CREE light bulbs - high failure rate

[cvanc]

Hi all-

So a while back I replaced every incandescent lamp in my home with Cree LEDs.  They were the usual residential stuff, purchased from Home Depot.  I *thought* I was buying the best available quality.

Unfortunately my failure rate is approaching 25% just a few months later!  I thought these were the best on the market... am I just unlucky, or have things changed, and these guys are not what they used to be?

Thanks.

(edited, holy cow I meant Cree not Osram... sorry)

[BrokenYugo]

The magic phrase on the box you have to look for is "Suitable for enclosed fixtures", i.e. "Built with halfass decent high temp parts".

EDIT to reflect OP's edit: That said, I thought Cree was the good stuff too.

[cvanc]

Thanks, ands sorry for my brain fart.

Love your name, side question - did you ever see a Yugo that actually worked?   

[mawyatt]

Might have something to do with the quality of the power you have with high energy "glitches". Maybe lots of lightning storm induced "spikes" like where we live. Incandescent bulbs are almost immune to the power line quality, and don't need any protection, whereas an LED is basically an electronic device and needs some protection, and in household use probably has little to keep the cost down.

Best,

[BrokenYugo]

Yes, had one on the road for one summer/fall about 10 years ago, was even a daily for a while, then it went and wiped a cam on me, life got in the way, and I never got back to it. I like slow cars on skinny tires you can beat the crap out of without breaking the speed limit.

But back to topic, I also was thinking maybe bad power quality. That is a ridiculous fail rate. Have you done an autopsy on any of the dead ones? Assuming we aren't talking about the clear glass globe LED filament type the diffuser will pop off mostly unharmed if you're careful with it (they're usually sealed with silicone caulk for water resistance).

[cvanc]

I realize I'm derailing my own thread, but I'm from Michigan and we had *serious* winter there, you know?  The saying was "around here you need a car you don't have to respect in the morning"   

[floobydust]

Cree light bulbs are shit I think Gen3 didn't last past 2,000hrs despite the high premium price. To claim warranty I'd have to send them back to Cree at my expense. Home Depot stopped carrying them in Canada. Tried Philips and they have excellent CRI but short life, roasted capacitors burnt pcb. Ikea is best but warm white only.
I think too many patents on cooling prevents consumers from getting anything decent.

Indeed, can we dispel the myth about LED light bulbs lasting muh "20,000 hours" or "100,000 hours" bullshit? I don't know why EE's think they'll last near that- it's theory.

An interesting LED bulb test report finds accelerated lifetime testing (high ambient) does not correlate to actual lifetime. If you put aside aging mechanisms such as lumen depreciation, colour shift etc. Although at the bottom some LED bulbs didn't last as long as incandescents, dying in under 1,000hrs. These were apparently running 140°C.
Most interesting is LED bulb's lifetime suffers greatly from thermal cycling graph shows to ~1/3 the life.

Source: Literature Summary of Lifetime Testing of Light Emitting Diodes and LED Products June 2021

[Sal Ammoniac]

I too bought Cree bulbs because I thought they were higher quality than the competition. All of my Cree bulbs have since failed short of the advertised lifespan printed on the packaging. Some failed far short of the advertised life span. I've since stopped buying Cree and have switched to other brands.

[BrokenYugo]

I realize I'm derailing my own thread, but I'm from Michigan and we had *serious* winter there, you know?  The saying was "around here you need a car you don't have to respect in the morning"   

I'm well aware, low mid palm area most of my life, used to have some friends in the GR area too.

The only Cree bulb I see on a routine basis is a 3 way 50-100-150 equivalent that was like $15 probably 5 years ago now, it's usually run on high every day at least 12 hours and still seems to work, I'm sure the output has degraded though. 90+ CRI three way bulbs were hard to find, at least at the time, especially 150W, I think Cree was the only remotely reputable one available. That's pointed up in a big 6 way mogul floor lamp (custom adapter to go from mogul 3 way to Edison 3 way) with an open top shade though.

Personally I've had a variety of LED bulbs not fail on me. I think the only dud I ever got was a off brand filament type I got cheap on the clearance rack, and the other 3 of that lot are still running. Even the handful of dollar store bulbs have been good to me. Back when a decent 800 lumen one was still $5 the power company traded my parents a bunch of "Earth Bulb" brand for a dead freezer, they're still all running to the best of my knowledge, just dim in the high hour positions.

[floobydust]

I have two old hardly used Cree's LED bulbs left. Intermittently they will surge and pulse super bright, like a flash going off but it's brief barely detectable by the human eye. I thought I was seeing things then I noticed it's only the two bulbs doing it, as if it's a mains transient occurring- but they are on MOV protected outlets.
I thought of smashing their glass to let them run cooler but this is either the LED string failing (going open or arcing) or the driver malfunctioning. I know their days are numbered.

[thm_w]

Cree light bulbs are shit I think Gen3 didn't last past 2,000hrs despite the high premium price. To claim warranty I'd have to send them back to Cree at my expense. Home Depot stopped carrying them in Canada. Tried Philips and they have excellent CRI but short life, roasted capacitors burnt pcb. Ikea is best but warm white only.
I think too many patents on cooling prevents consumers from getting anything decent.

Indeed, can we dispel the myth about LED light bulbs lasting muh "20,000 hours" or "100,000 hours" bullshit? I don't know why EE's think they'll last near that- it's theory.

The original Philips bulbs would last that long. Then the costs came way down and the driver boards turned into hot garbage.

As of April 29, 2013, the 200 Philips L Prize lamps completed 25,000 hours of continuous operation in the lumen maintenance test facility. None of the samples has failed to date, and average lumen
maintenance of the 200 lamps remains above 100% of initial light output. The projected time to 70% lumen maintenance would be well in excess of 150,000 hours (the six-times guideline in TM-21 limits forward projections to no more than six times the actual test period). Projected lumen maintenance should not be interpreted as projected lifetime, as it assumes all other components in the lamp continue to operate normally. Lamp failure could result from electronic or other component failure before or after LED output has reached 70%.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170926055948/https://www.lightingprize.org/pdfs/lprize_60w-lumen-maint-testing.pdf


https://hackaday.com/2019/02/05/what-happened-to-the-100000-hour-led-bulbs/