Amazing accomplishment of light bulb sellers

It used to be difficult to sell a light bulb for more than $1. And those would last a while.

Nowadays, they can sell $35 light bulbs, that last only a year, and that could even get your house hacked.

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This is an amazing accomplishment and something that any old time crook would be proud of.

Reply to
Ignoramus17018
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You can bottle and sell water too ;-)

Reply to
Leon Fisk

Selling pet rocks is more profitable.

Best Regards Tom.

Reply to
Howard Beel

At least water costs $2.99 per big case... But I see your point!!!

i
Reply to
Ignoramus17018

Do you remember my posting about Walmart selling 8.5 watt led bulbs? I checked on the internet and they are now $1.34 each ( actually $5.54 for four ) . I said I would post when one fails. And I will, but none have failed so far.

Considering that they last longer , $1.34 each is not bad.

Dan

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

Our local 99 cent store has 5W led bulbs, been using them since march with no failures. Nice for a bathroom nitelite.

Best Regards Tom.

Reply to
Howard Beel

A few years ago, I gave up on byuing Walmart lights because they kept failing on me.

Reply to
Ignoramus17018

I will never have any "internet of things" stuff in my house, but I have mo ved to about 75% LED at home. The quality has gotten really good really rec ently. If you bought an LED spot in a hardware store five years ago, I bet you returned it immediately. I have been buying warm white LED directly fro m China for about 8 years, the German shops not offering anything decent. N ow they have finally caught on. I have an 8w lamp in my foyer which is way brighter than the two 40w halogens it replaced. Yesterday I picked up a cou ple of 4w spots in a "Lidl" (sort of like an "Aldi" for $4 each. They are s uper bright, and the color is warmer than halogen. I'm going back for more tomorrow. I will probably be at 90% LED at home by the end of the year. I s till have the traditional tubes on the ceiling and halogen spots over work surfaces in the shop though. I find the halogens are still superior for ce ntering a point, seeing fine scratches, and what not.

Reply to
robobass

I love home automation, but would never even -think- of using it outside the home to control the inside. Think of all the surveillance possibilities by Big Brother for these systems. I know people who love the Alexa thing and asked if they felt about it. They all said "We're not doing anything wrong, so why worry?" That corporations, gov't, hackers, and criminals know your every wish and detail of daily life seems far, far too invasive to me.

Scenario: Person comes home to emptied house with note on smart toaster, alone in the kitchen: Thanks for everything! --the perps

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Yeah. Evian (naive spelled backwards; coincidence?) goes for about $45/gal. Walmart sells bottled filtered City of Sacramento, CA water. Not even spring water!

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Fortunately, your secrets are safe on Usenet and Facebook.

Reply to
Five To One

meanwhile the suckers keep on buying

Reply to
Ignoramus13481

I had so many failures with Feit Electric CFLs, I won't ever buy another Feit product, even though they replaced them free of charge. Two died within the first month, the 3rd of 4 died within the year. I believe Feit sourced Walmart's bulbs for awhile, but I don't know who does now. I don't care if a bulb has a 10 day warranty if it lasts ten years, but I won't put up with those sporting 10 year warranties if I have to replace them numerous times every year. I already went through that with Searz Crapsman, giving them my gallon of blood and pound of flesh, literally.

Satco puts out good CFLs, and I still have several going for the better part of a decade. Since I found Chinese-sourced LEDs for a buck many years ago, while US-made LED bulbs were $30-60 each, I am working through a few dozen of those. 1 in 6 dies within a couple years, not the best history. Now that Philips puts out sub-$3 LED bulbs, I'm trying them, bought from Platt Electric here in town. 8w non-dimmable daylight = 60w replacement. Cost $0.96 per year to run. Good in the bathroom for shaving, plucking eyebrows, and doing makeup, right, Tawm?

A pair of 14w daylight LED spots in my front security lamp have been going for a few years now. At first, they were going on every minute like clockwork, and I discovered that a 47k 1/4w carbon film resistor between hot and not solved that. They would build up a charge from the caps in the 120v-12v bulb power supply and trigger the lamps.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

LIGHTIFY/dp/B01HF2CMM4/

Right, we've gone from 60 W bulbs that were rated at 800 Hours, to CFLs that seemed to last several thousand hours (I've had some last 5 years, but much shorter in steamy bathrooms) to LEDs that will, hopefully, last even longer. Seems like progress to me. But, of course, the power consumption has REALLY gone down, which is great!

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Ever done the math on the cost of the lamps vs. the cost of the electricity they use? I did years ago; I suggest you do so......

Reply to
David Lesher

I bought a package of four of those. So far, two of the four have failed. First they would start to flicker, then they failed completely.

Reply to
Michael A Terrell

P.S: Stock a case of each of several canned meats, cases of canned veggies, and half a dozen cases of water for the next time. I you have propane, stock up on ramen. Half a can of veggies/meat and a ramen makes a hearty stewp for. I toss the MSG "flavor packet" and use bouillon, garlic, and pepper, mostly. It ain't a $15 gov't MRE, but it's not half bad.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Have you designed an inexpensive replacement power supply for them yet? I'd love a copy of the circuit if you do. I have a little stack of various styles of Chiwanese LED bulbs waiting for repair. It's times like these that I wish SKF hadn't taken over Palomar Technology and I'd had time to let a decent electronics background build up for me. 3 years was nothing, IMHO.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I ate a lot of cold cans of chili, stew, vegetables and a few snacks that were on hand. There was no propane for the stove, but the nearest McDonalds had arranged for backup power, and had a fell reefer truck full of food in the parking lot so they stayed open with a limited menu. I had one hot meal each day, after leaving the Special Needs Hurricane Shelter. Three days and two nights were more than enough for me. The county had replaced their old folding beds with cheap camping cots that weren't wide enough for a teenager, let alone an old man. I couldn't get to my feet, without help. They had some better beds, but some some greedy jerks had demanded them and left those that needed one to do without.

I normally have 200 to 400 cans of food on hand at all times. I buy canned goods by the tray. I had bought 144 cans of soup a couple years ago. I've used about 2/3 of them.

Reply to
Michael A Terrell

No. I am trying to put my shop back together. I was trying to buy a used box truck when the Hurricane hit. It was in nice shape, but it didn't have a poer tailgate or ramp, so the guy wanted $2000 for the

2001 F350. The problems were: It was titled out of state, so it had to be taken to the county tax office for them to read the VIN. That required insurance for a 30 day tag. The only company that bothered to reply was Geico, and they wanted over $1784 a year for insurance, and the county wanted $788 for the new title & tag. All that, just to get the windowless aluminum 16' box for a shielded place for working with RF.

Then I missed out on an 8' x 24' aluminum trailer for $1000. :(

The third option is still open. A new 10' x16' portable shed for $3000, plus a building permit. :(

The Dollar Tree Sunbeam brand LED bulb is almost identical to the Walmart bulb. I'm trying to find a way to open the Walmart bulbs without just taking a hammer to one of them.

Reply to
Michael A Terrell

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