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| Where can I buy non-phoebus light bulbs? |
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| langwadt:
--- Quote from: Connecteur on April 22, 2021, 04:10:47 pm --- --- Quote from: james_s on April 21, 2021, 08:59:15 pm ---It isn't planned obsolescence, it's cost reduction, that cartel you mention ceased to exist in 1939, which you might have noticed was a very long time ago. People voted with their wallets and they repeatedly voted for cheap, unless mandates such as that in Dubai prevents it. People still buy 75 cent incandescent lamps because they're "cheap" even though they cost far more in energy consumption than the cost of an LED bulb. Did you notice that those Dubai lamps contain twice as many LED filaments as cheaper bulbs? The LEDs are the most expensive part of the bulb, so more LEDs = more expensive bulb. If you want long lasting LED bulbs they are still available, although they cost more. Philips and Cree stuff that is rated for enclosed fixtures usually hold up pretty well. Most of the LED bulbs I paid $40 EACH for back around 2010 are still working fine. They were good quality products, priced accordingly, and very few people bought them, most balked at the price. --- End quote --- Actually, I disagree. I have a friend in Poland who's brother was a manager at a light bulb factory. The bulbs lasted for many years, but they weren't making enough money to remain profitable, so they hired an American consultant who recommended a number of changes that would shorten the lifespan of the bulbs. I'm sure no one involved ever calls it "planned obsolescence" but that's exactly what it is. --- End quote --- they were the only ones selling light bulbs? sounds like the typical urban myth, someone who knows someone heard someone did xxx more likely they weren't profitable because they were using too expensive materials compared to what people were willing to pay |
| wraper:
--- Quote from: Connecteur on April 22, 2021, 04:10:47 pm ---Actually, I disagree. I have a friend in Poland who's brother was a manager at a light bulb factory. The bulbs lasted for many years, but they weren't making enough money to remain profitable, so they hired an American consultant who recommended a number of changes that would shorten the lifespan of the bulbs. I'm sure no one involved ever calls it "planned obsolescence" but that's exactly what it is. --- End quote --- Friend's brother who did overhear some BS story :palm:. Also you don't need an American engineer to reduce the lifespan. Just make shorter filament, so it runs at higher temperature. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: Connecteur on April 22, 2021, 04:10:47 pm ---Actually, I disagree. I have a friend in Poland who's brother was a manager at a light bulb factory. The bulbs lasted for many years, but they weren't making enough money to remain profitable, so they hired an American consultant who recommended a number of changes that would shorten the lifespan of the bulbs. I'm sure no one involved ever calls it "planned obsolescence" but that's exactly what it is. --- End quote --- You can disagree all you want, but you'd be wrong. Nobody engineers their products to fail, they engineer them to be cheap to produce, sometimes the result is that they fail. If two products are the same price and one consistently fails sooner then people will stop buying it, that would be a very foolish choice for a business. There was a whole thread about this recently, with incandescent lamps it's trivial to make them last a very long time, tens of thousands of hours is no problem at all but the energy efficiency plunges as rapidly as lifespan increases when you do this. Since the vast majority of the total cost of ownership is the energy consumed, it is a false economy to optimize for long life. Bulbs are cheap, electricity is expensive, so you optimize for efficiency without making the life so short that changing bulbs becomes an undue hassle. That is all moot at this point though since incandescent bulbs are mostly obsolete for general illumination. With LED bulbs there is a different set of compromises, primarily lifespan vs cost. Consumers have repeatedly demonstrated that cost is the most important aspect so bulbs are optimized for low cost while still offering generally acceptable lifespan. Making long lived LED bulbs means using lots of LEDs driven at low current so they are lightly stressed and using a high quality robust circuit to drive them, both of these things cost money. The fewer and cheaper components you can get away with, the lower the price and the more bulbs you will likely sell. Don't blame the companies, blame all the idiots who repeatedly buy the cheapest junk they can find. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: Miyuki on April 22, 2021, 04:46:10 am ---Why do people still use this format of light bulbs? For some fancy chandelier maybe but for general use are much better to use something designed with leds in mind. I have almost everywhere dimmable panels with CCT. Now I can have a light that I need and control it from everywhere. --- End quote --- Because I like traditional light fixtures and lamps, and I have mostly vintage stuff. The screw-in lamp is a standardized format that has been in use for decades, it means I can have one style of bulb that can be used almost everywhere and I can use fixtures that are aesthetically appropriate for my 1979 house. LED panels would just look weird and out of place here. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: Connecteur on April 22, 2021, 04:06:58 pm ---I can't dim a non-dimmable LED, otherwise I could just use twice as many bulbs and run them at half brightness, but then the capacitors would give out, right on queue. I'm talking about the type of engineering that Big Clive discussed. Reducing the current by half and doubling the number of LED elements. Also using long-life capacitors instead of the ones that fail within a few years. --- End quote --- So don't buy non-dimmable LED bulbs, problem solved. The dimmable ones cost more though. Doubling the number of LEDs costs money, the LEDs represent the majority of the cost of a bulb. Using long-life capacitors costs money, get out your wallet, bulbs that do exactly these things are readily available, they're relatively expensive though. If you buy dollar store crap don't act surprised when they don't last. It seems to me like you have a preexisting idea that there is some kind of conspiracy and you are using the cheapest of the cheap garbage to support this idea and pretending that the high quality products you claim to want are not available. They are, you just have to pay for them. |
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