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I’ve read that LED light bulbs have the same problem. The LED will easily last 25 years, as written on the box, but the electronics that power the LED won’t. I

I’ve read that LED light bulbs have the same problem. The LED will easily last 25 years, as written on the box, but the electronics that power the LED won’t. I haven’t owned an LED bulb long enough to see this myself, so take it with a grain of salt.

sokoloff 4y ago
Most of my LED failures (moderately early adopter) have been power supply failures. Some bulbs (estimated 20%, mostly higher output ones) have lost SMD LEDs, in some cases having reductions in brightness as a portion of the bulb is then INOP. I’ve stopped taking them apart and looking into the failures once they got to be cheap enough to not care.
josteink 4y ago
> I haven’t owned an LED bulb long enough to see this myself, so take it with a grain of salt. I’ve had lots of different kinds of LED lighting, including LED bulbs and this is honestly the only reason I’ve had to replace them. The electronics powering the LED overheat and over time starts to fail. Some brands are worse than others, particularly cheap Chinese ones. They will break faster than you can replace them. Avoid at all cost. Other mid-range bulbs are better (like IKEA Trådfri) but still without what I’d call industrial reliability. Philips Hue are more reliable, but again at a higher price. In short, you get what you pay for. That said you can still have bad luck. For instance in my house we have semi-expensive Junostar LEDs (from the pro-market) for ceiling lights, but we received a bad batch with lot of flickering and had to have them all replaced. It was on warranty though ;)
nine_k 4y ago
Buying a higher-price bulb with an adequate radiator helps. I've lost 75% (3 out of 4) cheap LED bulbs to electronics overheating issues, withing a year. I've lost 16% (2 out of 12) expensive LED lamps to overheating, within 3 years. I'll use the extracted LEDs somewhere. I've lost 0% of LED lamps in my fridge to overheating in nearly 7 years :)
dreamcompiler 4y ago
I've started retrofitting my table lamps with 12v "RV" LEDs that have standard Edison bases. That way I can use my own power supply -- either a 12v wall wart or USB-C with PD and a 12v trigger.

sokoloff 4y ago

Most of my LED failures (moderately early adopter) have been power supply failures. Some bulbs (estimated 20%, mostly higher output ones) have lost SMD LEDs, in some cases having reductions in brightness as a portion of the bulb is then INOP. I’ve stopped taking them apart and looking into the failures once they got to be cheap enough to not care.

josteink 4y ago

> I haven’t owned an LED bulb long enough to see this myself, so take it with a grain of salt. I’ve had lots of different kinds of LED lighting, including LED bulbs and this is honestly the only reason I’ve had to replace them. The electronics powering the LED overheat and over time starts to fail. Some brands are worse than others, particularly cheap Chinese ones. They will break faster than you can replace them. Avoid at all cost. Other mid-range bulbs are better (like IKEA Trådfri) but still without what I’d call industrial reliability. Philips Hue are more reliable, but again at a higher price. In short, you get what you pay for. That said you can still have bad luck. For instance in my house we have semi-expensive Junostar LEDs (from the pro-market) for ceiling lights, but we received a bad batch with lot of flickering and had to have them all replaced. It was on warranty though ;)

nine_k 4y ago

Buying a higher-price bulb with an adequate radiator helps. I've lost 75% (3 out of 4) cheap LED bulbs to electronics overheating issues, withing a year. I've lost 16% (2 out of 12) expensive LED lamps to overheating, within 3 years. I'll use the extracted LEDs somewhere. I've lost 0% of LED lamps in my fridge to overheating in nearly 7 years :)

dreamcompiler 4y ago

I've started retrofitting my table lamps with 12v "RV" LEDs that have standard Edison bases. That way I can use my own power supply -- either a 12v wall wart or USB-C with PD and a 12v trigger.