Author Topic: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology  (Read 7707 times)

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Offline MK14

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #50 on: March 25, 2021, 09:09:27 pm »
Is the fact that you can get an LED lightbulb for $5USD a reflection of the amount of energy it takes to make it? At that price, is it reasonable to think that it really doesn't take that much energy to make one?

That doesn't include the real world/life cost to the planet, on getting rid of the waste LED bulbs that build up over time.
 

Offline TimNJTopic starter

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #51 on: March 25, 2021, 09:13:21 pm »
Is the fact that you can get an LED lightbulb for $5USD a reflection of the amount of energy it takes to make it? At that price, is it reasonable to think that it really doesn't take that much energy to make one?

That doesn't include the real world/life cost to the planet, on getting rid of the waste LED bulbs that build up over time.


....

The missing pieces are: The energy input required to make each type of bulb and the environmental impact of each bulb when it's chucked in a landfill. I don't think you can put the latter in terms of energy...although maybe you can think of it as the energy required by some poor future human society to un-****-up the world the previous generations left them.

....


I know this. I am talking about how much energy is required to make it. I'm saying that something that is sold for $5 probably can't have a ginormous energy input or else it would be reflected in the price, unless that price is subsidized in some way.

Disposal and environmental impact is probably not easily quantifiable.
 

Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #52 on: March 25, 2021, 10:14:29 pm »
LED bulbs SHOULD be simple and inexpensive and practically last forever, yet they are more expensive and seem to be bad for failing early.  Even CFLs were better for life time.

The failure mode I seem to often get is lights that just turn on and off.  Like a cold solder joint somewhere.  I heard that some may do it based on temperature if they overheat, but considering I rarely have my house hotter than 20C I doubt this is what I am seeing.

 

Offline james_s

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #53 on: March 25, 2021, 11:22:51 pm »
Then we have to accept that we'll create more e-junk by using LED bulbs which fail early. Is this better or worse than using incandescent bulbs with a higher power consumption in old lamps?

Well like I said, I have not been experiencing this high failure rate. I started buying LED bulbs in 2010 and had fully replaced all the CFL bulbs in my house by 2012. I still have a handful of the original Philips, Cree and Ecosmart bulbs I bought way back then, even several that are in dusk till dawn service in outdoor fixtures. Since 2010 I've had maybe 5 or 6 LED bulbs fail and about that many more that I replaced due to the availability of newer bulbs offering higher efficiency, better light quality or other features like the Hue bulbs that can be set to a whole range of colors. Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky, I don't know, but I had a lot of early CFL failures while LED has been much more reliable. My mother has had a similar experience, in 2011 I put a 600 lumen Cree bulb in the landscape light by her front walkway, it's on a photocell and runs dusk till dawn every night, that same bulb is still working.
 

Offline TimNJTopic starter

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #54 on: March 26, 2021, 12:36:03 am »
Then we have to accept that we'll create more e-junk by using LED bulbs which fail early. Is this better or worse than using incandescent bulbs with a higher power consumption in old lamps?

Well like I said, I have not been experiencing this high failure rate. I started buying LED bulbs in 2010 and had fully replaced all the CFL bulbs in my house by 2012. I still have a handful of the original Philips, Cree and Ecosmart bulbs I bought way back then, even several that are in dusk till dawn service in outdoor fixtures. Since 2010 I've had maybe 5 or 6 LED bulbs fail and about that many more that I replaced due to the availability of newer bulbs offering higher efficiency, better light quality or other features like the Hue bulbs that can be set to a whole range of colors. Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky, I don't know, but I had a lot of early CFL failures while LED has been much more reliable. My mother has had a similar experience, in 2011 I put a 600 lumen Cree bulb in the landscape light by her front walkway, it's on a photocell and runs dusk till dawn every night, that same bulb is still working.

Maybe the rest of us are just buying crap.  :-DD
 

Offline madires

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #55 on: March 26, 2021, 11:36:55 am »
Seems so. ;D We have (had) CFLs and LEDs of all generations, cheap no-name stuff, expensive brands, mid-priced bulbs - a good mix of everything. Expensive brands fail as well as cheap stuff. In nearly all cases it's caused by cooked drivers. Lamps with a closed design (glass bowl) or spot light lamps with tight cover up to the front create additional heat stress because there's barely any air flow around the bulb.
 

Offline coppice

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #56 on: March 26, 2021, 11:46:38 am »
Seems so. ;D We have (had) CFLs and LEDs of all generations, cheap no-name stuff, expensive brands, mid-priced bulbs - a good mix of everything. Expensive brands fail as well as cheap stuff. In nearly all cases it's caused by cooked drivers. Lamps with a closed design (glass bowl) or spot light lamps with tight cover up to the front create additional heat stress because there's barely any air flow around the bulb.
Enclosed vs open luminaires explains a lot of the differences in lifetimes people see. With CFLs its not just the roasted electronics that suffer in an enclosed space. The tubes blacken much faster, too. I'm not clear why that is, as the blackening is mostly due to ion bombardment and it doesn't seem like a warmer tube should increase that dramatically.
 

Offline paulca

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #57 on: March 26, 2021, 02:48:06 pm »
So what about "Laser LEDs"?

You know that next year, if not before, they will start pushing "Laser LEDs" every where.  Already in automotive.

I believe it's usually a beefy cob LED with asides lighting normally itself, get's a blue laser diode fired at it too causing a much higher phosphor discharge of light... and the laser optics can focus that light into a very tight beam.
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Offline madires

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #58 on: March 26, 2021, 03:04:24 pm »
Might be useful for stage lighting, light shows and such things. But at home?
 

Offline paulca

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #59 on: March 26, 2021, 03:14:06 pm »
Might be useful for stage lighting, light shows and such things. But at home?

Projectors.  Projector spots.  Wall lights, flood lights, outdoor lights.  I can see decorative and civil advantages to tightly focused security lights, for example.  We all have that one neighbour with the ****ng light house that goes off with every cat walking through his garden.
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Offline andy2000

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #60 on: March 27, 2021, 03:42:44 pm »
My biggest complaint about cheap LEDs is flicker.  Many have little to no power supply filtering, so they're effectively 120 Hz strobe lights.  There should be a standard for measuring flicker, and labeling should be mandatory like it is for brightness and color temperature. 
 

Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #61 on: March 27, 2021, 06:03:28 pm »
I thankfully have not run into that with household bulbs, but lot of Christmas lights sets are bad for that.  I really wish it was possible to buy higher quality Christmas lights, even my "good" sets for the house that I paid more for are not that great as they are not as bright as the good ol C9s, and one of my sets died this year, it was only a few years old.  Most of them you can't even change bulbs as they are all built in.   
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #62 on: March 27, 2021, 06:59:06 pm »
There seems to have been a wide range of personal experiences here.

I replaced all of the bulbs in my parent's house with LED around eight years ago and barring a couple of really cheap Chinese ones, they've lasted really well. I've had a mixed experience. One of the LED filament lamps in my cooker fume extractor hood failed after only a couple of months. I accept a cooker hood is a bad place for an LED bulb, but the one in my parent's cooker hood lasted for years. One of the LED downlighter lamps failed in my kitchen, after around four years, yet the ones in my parent's kitchen lasted for much longer.

I dislike linear regulators, in LED lamps. They're especially bad at higher voltages and temperatures, which will cause them to throttle back the current, if you're lucky. Capacitive dropper isn't a bad choice, as long as it uses a decent quality capacitor, with plenty of filtering to reduce ripple. Switched mode is obviously the best type of power supply and is worth the extra money.

It should be easy to design and make an efficient LED lamp, which might actually be worth doing, if off the shelf units deteriorate, even if it's much more expensive.

 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #63 on: March 27, 2021, 07:10:45 pm »
In my experience, the newer bulbs have poor reliability, but I can't tell if that's a result of their overall design topology or if they are just built like crap. Or both.

Or third.   8)

 
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Offline rsjsouza

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #64 on: March 28, 2021, 12:37:48 am »
Great video; thanks for sharing!
Vbe - vídeo blog eletrônico http://videos.vbeletronico.com

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Offline Zero999

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #65 on: March 29, 2021, 12:21:39 pm »
Even CFLs were better for life time.
I don't see the point in replacing CFLs with LEDs, unless it's in an application where it's going to be turned on and off lots, such as a toilet. The power saving is minimal and the quality of thelight isn't that much better. I only replace my CFLs with LEDs, when the lamp goes and it's easier to replace it with an LED. A friend to mine replaced all of his CFLs with LEDs around 8 years ago and gave the old lamps to me. One of them was a high powered one, around 30W I think, so I gave it to an elerly friend of my mum's, who's virtually blind and she's been using it ever since. It wouldn't surprise me if it outlasts her, as she's in her late 90s. If it goes before then, I might have to make her a replacement LED lamp, if I can't find a suitable replacement.
 

Offline madires

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #66 on: March 29, 2021, 01:14:36 pm »
CFLs need some time to achieve full brightness after powering on. Some are quite fast, some need a minute or so, especially the long lasting ones. LEDs start with full brightness.
 

Online Siwastaja

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #67 on: March 29, 2021, 02:41:54 pm »
The failure mode I seem to often get is lights that just turn on and off.  Like a cold solder joint somewhere.

I had one LED bulb fail in such way that when power is applied, it blinks very briefly, then stays off for approx two seconds, then randomly may or may not flicker a few times, then potentially turn on, or not.

The LED bulb decided to time the approx two second delay to exactly match the time it takes to go through thought process: "hmm, the light switch seems faulty, let's try to push the switch further" then reach the switch and give it a firm press. Exactly at that time, the LED bulb usually decided to turn on, confirming the assumption that the light switch is faulty. Every day it worked worse and worse, so finally I replaced the light switch. Guess the reaction when the behavior was just like before and it was just the bulb that required swapping.

To its defence, the previous owner of the house did use said LED bulb for however long time in a sauna near the ceiling which is a colossally bad idea. I do have a few incandescents left for exactly that purpose.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2021, 02:43:49 pm by Siwastaja »
 

Online Siwastaja

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #68 on: March 29, 2021, 02:48:08 pm »
I don't see the point in replacing CFLs with LEDs, unless it's in an application where it's going to be turned on and off lots, such as a toilet.

Depends, if the CFL has already seen a few thousand hours of operation, many are so dim that the 11W bulb produces hardly any light during first minute, and even then too little; especially if installed in a cold place like uninsulated attic or basement. Can be replaced with a modern 5W LED bulb with the additional benefit that you will be able to see something without first waiting for half a day (which a minute feels like when you want to do something instead of waiting for the light).

I hate waiting for technology to start operate; such as Windows taking anything from 30 seconds to 3 hours to "install updates" before it allows me to use my computer. Even the varying 1 to 5 second delay of traditional fluorescents with mechanical starters sucks, and the 1-2 minutes of CFLs is beyond acceptable.

Color rendition tends to be equally sucky with CFLs and LEDs. Both have better options available, but hard to find.

Generally, I'm quite happy with how things are with LEDs. Incandescent bulbs were often crappy quality as well, very typical failure mode was cost-optimized fuse (proper bulbs have internal fuse) causing the bulb to fail explosively, bringing out the main breaker or blowing even a 16A gG fuse. Good riddance.

And CFLs, pfft. Salesmen and packaging say "get 11W", but have to buy a massive 20W bulb to replace a 60W incandescent to get any actual light out right from start, then it's too bright after some time, until it's too dim after 2000 hours. And it weights so much and doesn't fit in half of the lighting fixtures. And most of the light goes the wrong way because of the stupid emission pattern. Add to that ALL the same roasty electronics problems we have now with LEDs.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2021, 02:57:34 pm by Siwastaja »
 

Offline themadhippy

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #69 on: March 29, 2021, 02:57:54 pm »
Quote
  One of them was a high powered one, around 30W I think, so I gave it to an elerly friend of my mum's, who's virtually blind and she's been using it ever since. It wouldn't surprise me if it outlasts her, as she's in her late 90s. If it goes before then, I might have to make her a replacement LED lamp
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Offline james_s

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #70 on: March 30, 2021, 05:44:18 pm »
I don't see the point in replacing CFLs with LEDs, unless it's in an application where it's going to be turned on and off lots, such as a toilet. The power saving is minimal and the quality of thelight isn't that much better. I only replace my CFLs with LEDs, when the lamp goes and it's easier to replace it with an LED. A friend to mine replaced all of his CFLs with LEDs around 8 years ago and gave the old lamps to me. One of them was a high powered one, around 30W I think, so I gave it to an elerly friend of my mum's, who's virtually blind and she's been using it ever since. It wouldn't surprise me if it outlasts her, as she's in her late 90s. If it goes before then, I might have to make her a replacement LED lamp, if I can't find a suitable replacement.

I certainly found it worthwhile, at first I was buying LED bulbs to replace CFLs as they failed, but then I got tired of waiting and changed out all the rest. CFLs take a few minutes to warm up to full brightness, and frequent on/off cycles kill them rapidly. Most of the lights in my house get used briefly, walk into a room and turn the light on, turn the light back off as I leave, this was terrible for CFL because they would just be getting warmed up when I would turn them off. I find the color of most LED bulbs to be much more pleasing than that of CFL too, and they are considerably higher efficiency. The typical curly CFL is about 55 lm/W, much better than incandescent but even cheap LED bulbs are over 100 lm/W. It's economical to replace CFLs for energy savings alone unless it's a rarely used light.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #71 on: March 30, 2021, 07:16:06 pm »
I use CFL in applications where they're left on lots, so the warm up time is a non-issue.

Yes, I've seen some go dim over time. Actually what normally happens is, as well as going dim, the colour shifts towards a bluish-pink, as the mercury is depleted. I've not had it happen to any of the lamps I've owned, but I've seen it before.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Explain to me the (de?)-evolution of LED lightbulb technology
« Reply #72 on: March 30, 2021, 09:38:08 pm »
I have outdoor lights that run dusk till dawn every night and those always achieved the longest lifespan I got anywhere, CFLs would regularly last 8k-10k hours, often exceeding the rated lifespan but even then I would only get about 2 years max out of one. Since putting LEDs in those I've only had one fail, others are 10 years old now, so even for heavily used lights LED bulbs are lasting me longer.
 


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