescent work fine.

 

[Sunset]

One of my LED bulbs started to flicker and I took it apart, it was really composed of many LED lights, and one of them went bad, about 1 out of 15, but it was enough to make a flicker.

Overall they are great as most have run years without replacement, including the ones outside going dusk to dawn every day.

My LED bulbs are generally cheap, except the CREE ones I got on a good deal, and CREE replaced 2 of them for free, when I phoned to say they died within 5 yrs.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Whatever you do, don't buy AmeriLuck. I bought one of their 3-way LED bulbs, and just after the return period ended, it started flickering painfully, and then after little of that went to off-off-medium-medium (from its intended functioning of off-dim-medium-high). I emailed them about a month ago and haven't heard back since.

 

[wolf]

These bulbs seem to work, then later they start flickering or go out. Sometimes mechanically messing w/ the base connection......tighten, loose then tighten, or tap the bulb helps.......for a while.........or moving to another fixture helps for a while but eventually, it wins. I can't image it's the screw in base............can there be intermittent problems with internal connections within the bulb?

Probably one made by "lumileds"........ private joke

 

[calmloki]

Is Zenaro a common brand? Not familiar with it. We've moved into modern times and splurged on a fistful of Amazon Dots and smart dimmable LED bulbs by Sengled (super easy hookup) and C by GE (painful linking).

 

[kaneohe]

Is Zenaro a common brand? Not familiar with it. We've moved into modern times and splurged on a fistful of Amazon Dots and smart dimmable LED bulbs by Sengled (super easy hookup) and C by GE (painful linking).

don't know.............might have been an early promo by utility compamy.........

 

[kaneohe]

Probably one made by "lumileds"........ private joke

never can tell..........pioneers ,risks,etc

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Is Zenaro a common brand? Not familiar with it. We've moved into modern times and splurged on a fistful of Amazon Dots and smart dimmable LED bulbs by Sengled (super easy hookup) and C by GE (painful linking).

I get the feeling that a lot of these off-brands are just temporary names for the same fly-by-night factories.

 

[target2019]

I got almost 6 years from this LED bulb:
EcoSmart40-Watt Equivalent A19 Non-Dimmable LED Light Bulb Daylight

There are two others from same date in the fixture, so I have a reasonable test going on.

EcoSmart and Great Value (Walmart) are the two brands I'm trying to stay with. Everything comes from China, best I can tell.

 

[mountainsoft]

These bulbs seem to work, then later they start flickering or go out.

I've had that problem with many LED bulbs from several manufacturers.

I think my first LED bulbs were CREE brand with the big heatsink fins around the base. The plastic "bulb" came unglued and fell off a couple, a couple flickered and died, and others went dim and died. Out of 10 or so I don't think I have any CREE bulbs left.

I have a lot of EcoSmart bulbs in the smaller A15 size throughout the house. So far I don't think I've had to replace any of those.

I also have several Philips warm glow bulbs (bright white that dims to a warm white). I have had a couple of these flicker and fail, but otherwise they've held up nicely.

I started out with LED bulbs in our enclosed ceiling fixtures, but I guess even the minimal heat from LED bulbs was killing them quickly. I replaced all of our ceiling fixtures with dedicated LED fixtures (no bulbs to replace) and so far haven't had any issues with any of them. Of course, if one ever fails it means replacing the entire light fixture.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I have had to send back a few, but the ones I ordered made by Feit Electric, a California-based company, have not given me any problems whatsoever. I am only buying their products from now on, it's worth an extra dollar or three to me.

 

[Texas Proud]

One of the things that pissed me off is that I bought LEDs and when I got them home read ON the bulb that it is not to be used in enclosed fixtures..


Well, why not put that ON THE BOX...


I have also had a bunch of them die on me (some of the above in enclosed fixtures, but not all)... they seem like the old florescent bulbs where half die LONG before their rating...


BTW, I have a dead florescent in the ceiling right now that is 4 years old... the other 3 are still going but take a few minutes to get to full output... we barely use them so there is not a lot of hours on them...

 

[Freedom56]

I had a momentary contact problem with a few bulbs that caused flickering. I added some solder to the bottom contact of the bulb and fixed the problem.