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Try quality LEDs suggests that there are reputable manufacturers of LED products. Last time I tried Philips Greenpower, they said "40W!" yet the Kill-a-watt sho

Try quality LEDs suggests that there are reputable manufacturers of LED products. Last time I tried Philips Greenpower, they said "40W!" yet the Kill-a-watt showed ~30w and it was nowhere near as bright as an 18w unit some cheapo Chinese maker had. General Electric markets a 7w UV LED - there's one 1W UV LED, and four 1.5W white LEDs, behind a fake woods glass. Yet neither the bulb nor packaging makes note of the white LEDs. It instead says directly on the bulb "395nm UV Light" as if that were all it emitted. Quality certainly doesn't mean Brand-name in this day and age of unscrupulous law-buying companies.

jbmorgado 10y ago
Not only that but about 5 years ago we replaced most of the house with Philips LED lights, most of them failed/are failing by now (they start by getting a darker patch in the bottom of one of the tubes and then it slowly spreads out and the light shuts off completely). 5 years for a product that is advertised as lasting for decades as this usage rate.
- lightedman 10y ago
  And yet, here I hold some cheap (literally $0.99 each) 9w Chinese LED bulbs, several of which have been operating 24/7 for a couple of years, and still working just fine. So much of a crapshoot.
- Reason077 10y ago
  "they start by getting a darker patch in the bottom of one of the tubes" Tubes? Presumably you're talking about CFLs, not LEDs? 5 years ago, household LED lamps were still in their infancy and were really expensive. My experience with CFLs was pretty similar to yours. They didn't last, and dimmable ones especially would often fail within months. And the quality of light from fluorescents was never all that good anyway. But out of around 25 Philips LEDs I've installed, most of them dimmables, not a single one has failed or had any problems so far. The oldest ones were installed around a year ago now.
  - lightedman 10y ago
    The Philips A19-style bulbs kinda look like futuristic tube-ish light bulbs. It's just a circular ring of LEDs inside. One section goes out, then the next, in a cascading failure.
merb 10y ago
watt is a poor measurement for measuering the quantity of visible light. Well I mean just knowing the lumina of a bulb doesn't help since it's a subjective measurement and can change depending on the kelvin of the light. For myself I usualy look for 600-800 lm and around 2600K well for the bath I go lower and only take a look at 400lm. As said measuring the light is extremly subjective for different kinds of people
- lightedman 10y ago
  "watt is a poor measurement for measuering the quantity of visible light" Actually, it's a great measurement if you only work with the monochromatic ones. Knowing the LEDs efficiency at bin testing conditions will tell you what to expect - E.G. high-bin 3w 460n LED with 50% efficiency at 3w drive and typical operating temperatures (~70C junction temperature) means you can expect 1.5W of light. We toss in Avogadro's constant and a couple other formulas, do some multiplication, and suddenly we know roughly how many photons are being put out. This gets harder with white LEDs as one must figure out the relative percentage of each wavelength comprising the light, basically forcing you to do the math a few hundred times over, but it's still rather reliable. I just do rough calculations in my head for White LEDs.

jbmorgado 10y ago

Not only that but about 5 years ago we replaced most of the house with Philips LED lights, most of them failed/are failing by now (they start by getting a darker patch in the bottom of one of the tubes and then it slowly spreads out and the light shuts off completely). 5 years for a product that is advertised as lasting for decades as this usage rate.

lightedman 10y ago
And yet, here I hold some cheap (literally $0.99 each) 9w Chinese LED bulbs, several of which have been operating 24/7 for a couple of years, and still working just fine. So much of a crapshoot.
Reason077 10y ago
"they start by getting a darker patch in the bottom of one of the tubes" Tubes? Presumably you're talking about CFLs, not LEDs? 5 years ago, household LED lamps were still in their infancy and were really expensive. My experience with CFLs was pretty similar to yours. They didn't last, and dimmable ones especially would often fail within months. And the quality of light from fluorescents was never all that good anyway. But out of around 25 Philips LEDs I've installed, most of them dimmables, not a single one has failed or had any problems so far. The oldest ones were installed around a year ago now.
- lightedman 10y ago
  The Philips A19-style bulbs kinda look like futuristic tube-ish light bulbs. It's just a circular ring of LEDs inside. One section goes out, then the next, in a cascading failure.

merb 10y ago

watt is a poor measurement for measuering the quantity of visible light. Well I mean just knowing the lumina of a bulb doesn't help since it's a subjective measurement and can change depending on the kelvin of the light. For myself I usualy look for 600-800 lm and around 2600K well for the bath I go lower and only take a look at 400lm. As said measuring the light is extremly subjective for different kinds of people

lightedman 10y ago
"watt is a poor measurement for measuering the quantity of visible light" Actually, it's a great measurement if you only work with the monochromatic ones. Knowing the LEDs efficiency at bin testing conditions will tell you what to expect - E.G. high-bin 3w 460n LED with 50% efficiency at 3w drive and typical operating temperatures (~70C junction temperature) means you can expect 1.5W of light. We toss in Avogadro's constant and a couple other formulas, do some multiplication, and suddenly we know roughly how many photons are being put out. This gets harder with white LEDs as one must figure out the relative percentage of each wavelength comprising the light, basically forcing you to do the math a few hundred times over, but it's still rather reliable. I just do rough calculations in my head for White LEDs.