General > General Technical Chat
LED lighting and planned obsolescence, intentional or not.
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John B:

--- Quote from: tautech on August 05, 2023, 09:11:17 am ---I think we as consumers also should share some of the blame when instead we should be insisting on product MTBF specifications.

--- End quote ---

Is that even fair? The average consumer can really only read the packaging which says the lights will last 20,000 - 50,000hrs or whatever BS figure, and due to the length of time involved it's exceptionally hard to make a claim of false advertising stick.

I agree with the theme of the thread. I'm tired of hearing that companies need an unlimited benefit-of-the-doubt pass until the end of time considering how long this discussion has been going on across just about every aspect of consumer products.

At the very least, every major company has had an engineering meeting where the balance of cost, repairability and longevity were discussed and clearly the latter 2 have been given the lower priority more often.
Psi:

--- Quote from: tooki on August 05, 2023, 10:19:24 am ---
--- Quote from: Psi on August 05, 2023, 03:03:57 am ---This is why we need legislation against planned obsolescence, either intentional or unintentional.

--- End quote ---
How could unintentional planned obsolescence even exist? Planned obsolescence by definition means planning the obsolescence; you can’t unintentionally plan something, since planning requires forethought and intent.

--- End quote ---

Maybe a better name for the concept is Unnecessary Obsolescence.

I was just trying to include situations where the company was making a product with an unnecessary short life-span but there was no planning involved, or at least not planning to make it fail sooner. 
To avoid the company side-stepping any rule by claiming they never planned to make their product become obsolescence sooner and are therefor not guilty of planned obsolescence.
Marco:
Lamp life should have a similar grading system to energy efficiency. Part of the grade based on say a couple months high temperature high humidity stress testing, part based on best guess component longevity in standard luminaires by the manufacturer (with clear fraud being prosecuted down the line).

Using film capacitors, hermetic sealing and low power density you could probably make LED lamps which outlive me at this point and it wouldn't have to be very expensive.
Kleinstein:
There is a kind of defacto > 20khr claimed lifetime for LED lamps. So they design for that time frame and as a lifetime estimate is not easy they sometimes end up failing earlier, e.g .with a higher than standard temperature. A design for a given MTBF is normal and in some cases (parts with predictable aging) leads to a fixed time to failure. The point is just if that time frame is given and reliable.

Some grading system for the lifetime would be ideal, but it is essentially impossible to test that reliable up-front and with possible minor product changes over time. It worked with the old incandecent lamps with usually 1000 h and some 2000 h and few 100/300 h lamps as that is still a timeframe that can be tested.  20 kHz are some 2.5 years and this is longer than many LED lamps are on the market.
If parts fail early, you know which brand not to buy in the future.

A point that could help would be a thermal rating for the sockets / lamp housings, so that one know what power one could use without running them extra hot and thus a reduced lifetime. That part would at least be a part that could be measured relatively easy and is thus well defined. With higher temperature use the lifetime is naturally small - still some 10000 or just 5000 hours would not be that bad.

So far I can not complain much about failing LED lamps: most of them last long and only a few (e.g. 1 out of 10) early failures.
gnuarm:

--- Quote from: Psi on August 05, 2023, 08:39:43 am ---
--- Quote from: gnuarm on August 05, 2023, 07:50:54 am ---So the only possibilities are inferior products that fail as soon as the warranty is up, or products that last forever? 

I think I need to stop reading EEVblog.  This place is insane!

--- End quote ---

I wish i could understand your point of view.
Which of these statements do you disagree with.

1) Most LED lights run way to hot and fail early because of it.
--- End quote ---

You are stating that as if it were fact, which it is not.  I have LED bulbs that burn for years without problem, because they are not enclosed and have clear airflow.  When the same bulb brands have restricted airflow, the bulbs burn out within a year typically. 



--- Quote ---2) The LED lights above would last way longer if they didn't run them so hot.
--- End quote ---

Again, your supposition, not a fact.  It is not valid logic to make an assumption, then use that to prove the assumption is valid.



--- Quote ---3) Making them run at under 50C is trivial (be lowering output wattage) and would add next to nothing to product cost. Obviously cost to consumer would be a little higher as they might have to buy more lights or bigger light get same output, but the product lasting for so much longer would make up for that by many times.
--- End quote ---

Or, you can use them with proper airflow so they don't get hot.  LED bulbs don't use much power, so they will not run hot in an open lamp or other fixture with adequate airflow.



--- Quote ---4) Most companies are never going to voluntary make changes that cost next to nothing but make longer lasting products because it's going to reduce profit. (unless there's a major shift in public buying habits and people stop trying to save a dollar now even if it cost $5 later)
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If the problem were the design, this might be valid.  I don't care.  I buy name brands with a warranty.  The store will also give me a refund if the bulbs burn out prematurely, but I don't recall that happening since I removed the air flow restrictions.



--- Quote ---5) The best way to fix this is for the government to pass some sort of law that prevents companies making consumable products that perform badly when there's no technical reason for it.  Or by forced warranty length in industries where there are these problems, like lighting.
--- End quote ---

LOL!!!  There's absolutely no response needed to this.



--- Quote ---I know the exact law and how it works would need to have a lot of thought. And implementing it is not that easy but i think it's totally doable.
--- End quote ---

And pointless.



--- Quote ---I suspect your issue is with point 5 and I suspect its due to you being very antigovernment regulation.
Which I assume is because the government where you are is maybe not working for the people.
And if so, i would put forward that the issue is then with the government not working, rather than an issue with a law to stop or help reduce planned obsolescent.   Apologies if one of my assumptions in this paragraph is wrong, it's just a guess.

--- End quote ---

LOL  No, I am fully in support of government regulation where it is useful.  This is not one of those situations.  Regulation is not going to make your bulbs last longer, because very few people are going to return a light bulb to the store and the store is going to eat the cost and throw the bulb in the trash.

I'm done discussing this with you.  Bye.
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