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Regarding sealed: Does the light really outlast the battery? I have some LED lights that have lasted "forever," but my aquarium lights don't seem as durable and
by gwbas1c 4y ago
Regarding sealed: Does the light really outlast the battery? I have some LED lights that have lasted "forever," but my aquarium lights don't seem as durable and I think only will last 5-7 years. (Fluorescent bulbs only lasted a year, and each bulb cost almost as much as an LED version.)
- picture 4y agoI don't have any good references to cite but from my understanding, well designed LED systems only get dimmer over time (quite reasonably slowly) due to various semiconductor physics. However, by far the most common failure mode for electronics including LEDs is shock and fatigue to the interconnect. This means if you let your LED thermal cycle repeatedly, even to well below datasheet maximums, the solder and bonding are quite likely to fail. I'm not sure how your aquarium lights are configured (whether they cycled or were always on) but honestly 5-7 years is already quite impressive. There's not really any other lighting technology that can do that. 5-7 years of constant usage also far exceeds what consumer batteries can usually do, which are something on the order of hundreds of "actual cycles" before significant capacity degradation. That translates to maybe a couple years, but definitely less than five.
- gwbas1c 4y ago> I'm not sure how your aquarium lights are configured ... but honestly 5-7 years is already quite impressive. I go through about 1 power brick a year. I got a wire wet in the original one, and I can't seem to find ones that last long. They always run hot. I just changed a relay yesterday. My smart switch doesn't output clean voltage or do clean off; so I have it drive a 120VAC relay. Could have been my wiring, though. It's an industrial relay, so I don't see why it'd fail after ~1500 cycles.