Short lived LED bulb

[catii]

I've had a couple of the first-generation LED bulbs die on me, but none of the newer ones after 5 years. I have one light that stays on 24X7X365, & it's still going strong after nearly 6 years.

 

[meleana]

Any bulbs that burn out way ahead of time- LED or CFL- I return to the manufacturer for a free new one. I usually call them first. For the price of these things they should last as long as is stated by the manufacturer.

 

[Sunset]

Any bulbs that burn out way ahead of time- LED or CFL- I return to the manufacturer for a free new one. I usually call them first. For the price of these things they should last as long as is stated by the manufacturer.

At first I kept the warranty and the receipt as the first ones were $3 or $4 each, but now I buy them for 25 cents to $1 each.

They so rarely burn out that I don't bother with the warranty, as it would take me a few hours to find the receipt.
I have about 30 or so spares that I got cheap, so I stopped buying them as I have enough for my lifetime.

How exactly do you do the return. Do you have to pay to ship them back ?

 

[meleana]

At first I kept the warranty and the receipt as the first ones were $3 or $4 each, but now I buy them for 25 cents to $1 each.

They so rarely burn out that I don't bother with the warranty, as it would take me a few hours to find the receipt.
I have about 30 or so spares that I got cheap, so I stopped buying them as I have enough for my lifetime.

How exactly do you do the return. Do you have to pay to ship them back ?

Actually, sometimes they send an prepaid envelope. Other times I just have to give a certain number on the bulb. What I do is I save all the reciepts and packaging where I keep my bulb supply just in case.

 

[Sunset]

Actually, sometimes they send an prepaid envelope. Other times I just have to give a certain number on the bulb. What I do is I save all the reciepts and packaging where I keep my bulb supply just in case.

Good suggestion for the receipt saving, wish I had done that.
Next one, I'll try phoning them to see if no receipt is needed, nothing to lose.

I've had about 3 Cree ones die on me, that surprised me as Cree is a known name, good thing they were only about $1 each, but I did buy a case of 24

 

[NW-Bound]

I had a bunch of Cree LEDs. They all died much sooner than expected...

I bought some of the earliest CREE brand LED bulbs when they first became available. These were bulky with big heat sinks on them, but they mostly looked like a standard bulb. Unfortunately, most of these early bulbs failed within a couple years...

My first 100W-equivalent LED bulb was a Cree. Expensive, as the price was around $10, if memory serves. It was used in the utility room, which means not much usage. Died after a couple of years. Could not be that many hours.

Disappointing as Cree is a pioneer in LED research and manufacturing. But when it comes to adding electronics and packaging for thermal management, they failed.

The 100W-equivalent bulbs were a lot more expensive than the 60W ones. I guess it makes sense because the 60W may be at the edge for adequate heat dissipation, and pushing the power above it raises the temperature to the point where failure rates accelerate.

Other than that, I had another 60W bulb by another brand fail. Dissected it, and found that the LED elements themselves were fine, but the driver IC died.

PS. I did not keep the packaging, and did not claim the $10 for that expensive early Cree bulb.

 

[ERD50]

My first 100W-equivalent LED bulb was a Cree. Expensive, as the price was around $10, if memory serves. It was used in the utility room, which means not much usage. Died after a couple of years. Could not be that many hours.

Disappointing as Cree is a pioneer in LED research and manufacturing. But when it comes to adding electronics and packaging for thermal management, they failed.

The 100W-equivalent bulbs were a lot more expensive than the 60W ones. I guess it makes sense because the 60W may be at the edge for adequate heat dissipation, and pushing the power above it raises the temperature to the point where failure rates accelerate.

Other than that, I had another 60W bulb by another brand fail. Dissected it, and found that the LED elements themselves were fine, but the driver IC died.

PS. I did not keep the packaging, and did not claim the $10 for that expensive early Cree bulb.

I've often wondered if a small fan could be added - seems like just a bit of air movement could help a lot. Of course fans are rather large, and noisy, then I thought about some piezo elements that I've seen - seems like these could be configured as blades that fan like we do with a hand-held 'flapping' motion, rather than rotary.

A search on "piezo fan for thermal management of electronics" brought up lots of examples.

https://www.electronics-cooling.com/2007/02/piezo-actuators-for-electronics-cooling/

Challenges for the Piezo Industry

One of the main technical challenges for enabling the piezoelectric technology in the electronics products is the high operating voltage (> 100 V) required to drive the conventional piezos. ....

That doesn't seem to be an issue for a light bulb on a mains circuit.

Conclusions

This article has shown that in some applications piezo actuators combined with heat sinks may offer significant cooling improvements. Conventional piezo heat sink arrangements show significant reduction in thermal resistance compared to natural convection. When blades are inserted between the heat sink fins the thermal resistance can be further reduced due to thinning of the boundary layer. This article is also a call to the piezo industry to deploy more capability for the piezo fans used in the electronics cooling of low power processors. The piezo industry should consider the array of challenges mentioned above to make this technology feasible for high volume manufacturing.

-ERD50

 

[Al in Ohio]

I date all my new LED bulbs once they go in service. I noticed the first gen bulbs I bought a few years ago some would burn out after only a year or two. The newer ones are lasting longer. Some brands also seem to be a lot better than others.

 

[Sunset]

I held off buying the 100W LED's as they used to be very expensive.
I did just recently pick up 4 for $1.50 ea as there were a couple of places I wanted more light, and while I have 100W CFLs, I prefer the LED enough to spend a bit

 

[Ronstar]

Started replacing outside lights with LED's a couple of years ago. Recently replaced recessed can lights with LED fixtures/lights. No LED burn outs so far, and I used to replace several outside light bulbs and several inside recessed light bulbs a year before going to LED's

 

[sengsational]

Actually, sometimes they send an prepaid envelope. Other times I just have to give a certain number on the bulb. What I do is I save all the reciepts and packaging where I keep my bulb supply just in case.

I've just called the 800 number and read off a few numbers from the bulb and the store receipt and they sent replacements.

I date all my new LED bulbs once they go in service. I noticed the first gen bulbs I bought a few years ago some would burn out after only a year or two. The newer ones are lasting longer. Some brands also seem to be a lot better than others.

The date is important so you can find the right paper work.

Got LED fixtures at Lowe's when we redid the bathroom. Didn't look real closely when buying (actually DW bought them). Three 'bulbs' per fixture. One of the three quit after about a month. Only then I discovered each 'bulb' was a PCB with surface mount LED's stuck to a hunk of cast metal with that heat conducting grease. Bottom line was there was no replacement of these 'bulbs' possible! So I had to take the entire fixture down and replace it. It was still under warranty, so didn't cost anything but time. I did take the opportunity to remove a good PCB and put with our light bulbs in case of another failure. It's not hard to replace the PCB, it's just that they don't offer the replacement part.

The picture is of the above "bulb".

 

[ERD50]

Got LED fixtures at Lowe's when we redid the bathroom. Didn't look real closely when buying (actually DW bought them). Three 'bulbs' per fixture. One of the three quit after about a month. Only then I discovered each 'bulb' was a PCB with surface mount LED's stuck to a hunk of cast metal with that heat conducting grease. Bottom line was there was no replacement of these 'bulbs' possible! So I had to take the entire fixture down and replace it. It was still under warranty, so didn't cost anything but time. I did take the opportunity to remove a good PCB and put with our light bulbs in case of another failure. It's not hard to replace the PCB, it's just that they don't offer the replacement part.

I actually like the idea of separating the LED 'bulb" from the driver circuit. This keeps the heat generated by each away from each other, and could greatly extend their life. But the industry needs to come up with standards, so you can replace the 'bulbs' or driver module as needed with generic replacements.

I've also designed a system in my head - a 3rd pin on the 'bulb' with a resistor value to indicate the max current for that 'bulb' (LEDs are current driven, not voltage driven). Drivers could be designed to recognize this, to limit max current, and could dim below that point if desired. This would allow consumers to swap out different brightness 'bulbs', w/o needing to match to the driver.

-ERD50

 

[MichaelB]

As the price of LEDs has fallen, I’ve been replacing incandescent with LEDs over the past year. Recently one ceiling lamp with 3 bulbs began flickering. First I tested each bulb by unscrewing it, but the remaining 2 continued to flicker. I then swapped out all 3, and the new ones flickered. I then replaced the dimmer switch, which I installed new with the LEDs. This time I went to the bulb website (FEIT), looked up the specific bulb and chose a dimmer from the list they certified as compatible. So far so good.

One thing I especially like about the LEDs is being able to replace 60 watt incandescent with 75 and 100 watt equivalent LEDs. These old eyes need more light and the old incandescents generate too much heat for many of our light fixtures.