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> The LED lights product lasts longer Not my experience. My living room lighting already blew up two times and no, it wasn't the transformer which would be eas

> The LED lights product lasts longer Not my experience. My living room lighting already blew up two times and no, it wasn't the transformer which would be easy to replace. > and doesn't consume bulbs. Instead I have to throw away the whole thing with all its coper inside. > Strictly better, isn't it? Not in my books

sbcd 5y ago
This is just anecdote versus anecdote, but I've never had to replace a LED because of them blowing out. Just recently, I replaced a LED that has been turned on for 24 hours a day every day for a whole 5 years, and it was still working. You may ask, why replace it then? well, high quality LED bulbs might not blow up, but they lose brightness over time. Still, I'd say 5 years of mileage for a light has is never turned off is a solid return on investment, particularly when considering how little energy they consume compared to previous light bulb technologies. The same thing also happens with the LED strips within monitors, monitors get replaced when they become too dark. I would be suspicious about the quality of the electricity in the place you live or work at when you see this stuff break at too high of a frequency. Not directly related to LEDs, but somehow I had electronics like computers or just plain old regular incandescent light bulbs break far more often in a house I used to live in, and I used to blame bad luck with the devices I bought, until I moved into another apartment and things actually started to have acceptable life expectancy.
chrisseaton 5y ago
The old product was designed to use consumables even if it was functioning correctly!
auxym 5y ago
I bought christmas mini LED string lights last year from home depot, specifically labeled for outdoor use. Took them out this holiday season, and over half of the strings didn't work anymore. They have replaceable "bulbs", but HD doesn't sell them, "because they are never supposed to break". Found replacements that sort of work (different shade of white) a another store for some of the strings, but not for others, and had to throw them away. Very sour with the experience.
- 01100011 5y ago
  I had that happen but all of the issues were related to the individual led bulb connectors getting loose and were easily fixed by reseating them. Dunno if you had a similar issue but wanted to mention it.
xxs 5y ago
>My living room lighting already blew up two times and no The reason is not the LEDs themselves but... money. The LEDs are overdriven to show higher lumen numbers (and wattage) on the box. That results in overheating both of the LEDs and the driving circuits - one of them fails. In short it's the good old - planned obsolescence. It's absolutely possible to have LEDs that last for 50k hours (while losing 20% of their brightness) but don't fail. Sometimes even adjusting a resistor value (to reduce the current through the LEDs) would do the trick.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  That could be an interesting hack to the power supply, turning down the power a bit. Not the kind of thing that gets people motivated though, "let's make this product less powerful" isn't a common modding activity.
  - stordoff 5y ago
    Big Clive does this sort of thing on his YouTube channel fairly often. A few examples: * Adjusting a current regulator to drop a 10W lamp to ~2W - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeWnHnZ-ojw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeWnHnZ-ojw * Adjusting a capacitive dropper-based lamp from 5W to 0.5W - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRz7EplgDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRz7EplgDE * Making a "Dooby" (inspired by the Philips Dubai lamps[1]) lamp - using a series capacitor to make various lamps run at 0.1-2W - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISTB0ThzhOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISTB0ThzhOY [1] They're designed to have a higher energy efficiency and a longer operational life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4
  - xxs 5y ago
    >let's make this product less powerful" isn't a common modding activity. Actually it is for 'consumer' LEDs products, like a top 1. Undervolting GPUs and laptop CPUs is rather common too.
gambiting 5y ago
Is there something wrong with the power in your house? Maybe slightly over/below the nominal voltage? I've been buying only LED lamps and bulbs for the past 10+ years and literally never had a single one break for me. Not even the stupid GU10 ones which get stupidly hot - they just work and work. And yes, I'm sure many of us remember pulling out an old string of christmas lights, only to discover it doesn't work and then spending two hours looking at every single bulb close up to figure out which one is blown, and pray any of the replacements work. The LED strings just work forever.
- jhoechtl 5y ago
  Voltage is stable around 230-233 volts. There may be power spikes I cant reliably measure. I also do not operate big inductive loads (motors) which cause power spikes when stopped. Also I never had those issues in the past with other appliances. But alas it is anecdotal and someone has to be statistical outlier.

sbcd 5y ago

This is just anecdote versus anecdote, but I've never had to replace a LED because of them blowing out. Just recently, I replaced a LED that has been turned on for 24 hours a day every day for a whole 5 years, and it was still working. You may ask, why replace it then? well, high quality LED bulbs might not blow up, but they lose brightness over time. Still, I'd say 5 years of mileage for a light has is never turned off is a solid return on investment, particularly when considering how little energy they consume compared to previous light bulb technologies. The same thing also happens with the LED strips within monitors, monitors get replaced when they become too dark. I would be suspicious about the quality of the electricity in the place you live or work at when you see this stuff break at too high of a frequency. Not directly related to LEDs, but somehow I had electronics like computers or just plain old regular incandescent light bulbs break far more often in a house I used to live in, and I used to blame bad luck with the devices I bought, until I moved into another apartment and things actually started to have acceptable life expectancy.

chrisseaton 5y ago

The old product was designed to use consumables even if it was functioning correctly!

auxym 5y ago

I bought christmas mini LED string lights last year from home depot, specifically labeled for outdoor use. Took them out this holiday season, and over half of the strings didn't work anymore. They have replaceable "bulbs", but HD doesn't sell them, "because they are never supposed to break". Found replacements that sort of work (different shade of white) a another store for some of the strings, but not for others, and had to throw them away. Very sour with the experience.

01100011 5y ago
I had that happen but all of the issues were related to the individual led bulb connectors getting loose and were easily fixed by reseating them. Dunno if you had a similar issue but wanted to mention it.

xxs 5y ago

>My living room lighting already blew up two times and no The reason is not the LEDs themselves but... money. The LEDs are overdriven to show higher lumen numbers (and wattage) on the box. That results in overheating both of the LEDs and the driving circuits - one of them fails. In short it's the good old - planned obsolescence. It's absolutely possible to have LEDs that last for 50k hours (while losing 20% of their brightness) but don't fail. Sometimes even adjusting a resistor value (to reduce the current through the LEDs) would do the trick.

HPsquared 5y ago
That could be an interesting hack to the power supply, turning down the power a bit. Not the kind of thing that gets people motivated though, "let's make this product less powerful" isn't a common modding activity.
- stordoff 5y ago
  Big Clive does this sort of thing on his YouTube channel fairly often. A few examples: * Adjusting a current regulator to drop a 10W lamp to ~2W - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeWnHnZ-ojw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeWnHnZ-ojw * Adjusting a capacitive dropper-based lamp from 5W to 0.5W - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRz7EplgDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRz7EplgDE * Making a "Dooby" (inspired by the Philips Dubai lamps[1]) lamp - using a series capacitor to make various lamps run at 0.1-2W - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISTB0ThzhOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISTB0ThzhOY [1] They're designed to have a higher energy efficiency and a longer operational life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4
- xxs 5y ago
  >let's make this product less powerful" isn't a common modding activity. Actually it is for 'consumer' LEDs products, like a top 1. Undervolting GPUs and laptop CPUs is rather common too.

gambiting 5y ago

Is there something wrong with the power in your house? Maybe slightly over/below the nominal voltage? I've been buying only LED lamps and bulbs for the past 10+ years and literally never had a single one break for me. Not even the stupid GU10 ones which get stupidly hot - they just work and work. And yes, I'm sure many of us remember pulling out an old string of christmas lights, only to discover it doesn't work and then spending two hours looking at every single bulb close up to figure out which one is blown, and pray any of the replacements work. The LED strings just work forever.

jhoechtl 5y ago
Voltage is stable around 230-233 volts. There may be power spikes I cant reliably measure. I also do not operate big inductive loads (motors) which cause power spikes when stopped. Also I never had those issues in the past with other appliances. But alas it is anecdotal and someone has to be statistical outlier.