Short lived LED bulb

Sunset said:
I have a bunch of those too, in a box.
It's a LOT cheaper to replace them all with CFL / LED in the entire house.
And the savings is every year. :flowers:
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You will need to show me the math on that. I have lots of sockets where the bulb is rarely on. Some basement lights, closets, attic, etc. Minutes a year for some.

The environmental impact of making that LED bulb is likely worse than the lifetime energy consumption of the filament bulb in my attic.

I'd like the option of buying a cheap, inefficient bulb for those places I have determined it is best. I don't need lawyers making that decision for an engineer.

-ERD50
 
ERD50 said:
The usual issue is the capacitors in the driver go bad, due to the heat. And to keep prices low, they use caps that are not as tolerant to heat. The rated life on LEDs is a scam - that is based on extrapolating the short term dimming of the LED, to the point it would get to 80% brightness (something like that - going by memory). It has nothing to do with the bulb just dying.

Think of it as a tire rated for 40,000 miles wear, that routinely blows out in the first 10,000 miles, but advertised as a 40,000 mile tire.

-ERD50
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They probably use electrolytic caps rated at 2000 hr or something, but that is for a certain temp range which these lights installed in housings probably far exceed. I don't see how you get to 25,000 hour if you use components rated for 2000 hour...
 
I've had mixed experience with LEDs. I've found that if it's going to fail, it fails in a fairly short time, like after a month or two of "normal" use. If it survives that early period, then it's still working in my house after several years. I've not had a failure if it survives the first "month or two." Some are just defective. And that defect causes early failure, at least in my experience.

I've also found that these early failures can be replaced under warranty. The Amazon sellers are fairly easy to work with on this although they usually require that you send a photo (?) of the failed LED. In one case, I had bought a 12-pack of 6" can retrofits. One of the 12 failed after a month. After some email (including my photo of the failed LED), they sent me a 4-pack for the replacement, which was the smallest quantity they stocked of that model.

I still have incandescent and CFLs in some areas of our house that get very little use. I'll replace with LEDs after they die. All high-use areas have been converted to LED. One exception is my workshop, which has twelve, 8-foot T12 fluorescent fixtures. Last time I priced the 8' LED retrofits, they were ~$20 each, and I need 24 of them, plus a lot of re-wiring. So I decided to wait for more fluorescent bulbs to fail and maybe the price of the LEDs will come down some.
 
We installed 43 LED spots throughout our flat (for wall art and general illumination). We have three CFL bulb table lamps. Most of the LEDs are dimmable. Over last seven years, no burnouts and am not aware of dimming (but that might be subjective). They were expensive to acquire, but the gain in convenience and lower electricity costs are worth it.

-BB
 
The ones I bought 2 for $1 at Dollar Tree are still going strong after a couple of years. YMMV of course but I'm a happy camper. Replacing light bulbs is annoying, so I've hopefully reduced that work load quite a bit.
 
ERD50 said:
You will need to show me the math on that. I have lots of sockets where the bulb is rarely on. Some basement lights, closets, attic, etc. Minutes a year for some.

The environmental impact of making that LED bulb is likely worse than the lifetime energy consumption of the filament bulb in my attic.

I'd like the option of buying a cheap, inefficient bulb for those places I have determined it is best. I don't need lawyers making that decision for an engineer.

-ERD50
Click to expand...

You are correct, in places where I rarely to never turn on a light, I could use any type of bulb as any difference in cost would be minimal.

In fact for a closet, I put motion activated battery lights rather than try to install wired lighting on each shelf. I do use rechargeable batteries but at a 5 year replacement for the batteries, it probably will cost me $1 per shelf in batteries, plus the recharging effort (and electricity).

However, for most of my house lights, having CFL/LED's bulbs saves me a lot of effort, and some electricity cost. Plus saves some feeling aggravation of finding I left a light on all day and thinking how I wasted ~10 hours of electricity for the bulb.
 
I replaced quite a few (> 20) bulbs with LEDs this year. I also moved from a decade-old desktop computer that was always on to a newer iMac that is set to be more energy efficient (although I don’t let it completely sleep because that would defeat access to iTunes via WiFi in the house).

My favorite LEDs are little dusk-to-dawn night lights scattered around strategically to help avoid people rolling down the stairs or walking into walls and stuff. I think they’re around 0.4 watt.

I’ve been on a level payment plan for electric service that will reset in January. Good news: $38/mo less payment!

Some of this may be due to an initial mis-estimate on the power company’s part (move-in was in 2017), but still I think the changes help. Measurements with a Kill-A-Watt in my prior home showed the PC and a (very) old TV drew a lot of power. Every bit counts.
 
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The only filament bulbs I have are the ones in the oven and the dryer. They need to "take the heat"

I have (1) 4 tube (48 inch) florescent in the kitchen and all the rest are LED.
 
I know people talk about how long CFLs and LEDs last, but probably nobody has had one the actual rated life of one...


In my old house I had 4 nude bulbs in a half bath that I used all the time... they were there when I bought the house... they were still there when I sold the house 25 years later...



These were not the only incandescent bulbs that lasted me the whole 25 years... it was rare enough for bulbs to burn out that I did not have any ready to go... I waited for one to burn out and I would buy a 2 pack.. save the other for the next one and repeat...


BTW, my kitchen was florescent tubes and they also lasted the full 25 years... it is the CFLs that seem to be the problem...
 
My rule for the past couple of years has been "if it requires a ladder to replace, use LED".
So far, I haven't had any LED bulbs fail, and this includes LED replacements for 4-ft T-8 tubes in garage, and LED bulbs in several enclosed ceiling fixtures. As for CFL, they failed regularly, and we no longer use them.

The only incandescents that we use are the "three-way" types in table lamps.
 
This is an interesting topic. When I moved into my house nearly 12 years ago CFLs were all the rage and I spent a couple of hundred dollars (guessing) changing out all of my incandescent bulbs with them. In 12 years I had 2 die that were in a sealed can above a shower stall and 3 or 4 that were in a can light fixture over the kitchen sink that stays on whenever I'm at home.
I replaced the kitchen light bulb with a $30 LED when they came out 5+ years ago and it's been going fine since and probably has an average of 8 hours a day for every day of the year. I've since bought a spare for it for something like $6.
My favorite bulb is the 20,000 hour, 150 watt incandescent that resides in my reading lamp next to my favorite chair. I had a hell of a time finding a bulb that put out enough light for me to read by and I decided to try this bulb along with a dimmer housing. I think a 6 pack of bulbs were around $18 and the dimmer was another $8 or so. 6 years later I'm still on my first bulb, but it was advertised to last 20,000 hours and I believe it.
 
I've been much happier with LED bulbs than CFLs or incandescent bulbs.

One particular application (multiple, inverted cans rated for 15W max incandescent) always had the incandescent bulbs burning out, even after I ordered 130VAC bulbs.

Replaced with 2W LED bulbs...one burned out after a week, but its replacement and all the other LED bulbs have been working for over 5 years.
 
i had to adjust my WR for these dumb led lights going out on me
 
Texas Proud said:
I know people talk about how long CFLs and LEDs last, but probably nobody has had one the actual rated life of one....
Click to expand...
I built my house in 2017 and just about all of the lighting is LED. I had a couple of can lights go out in the kitchen so I ordered replacements off of Amazon. I had a good LOL when they came in and the packaging claims a life expectancy of 35,000 hours.
 
I have found the CFL bulbs last longer than incandescent bulbs, but not as long as claimed. Not nearly as long. Several burnt out so fast that I doubt if I saved much at all. Other CFLs have been going for years, and I wish they would burn out since they now take several minutes to come up to full brilliance, and I like the light from LED bulbs better.

LED bulbs, OTOH, seem to be lasting quite a bit longer. So far none have burned out including those that are on 12+ hours a day since they light a rather dim stairway area.
 
Texas Proud said:
Yes, and that one has been ON all that time!!!
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Which is really neat, but while it burns 60 watts of electricity, it looks pretty dim, the light output is probably no where near 900 lumens (which is the brightness of a real modern normal incandescent bulb ).

How you do this is by making the carbon filament thicker than normal, but it glows duller, so dull you can see the filament.
 
IBWino said:
The only incandescents that we use are the "three-way" types in table lamps.
Click to expand...

I recently bought my first LED 3-way light and it works pretty well for me. It has a low, low light and a pretty high, high light, so the middle isn’t much lower than the high, but as basically a 2-way light, it meets my needs.
 
Sunset said:
Which is really neat, but while it burns 60 watts of electricity, it looks pretty dim, the light output is probably no where near 900 lumens (which is the brightness of a real modern normal incandescent bulb ).

How you do this is by making the carbon filament thicker than normal, but it glows duller, so dull you can see the filament.
Click to expand...

I read that it is actually only as bright as a 4 watt bulb. Wasn't clear if it was actually drawing somewhere near 4 watts, or if it is really that inefficient.

Another source said something about when they had a power outage or power supply failure, that is was much brighter for a minute or so when it first re-started, then settled back to its 4 watt glow. Those thicker filaments for carbon do extend life. But if that bright/dim thing is true, I wonder if this bulb has some sort of defect - as it warms, maybe some resistance goes up limiting the current?

A standard bulb and rule of thumb is life is doubled/halved with each 10% change in voltage. Limiting the current would have a similar effect.

-ERD50
 
Texas Proud said:
Yes, and that one has been ON all that time!!!
Click to expand...

This is actually less stressful than being switched on/off. Most incandescent bulbs fail right at turn-on due to the initial stress on the filament being higher than the steady-state stress.
 
ERD50 said:
I read that it is actually only as bright as a 4 watt bulb. Wasn't clear if it was actually drawing somewhere near 4 watts, or if it is really that inefficient.

Another source said something about when they had a power outage or power supply failure, that is was much brighter for a minute or so when it first re-started, then settled back to its 4 watt glow. Those thicker filaments for carbon do extend life. But if that bright/dim thing is true, I wonder if this bulb has some sort of defect - as it warms, maybe some resistance goes up limiting the current?

A standard bulb and rule of thumb is life is doubled/halved with each 10% change in voltage. Limiting the current would have a similar effect.

-ERD50
Click to expand...

You can see that with the GIF animation with a 9 hour power outage here...

Livermore's Centennial Light Cam Pics
 
gstillson said:
They probably use electrolytic caps rated at 2000 hr or something, but that is for a certain temp range which these lights installed in housings probably far exceed. I don't see how you get to 25,000 hour if you use components rated for 2000 hour...
Click to expand...

It's easy, according to an old boss I had. You just print up the spec's so that they are better than the competitions!
 
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