10 ms·

I've taken every single LED bulb that has failed on me to pieces and it's always the same failure mode. The heatsink compound isn't applied properly to the back

by setquk 8y ago

I've taken every single LED bulb that has failed on me to pieces and it's always the same failure mode. The heatsink compound isn't applied properly to the back of the LED board. The LEDs immediately in the gaps smoke out. Alas this isn't a problem. If a lightbulb goes, Amazon send me a new one out now free of charge and tell me to throw the old one in the trash. This is one manufacturer, prevalent on Amazon, the Long Life Lamp Company. Long Life my ass. They have been replaced by Philips and Ikea LED bulbs now which the oldest are 5 years old now and still going strong. Edit: one thing to note is the really cheap ones run pretty hot. They have 105 oC rated capacitors in them. If you look at the derating curves at the running temperature they are clearly designed to last just past a year.

baybal2 8y ago
Do not buy "bulbs," they are hopeless. Just buy a whole fixture with a big aluminium PCB and directly bonded chips.
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  I wish there was more selection available of that kind of thing— when I last looked a year or so ago there was basically just one option at Home Depot, and it had the aesthetics of something you'd put in the laundry room. Worse than that, though, it was unusable with a dimmer switch; the whole thing visibly flickered every few seconds. I felt bad returning it because I really wanted it to work out, but the quality just wasn't there.
  - tachyonbeam 8y ago
    I have an LED fixture that I got from home depot that is dimmable, no flickering. It's connected to a normal dimmer switch. I bought it about a year ago. My other LED fixtures were ordered through aliexpress. The fixtures were fine, but the transformers that came with the fixtures all failed and had to be replaced (overheated, melted the plastic casing). This turned out to be tricky, because the LED drivers available on ebay and aliexpress are never the same, there are constantly new shoddy ones from noname brands, and the ones I had bought before tend to be nowhere to be found when I need a new one.
    - nsxwolf 8y ago
      I didn't know that the fixtures themselves had dimming features. I put "dimmable" LEDs in my can lights in the basement, and I'm really unimpressed with them. They don't flicker[1], but they don't get very dim, either. [1] Except after a power outage - then they eerily flash on and off like something out of Stranger Things.
    - Freak_NL 8y ago
      That is the constant frustration of this economic model. Either you buy the driver (or the LED bulbs for that matter) from a shop in your own regulated economic area (like the EEA) and have them handle quality assurance (including the selection of the product) and warrantee, or you get the same product directly from China for a fifth of the price and have to handle the occasional failure yourself. The sad thing is that the latter is still cheaper than buying from a 'local' shop.
    - rainbowzootsuit 8y ago
      I have had good success with, and have been happy with the quality of _MeanWell_ LED drivers and power supplies. You can get them through Mouser, Newark, Digikey etc.
- ip26 8y ago
  There's a lot of junk to be sure but tens of Philips & GE bulbs have been doing great for me for a couple years now. They don't run that hot either.
  - neonkiwi 8y ago
    I was surprised at the early failures of my Sylvania bulbs. Had expected that going with a brand that has been in the light bulb industry for a long time, I would get decent quality, but they've all died in under a year. Now IKEA bulbs are my go-to, the mix of selection, quality and price is impressive compared to what I've seen but I haven't thoroughly researched this. Do Philips or GE do better?
    - RankingMember 8y ago
      The last I looked at them, Ikea bulbs ran hot the packaging advised not to be used in small/enclosed fixtures because they could overheat. Do you find that to be the case with the ones you're using?
      - simongr3dal 8y ago
        I have a couple of 2W/80lm ikea bulbs for bedside lighting, and they are room temperature. I also own some 5W/400lm ikea bulbs for general room lighting and they do run warm, maybe something like 40°C ± 5°C. The fixture/thingy around the bulb is roughly the size of a fist. The bulbs are pretty new so I can't say anything about the lifespan of the bulbs, but the price is reasonable, they are not the fancy smart bulbs.
    - ip26 8y ago
      I have only my anecdotal experience, but I'm happy with the Philips & GE bulbs. As I said, they both seem to run pretty cool. Philips makes what seem to be inexpensive-but-quality bulbs, as well as dimmable LED's that red-shift like incandescent used to. They also make a 60W yellow bulb that has very low blue emissions, uncommon for LED bulbs. Some of GE's LED bulbs have really high CRI which I like for making the basement more cheery. One thing to pay close attention to on the package is whether the bulb can be run in an enclosed fixture. The package should always specify. Following this guidance and picking the right bulb for the fixture will help ensure you get the service life you expect. I don't think I've found any 100W equivalents that are OK'd for fully enclosed application, and 60W equivalent is like 50/50.
- greedo 8y ago
  I bought one of these for my basement hallway when I was finishing it out. My only concern is that a normal fixture has few failure modes; just the bulb. But if this fixture fails, I have to find a new one that will fit in the same spot. Hopefully it will last til I'm dead.
- setquk 8y ago
  Honestly I can't be bothered to replace the fixtures. Edit: looking at the price of fixtures, the economic argument is poor as well.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- amluto 8y ago
  I used to think that, and I changed my mind. The fancy retrofit fixtures are almost universally flood lights where the diffuser is close enough to the ceiling plane that it’s visible from far off axis. The result is that the lights on the far side of the room cause unpleasant glare. With a retrofit lamp, you can use a high quality trim baffle (these things cost about $12, are quite well designed, and are probably already in your house and put a civilized PAR30 or PAR38 LED in, and you get a much better light distribution. Back when lamps were all standardized incandescents, fixtures could focus on quality. Now, with LEDs, I suspect that manufacturers focus on how cheaply they can build a driver and assembly that meets some minimum performance criteria. So, with retrofit lamps, at least the fixture design is separate. (There are exceptions, of course. Very high quality dedicated fixtures exist, but they’re quite expensive.)
- JohnTHaller 8y ago
  My friend's bathroom light that is now a strobe light and the landlord has yet to replace because it requires an electrician to replace the whole fixture would like a word with you.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >requires an electrician to replace the whole fixture would like a word with you. Kind of like how replacing a gas dryer "requires" a licensed plumber to make the gas connection or you're "required" to drive no faster than the speed limit at all times. You're getting the runaround. If it was in a vacant apartment that they were showing to people it would already be fixed. If they cared about getting it done ASAP they'd either shell out the big bucks or ignore the law. Edit: I think a lot of people on HN don't realize how simple swapping failed parts is. Swapping a failed water heater or electrical fixture (especially light fixtures) is a waste of the skilled tradesman's time and the customer's money. Even an incompetent landlord or maintenance service should be able to get it done.
    - Sebguer 8y ago
      yeah, darn those pesky laws around liability getting in the way of some good old-fashioned handiwork.
      - Consultant32452 8y ago
        As long as you're just replacing the fixture and not running new line a handy man type person can do it legally.
        ceejayoz 8y ago
        In some jurisdictions. IIRC, Australia requires an electrician for even this sort of minor work.
        JohnTHaller 8y ago
        Generally, a landlord wants someone licensed with insurance to handle something like that on the off chance something goes wrong. I was going to fix the fixture in my bathroom that was shorting a bit and burning out bulbs myself. Thankfully I called my owner and he had an electrician come in because it turns out a lot of the conduit above the fixture needed replacing due to age.
- dreamcompiler 8y ago
  I've started doing this. Bought a large panel fixture and a separate high-quality LED current source and it has been absolutely great. Next time I build a house I'll probably run all the lighting circuits on a hefty 24VDC main power supply with small DC/DC regulators on every fixture. There's no reason nowadays why lighting circuits should be 120 or 240VAC.
  - bombela 8y ago
    power loss and price of copper is a good reason to bring 120/240vac as far as possible.
    - dreamcompiler 8y ago
      Like I said in a previous comment, with LEDs, power requirements are small and distances within a house are small. Coupled with a resonably high but safe voltage (like 24 or 36VDC), there's no reason why 14 gauge copper wire couldn't work just fine for a lighting circuit.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  It's a shame that ceiling light fixtures in the US are directly wired and screwed in. In other countries (both in Sweden where I lived before and here in Japan where I live now) there are special ceiling power outlets, so replacing a light fixture is just a question of unplugging and plugging in again. Japan: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4279/35698610491_8787f45eae.jpg https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4279/35698610491_8787f45eae.j... https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4230/35790814576_382943d360.jpg https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4230/35790814576_382943d360.j... Sweden: https://www.eldirekt.se/pub_images/medium/1890776__13222.jpg https://www.eldirekt.se/pub_images/medium/1890776__13222.jpg There's a wide range of quality ceiling light fixtures that you just clip into place, and the LED chips are on a huge metal heatsink so they run very cool https://panasonic.jp/light/led/products.html https://panasonic.jp/light/led/products.html
dleslie 8y ago
I bought a pile of cheap LED bulbs[0] when they first became available on Amazon Canada, and replaced every light in my home. They've run cheap and cold for years now, without a single failure. I suspect that there's some planned obsolescence in newer products. 0: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B01EN9L8YU?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_pd_title https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B01EN9L8YU?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_m...
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Nobody is going to deliberately sabotage their LED bulbs because nobody really has a monopoly on them. They probably use cheap components that are only rated for the warranty period, but that isn't "planned obsolescence".
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Nobody is going to sabotage them, but they’re also not going to spend money making them list one minute longer than they really have to. If you’re focused on the short term or think reputation isn’t a big driver of your sales, then your product really doesn’t have to last very long. I think it gets worse as time goes on, because manufacturers gain experience with the lifespan of their components and learn exactly where they can cut. If you’re not quite sure how long something will last, you’ll probably err on the side of caution and engineer it to last longer than needed in case you got it wrong.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      A competing manufacturer can always offer a product that last longer and warranty it, and people might choose to purchase it depending on the price. However, as the article notes, people may not be interested in paying a premium for a product that lasts 10y instead of 5y or 20y instead of 10y, since the tech can change or maybe it’s susceptical to other kinds of degradation.
      - brlewis 8y ago
        For bulbs that are really cheap, people won't keep their receipts and warranty information. I think it will be hard for bulbs to differentiate by warranty.
amelius 8y ago
This is in contradiction with the article, which says that the driver is the cause in 90% of cases. EDIT: This was not entirely correct as the article says: > The US Department of Energy (DoE)’s solid-state lighting program supports research and development of LED technologies, and their website contains volumes of data on LED lighting systems. Their Lifetime and Reliability Fact Sheet contains data on the failure rate of 5,400 outdoor lamps over 34 million hours of operation. Interestingly, the LEDs themselves account for only 10% of the failures; driver circuitry, on the other hand, was responsible almost 60% of the time. The remainder of failures were due to housing problems, which may not be as applicable for bulbs in indoor use.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Actually, a single manufacturer having one dominant problem is not in contradiction to the industry as a whole having a different dominant problem.
- lstodd 8y ago
  Yeah well, cheap led bulbs don't have a driver, so obviously other problems kill them. Some don't even have a bridge rectifier - just a couple of capacitors and that's it.
tzs 8y ago
I replaced around 25 bulbs in my house with cheap Walmart "Great Value" LEDs just under 3 years ago and they've all been fine. Previously, I had replaced around 4 bulbs with Cree LEDs from Home Depot, and half of those were dead within a few months. The Walmart bulbs without any special pricing were way cheaper than the Cree bulbs from Home Depot, but even better, there was some sort of automatic rebate or something like that in cooperation with the local electric company that made the Walmart bulbs $0.17. By "automatic rebate", I mean that the bulbs rang up on checkout at $0.17. No rebate forms to send in or anything like that.
- jandrese 8y ago
  The Cree bulbs have been a disappointment for me as well. There was so much buzz about then when they came out, but I've had so many where one of the elements fizzles out and kills the whole bulb because they are wired in series and the elements fail closed or very high resistance. If I cared more I might try to take the bulbs apart in a way that I could get them back together and just bypass the failed LED with a resister to bring the bulb back to life (at 15% reduced capacity or so). I have been very disappointed in how hot the bulbs run as well. It feels like they must be wasting a lot of energy to run that hot.
- tempestn 8y ago
  Those early Home Depot Cree bulbs were definitely defective. We bought a ton of them and have since replaced nearly all under warranty... twice. The first round they replaced with identical ones, which also quickly failed. (Always the same; started with an intermittent flicker, which progressively got more severe and regular.) More recently we've gotten a new design back, which seem better. Fortunately, after the first ones, it's been as simple as replying to the email thread and telling them how many more replacements I need!
  - Animats 8y ago
    Yes. I have six failed ones I need to send back. Power supply failures on every one of them within a year of installation.
  - 8y ago
darepublic 8y ago
> Alas this isn't a problem. It is a problem in the sense that it creates waste and pollution. There is a cost to throwing things out, and for shipping things across the country without limit.
- setquk 8y ago
  Goes in the WEEE recycling here and is recycled so the impact isn’t as high as it may be elsewhere. I do agree with you fundamentally however.
  - Moru 8y ago
    Recycling of electronics does not have to be as good for the environment as it's made out to be. It can be pretty toxic stuff to melt and separate.
  - slavik81 8y ago
    How much less is the impact?
Shivetya 8y ago
two usage cases, one obvious to me but one wasn't. the first being, areas with vibration meaning near doors and garage door openers. great locations to eat LED bulbs. this might be related to your heat sink adhesive issue. the second is the upside down tulip light fixtures common in bathrooms, apparently they cook quite well unless ventilated at the top.
zepearl 8y ago
Philips vs. OSRAM My flat has some sort of bad-quality switches and when switching on/off the lights I often used to have some failures when using classic light bulbs (I have no clue about electricity - in any case in some way when I press the on/off-button the transition seems to be "dirty"). 4 months ago I bought a new lamp and decided to give OSRAM-bulbs a go (it's a well known brand in Europe but up until then I always used Philips) => 2 LED-bulbs failed within 2 weeks (I put in the 1st bulb => failed after 2 weeks => replaced it with a 2nd bulb => failed again after 2 weeks). I then went back to using Philips-bulbs and the one I used to replace the last one which failed is still working now. Philips seems to be, at least in my case, definitely better or at least more "lenient/tolerant" at least concerning my the switches installed in my flat. Anybody having negative experiences with Philips or positive ones with OSRAM or the opposite?

by setquk 8y ago

baybal2 8y ago

Do not buy "bulbs," they are hopeless. Just buy a whole fixture with a big aluminium PCB and directly bonded chips.

mikepurvis 8y ago
I wish there was more selection available of that kind of thing— when I last looked a year or so ago there was basically just one option at Home Depot, and it had the aesthetics of something you'd put in the laundry room. Worse than that, though, it was unusable with a dimmer switch; the whole thing visibly flickered every few seconds. I felt bad returning it because I really wanted it to work out, but the quality just wasn't there.
- tachyonbeam 8y ago
  I have an LED fixture that I got from home depot that is dimmable, no flickering. It's connected to a normal dimmer switch. I bought it about a year ago. My other LED fixtures were ordered through aliexpress. The fixtures were fine, but the transformers that came with the fixtures all failed and had to be replaced (overheated, melted the plastic casing). This turned out to be tricky, because the LED drivers available on ebay and aliexpress are never the same, there are constantly new shoddy ones from noname brands, and the ones I had bought before tend to be nowhere to be found when I need a new one.
  - nsxwolf 8y ago
    I didn't know that the fixtures themselves had dimming features. I put "dimmable" LEDs in my can lights in the basement, and I'm really unimpressed with them. They don't flicker[1], but they don't get very dim, either. [1] Except after a power outage - then they eerily flash on and off like something out of Stranger Things.
  - Freak_NL 8y ago
    That is the constant frustration of this economic model. Either you buy the driver (or the LED bulbs for that matter) from a shop in your own regulated economic area (like the EEA) and have them handle quality assurance (including the selection of the product) and warrantee, or you get the same product directly from China for a fifth of the price and have to handle the occasional failure yourself. The sad thing is that the latter is still cheaper than buying from a 'local' shop.
  - rainbowzootsuit 8y ago
    I have had good success with, and have been happy with the quality of _MeanWell_ LED drivers and power supplies. You can get them through Mouser, Newark, Digikey etc.
ip26 8y ago
There's a lot of junk to be sure but tens of Philips & GE bulbs have been doing great for me for a couple years now. They don't run that hot either.
- neonkiwi 8y ago
  I was surprised at the early failures of my Sylvania bulbs. Had expected that going with a brand that has been in the light bulb industry for a long time, I would get decent quality, but they've all died in under a year. Now IKEA bulbs are my go-to, the mix of selection, quality and price is impressive compared to what I've seen but I haven't thoroughly researched this. Do Philips or GE do better?
  - RankingMember 8y ago
    The last I looked at them, Ikea bulbs ran hot the packaging advised not to be used in small/enclosed fixtures because they could overheat. Do you find that to be the case with the ones you're using?
    - simongr3dal 8y ago
      I have a couple of 2W/80lm ikea bulbs for bedside lighting, and they are room temperature. I also own some 5W/400lm ikea bulbs for general room lighting and they do run warm, maybe something like 40°C ± 5°C. The fixture/thingy around the bulb is roughly the size of a fist. The bulbs are pretty new so I can't say anything about the lifespan of the bulbs, but the price is reasonable, they are not the fancy smart bulbs.
  - ip26 8y ago
    I have only my anecdotal experience, but I'm happy with the Philips & GE bulbs. As I said, they both seem to run pretty cool. Philips makes what seem to be inexpensive-but-quality bulbs, as well as dimmable LED's that red-shift like incandescent used to. They also make a 60W yellow bulb that has very low blue emissions, uncommon for LED bulbs. Some of GE's LED bulbs have really high CRI which I like for making the basement more cheery. One thing to pay close attention to on the package is whether the bulb can be run in an enclosed fixture. The package should always specify. Following this guidance and picking the right bulb for the fixture will help ensure you get the service life you expect. I don't think I've found any 100W equivalents that are OK'd for fully enclosed application, and 60W equivalent is like 50/50.
greedo 8y ago
I bought one of these for my basement hallway when I was finishing it out. My only concern is that a normal fixture has few failure modes; just the bulb. But if this fixture fails, I have to find a new one that will fit in the same spot. Hopefully it will last til I'm dead.
setquk 8y ago
Honestly I can't be bothered to replace the fixtures. Edit: looking at the price of fixtures, the economic argument is poor as well.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
amluto 8y ago
I used to think that, and I changed my mind. The fancy retrofit fixtures are almost universally flood lights where the diffuser is close enough to the ceiling plane that it’s visible from far off axis. The result is that the lights on the far side of the room cause unpleasant glare. With a retrofit lamp, you can use a high quality trim baffle (these things cost about $12, are quite well designed, and are probably already in your house and put a civilized PAR30 or PAR38 LED in, and you get a much better light distribution. Back when lamps were all standardized incandescents, fixtures could focus on quality. Now, with LEDs, I suspect that manufacturers focus on how cheaply they can build a driver and assembly that meets some minimum performance criteria. So, with retrofit lamps, at least the fixture design is separate. (There are exceptions, of course. Very high quality dedicated fixtures exist, but they’re quite expensive.)
JohnTHaller 8y ago
My friend's bathroom light that is now a strobe light and the landlord has yet to replace because it requires an electrician to replace the whole fixture would like a word with you.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >requires an electrician to replace the whole fixture would like a word with you. Kind of like how replacing a gas dryer "requires" a licensed plumber to make the gas connection or you're "required" to drive no faster than the speed limit at all times. You're getting the runaround. If it was in a vacant apartment that they were showing to people it would already be fixed. If they cared about getting it done ASAP they'd either shell out the big bucks or ignore the law. Edit: I think a lot of people on HN don't realize how simple swapping failed parts is. Swapping a failed water heater or electrical fixture (especially light fixtures) is a waste of the skilled tradesman's time and the customer's money. Even an incompetent landlord or maintenance service should be able to get it done.
  - Sebguer 8y ago
    yeah, darn those pesky laws around liability getting in the way of some good old-fashioned handiwork.
    - Consultant32452 8y ago
      As long as you're just replacing the fixture and not running new line a handy man type person can do it legally.
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        In some jurisdictions. IIRC, Australia requires an electrician for even this sort of minor work.
      - JohnTHaller 8y ago
        Generally, a landlord wants someone licensed with insurance to handle something like that on the off chance something goes wrong. I was going to fix the fixture in my bathroom that was shorting a bit and burning out bulbs myself. Thankfully I called my owner and he had an electrician come in because it turns out a lot of the conduit above the fixture needed replacing due to age.
dreamcompiler 8y ago
I've started doing this. Bought a large panel fixture and a separate high-quality LED current source and it has been absolutely great. Next time I build a house I'll probably run all the lighting circuits on a hefty 24VDC main power supply with small DC/DC regulators on every fixture. There's no reason nowadays why lighting circuits should be 120 or 240VAC.
- bombela 8y ago
  power loss and price of copper is a good reason to bring 120/240vac as far as possible.
  - dreamcompiler 8y ago
    Like I said in a previous comment, with LEDs, power requirements are small and distances within a house are small. Coupled with a resonably high but safe voltage (like 24 or 36VDC), there's no reason why 14 gauge copper wire couldn't work just fine for a lighting circuit.
kalleboo 8y ago
It's a shame that ceiling light fixtures in the US are directly wired and screwed in. In other countries (both in Sweden where I lived before and here in Japan where I live now) there are special ceiling power outlets, so replacing a light fixture is just a question of unplugging and plugging in again. Japan: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4279/35698610491_8787f45eae.jpg https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4279/35698610491_8787f45eae.j... https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4230/35790814576_382943d360.jpg https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4230/35790814576_382943d360.j... Sweden: https://www.eldirekt.se/pub_images/medium/1890776__13222.jpg https://www.eldirekt.se/pub_images/medium/1890776__13222.jpg There's a wide range of quality ceiling light fixtures that you just clip into place, and the LED chips are on a huge metal heatsink so they run very cool https://panasonic.jp/light/led/products.html https://panasonic.jp/light/led/products.html

dleslie 8y ago

I bought a pile of cheap LED bulbs[0] when they first became available on Amazon Canada, and replaced every light in my home. They've run cheap and cold for years now, without a single failure. I suspect that there's some planned obsolescence in newer products. 0: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B01EN9L8YU?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_pd_title https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B01EN9L8YU?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_m...

IshKebab 8y ago
Nobody is going to deliberately sabotage their LED bulbs because nobody really has a monopoly on them. They probably use cheap components that are only rated for the warranty period, but that isn't "planned obsolescence".
- mikeash 8y ago
  Nobody is going to sabotage them, but they’re also not going to spend money making them list one minute longer than they really have to. If you’re focused on the short term or think reputation isn’t a big driver of your sales, then your product really doesn’t have to last very long. I think it gets worse as time goes on, because manufacturers gain experience with the lifespan of their components and learn exactly where they can cut. If you’re not quite sure how long something will last, you’ll probably err on the side of caution and engineer it to last longer than needed in case you got it wrong.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    A competing manufacturer can always offer a product that last longer and warranty it, and people might choose to purchase it depending on the price. However, as the article notes, people may not be interested in paying a premium for a product that lasts 10y instead of 5y or 20y instead of 10y, since the tech can change or maybe it’s susceptical to other kinds of degradation.
    - brlewis 8y ago
      For bulbs that are really cheap, people won't keep their receipts and warranty information. I think it will be hard for bulbs to differentiate by warranty.

amelius 8y ago

This is in contradiction with the article, which says that the driver is the cause in 90% of cases. EDIT: This was not entirely correct as the article says: > The US Department of Energy (DoE)’s solid-state lighting program supports research and development of LED technologies, and their website contains volumes of data on LED lighting systems. Their Lifetime and Reliability Fact Sheet contains data on the failure rate of 5,400 outdoor lamps over 34 million hours of operation. Interestingly, the LEDs themselves account for only 10% of the failures; driver circuitry, on the other hand, was responsible almost 60% of the time. The remainder of failures were due to housing problems, which may not be as applicable for bulbs in indoor use.

dragonwriter 8y ago
Actually, a single manufacturer having one dominant problem is not in contradiction to the industry as a whole having a different dominant problem.
lstodd 8y ago
Yeah well, cheap led bulbs don't have a driver, so obviously other problems kill them. Some don't even have a bridge rectifier - just a couple of capacitors and that's it.

tzs 8y ago

I replaced around 25 bulbs in my house with cheap Walmart "Great Value" LEDs just under 3 years ago and they've all been fine. Previously, I had replaced around 4 bulbs with Cree LEDs from Home Depot, and half of those were dead within a few months. The Walmart bulbs without any special pricing were way cheaper than the Cree bulbs from Home Depot, but even better, there was some sort of automatic rebate or something like that in cooperation with the local electric company that made the Walmart bulbs $0.17. By "automatic rebate", I mean that the bulbs rang up on checkout at $0.17. No rebate forms to send in or anything like that.

jandrese 8y ago
The Cree bulbs have been a disappointment for me as well. There was so much buzz about then when they came out, but I've had so many where one of the elements fizzles out and kills the whole bulb because they are wired in series and the elements fail closed or very high resistance. If I cared more I might try to take the bulbs apart in a way that I could get them back together and just bypass the failed LED with a resister to bring the bulb back to life (at 15% reduced capacity or so). I have been very disappointed in how hot the bulbs run as well. It feels like they must be wasting a lot of energy to run that hot.
tempestn 8y ago
Those early Home Depot Cree bulbs were definitely defective. We bought a ton of them and have since replaced nearly all under warranty... twice. The first round they replaced with identical ones, which also quickly failed. (Always the same; started with an intermittent flicker, which progressively got more severe and regular.) More recently we've gotten a new design back, which seem better. Fortunately, after the first ones, it's been as simple as replying to the email thread and telling them how many more replacements I need!
- Animats 8y ago
  Yes. I have six failed ones I need to send back. Power supply failures on every one of them within a year of installation.
- 8y ago

darepublic 8y ago

> Alas this isn't a problem. It is a problem in the sense that it creates waste and pollution. There is a cost to throwing things out, and for shipping things across the country without limit.

setquk 8y ago
Goes in the WEEE recycling here and is recycled so the impact isn’t as high as it may be elsewhere. I do agree with you fundamentally however.
- Moru 8y ago
  Recycling of electronics does not have to be as good for the environment as it's made out to be. It can be pretty toxic stuff to melt and separate.
- slavik81 8y ago
  How much less is the impact?

Shivetya 8y ago

two usage cases, one obvious to me but one wasn't. the first being, areas with vibration meaning near doors and garage door openers. great locations to eat LED bulbs. this might be related to your heat sink adhesive issue. the second is the upside down tulip light fixtures common in bathrooms, apparently they cook quite well unless ventilated at the top.

zepearl 8y ago

Philips vs. OSRAM My flat has some sort of bad-quality switches and when switching on/off the lights I often used to have some failures when using classic light bulbs (I have no clue about electricity - in any case in some way when I press the on/off-button the transition seems to be "dirty"). 4 months ago I bought a new lamp and decided to give OSRAM-bulbs a go (it's a well known brand in Europe but up until then I always used Philips) => 2 LED-bulbs failed within 2 weeks (I put in the 1st bulb => failed after 2 weeks => replaced it with a 2nd bulb => failed again after 2 weeks). I then went back to using Philips-bulbs and the one I used to replace the last one which failed is still working now. Philips seems to be, at least in my case, definitely better or at least more "lenient/tolerant" at least concerning my the switches installed in my flat. Anybody having negative experiences with Philips or positive ones with OSRAM or the opposite?