I said I would tell Iggy when one of the Walmart LED light bulbs failed An d it happened two days ago. Yesterday I went by Walmart and got a replacem ent. About the same price but noticeably different. The original had a fr osted bulb, and the replacement is clear. And the LED is more or less like a filament.
But the real difference is that the replacement failed the same day it was installed. I replaced it with another bulb from the same box. We will see if it is infant mortality or what.
Dan
snipped-for-privacy@krl.org wrote on 8/8/2018 8:05 AM:
Everywhere in the world is converting to LED bulbs. LED bulbs are longer lasting and more fuel efficient. However, the US light bulb manufacturers have strong aversion to LED bulbs. They probably conspire to deliberately make or import lousy LED bulbs to buck the trend.
It is the same thing like everywhere in the world is using Celsius and kilograms, while the US is still using Fahrenheit and pounds. We are a bunch of very sick people here.
No, it's worse than that. Everyone wants LEDs, so they're being churned out to fit into existing fixtures that are completely inappropriate for LED technology.
Incandescent bulbs tolerate elevated temperatures, and radiate in 4pi steradians. They work on high voltage AC. LEDs last long at low temperatures, and radiate in 2pi steradians. They work on low voltage DC. But, the 'LED' items in the store are intended to screw into incandescent bulb sockets.
So, (1) heat dissipation is poor (you can't get 3k lumen LED lighting into this form factor) (2) every AC-powered lamp must convert the voltage down OR must put so many LEDs in series that reliabilty suffers, (3) there is a host of incompatibiiities with dimmers, lighted switches, and RF interference being problems. For some (actually very good) LED lamps, a few years' use will lower the efficiency BUT you can't replace the dim LED; you have to buy an entire new fixture.
Probably in a decade we'll see ballast-plus-lamp systems that let you use a DC converter (like a ballast) with replaceable lamps, that get good illumination coverage in area lighting, task lighting, spot lighting, etc. The 'compatible' screw-in LED items won't be the best LED lighting available.
I've been buying the basic LED A series replacements for a few years now, and what you say about heat dissipation is right. They hate to run in a base up configuration. Anything above a 60w equivalent will burn out lickety split when run base up. Even the 60w equivalents have a seriously shortened life because all the heat gets trapped in the base where the electronics are. That said, the quality of light they produce has improved greatly over the last few years.
Paul K. Dickman
I have a few ceiling lights I have been thinking of putting LED into. How are they on their side?
Stephen B.
I have LED PAR lights - several years now with no problem. Also Philips "flat" type LRDs base up in enclosed fixtures - over 5 years now. I had a bunch of cheap chinese crap GR10 and mr16 bulbs that went like flashbulbs - then I replaced them with brand name (Philips and Noma) GR10s and they are standing upo REALLY well.
I've got a lot of TCP A19s in base-up configuration - no failures yet out of 36 in one installation - almost 2 years now - both 60 and 100 watt equivalents.
There are lots of cheap crap LEDs that are not worth taking home
Clare Snyder wrote on 8/8/2018 11:46 PM:
All the LED bulbs I checked at Home Depot (demo on display) are full spectrum, compared to tri-color in compact fluorescent bulbs. Light emitted from LED bulbs are more natural and easier to the eyes. (I used a pocket diffraction grating spectroscope to check the light).
Horizontal works fine. Even a slight angle like the ones in my track lighting seem to work fine. I have a half dozen lamps that burn 24-7. These are the ones I replaced first because the energy savings were worth it. The ones that burn base up have all been replaced three times, the others are on their first bulb. These were either Phillips or Sylvania and all their 8w (60 watt eq). Understand, the time on the burned out ones was probably 10k hours. but the others are pushing 30k. I could probably send them back under warranty, but around here, the basic bulbs are heavily subsidized by the local power company and only cost about a buck.
Paul K. Dickman
Saw vents into the plastic area near the screw in base for better coolth to the power supply? Some new LED bulbs are designed for that.
I've had no trouble with any on their side.
My Chi MR16s have been fine. Most of the corn cop style burned out quickly, but the A-19 shape with pcb inside have lasted well.
I'm not having any problems with TCP or Philips, either.
Yes, but Chinese vendors are upgrading their quality now that the others have gone out of business, been phased out, or upgraded.
There are "brand name" Chinese bulbs, and there are CHinese Crap bulbs.
Care to share some of the "brand names" with us? I thought the pricier Ranpo bulbs might be better, but they weren't. Sanny Tech bulbs have held up as well or better at a 20% lower price point.
It is a special kind of infant called "WALMART INFANT"
well,the Noma LED bulbs are made in China. So is the TCP. So are most of the Philips units sold in Canada.
They've been working fine in my ceiling fan for several years
The first 10? CFLs I installed all lasted less than a year. The last batch was lasting pretty good - but the ones that failed failked pretty spectacularly.
Thecheap-assed Chinese noname LEDS I bought were pretty spotty, but the brandname stuff has been very VERYgood. NO failures yet ( some are now almost 3 years old)
There should be enough air movement around the ceiling fan to cool the lights.
That's a simple functional test; yes, you can make light. But, an appropriate design would USE the differences from incandescent lamps, not just work around some of them.
After a few years, an LED will lose efficiency (halflife unknown, but something like 5 years). So, for my ceiling fixture that takes three bulbs, I'd be replacing three LED-and-phosphor lamps, three heatsinks, and three AC/DC converters everytime I put new bulbs in. And, I'd be fiddling with screw-in sockets that were designed for Edison lamps of a century ago.
Redesigned fixtures can be more effiective in a dozen ways, and few if any fixtures are so small today that they couldn't heatsink a much brighter bunch of LEDs (if only they'd been designed with that in mind). Hobbyists putting strips of LEDs into long linear mounts are doing better than the engineers that package LEDs in bulb format. And, those linear strips are arguably less failure-prone.
Miune has 4 open "tulips" , socket up, and one totally closed globe.
No problems
Clare Snyder wrote >
Mine has 4 open "tulips", similar to this:
I removed the fan's globe and installed a "vintage" LED bulb that's meant to be exposed.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.