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All of the builder LED lights in my home had this issue. Very expensive to replace these. Newer construction doesn't install proper fixtures anymore. No more u

All of the builder LED lights in my home had this issue. Very expensive to replace these. Newer construction doesn't install proper fixtures anymore. No more user-replaceable bulbs. Everything is screwed directly into the box and you have to do a minor electrical job on every unit you want to replace.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Curiously, modern lightbulbs for the home use multiple LED elements to achieve their rated brightness. Surely someone can devise an internal circuit to disable some combination of the LEDs to do proper dimming without relying on PWM.
- bob1029 4y ago
  The best part: These weren't even dimmable units nor were they on any sort of dimmer-style circuit. On/off only. Still garbage.
  - p1mrx 4y ago
    Then that's not PWM; they cheaped out on the power supply by not including capacitors to smooth out the 60 Hz AC waveform.
    - bob1029 4y ago
      Agreed. I actually considered retrofitting the existing units with parts from digikey. I am 99% sure the issue is due to total absence of any electrolytic capacitors whatsoever on the PCB.
- VLM 4y ago
  LEDs are a lemon market where the only people making profit are those who ship lemons, everyone else gets pushed out of the market. The luxury days of installing an incandescent bulb that lasts for ten years are gone, lucky to get six months out of "contractor grade" LED products and consumer devices usually don't make it much over a year. Sure, burns a little less coal, but its not like LED manufacture and shipping is as environmentally friendly as beewax candle production LOL. Overall we're probably worse off as a civilization with LED lighting.
  - seszett 4y ago
    > The luxury days of installing an incandescent bulb that lasts for ten years are gone, lucky to get six months out of "contractor grade" LED products and consumer devices usually don't make it much over a year. I'm always surprised to read such comments, incandescent bulbs definitely burned out regularly, and the LEDs we have now are more or less as durable in my experience. I still have a few CFL bulbs that are more than 10 years old (that I keep because their slow warm-up is actually desirable in some cases) and my Ikea LED bulbs are all between five and three years old. One of them (out of 12 I think?) did fail last year, it was four years old.
    - Sunspark 4y ago
      What cases exist where a slow warm-up is desirable?
      - seszett 4y ago
        The bedroom, bathroom, toilets for example because it's not as jarring as when the light turns on at once at full power. And it's infinitely cheaper and easier than setting up dimming.
rootusrootus 4y ago
That's interesting; I've been going the other direction. One by one I've been retrofitting my recessed can lights with fixed LED fixtures made by Cree. Because the LED floodlight bulbs fail relatively quickly, no matter which brand I buy, but I've never had a single one of the Cree fixed-LED fixtures go bad (and the oldest are pushing 10 years now). I figure the heat management is better on the purpose-built fixture, which explains why it lasts.
- bob1029 4y ago
  > Because the LED floodlight bulbs fail relatively quickly, no matter which brand I buy I think I solved this in my old house. BR40 bulbs. I don't recall the specific vendor but they were very expensive. The amount of work it takes to get up to the fixture is most of the effort, so I can lean both ways on this one.
KleerKut 4y ago
A local business had installed some expensive LED lights and were having flickering issues. At the time I remembered seeing something about power supply design and how having no resistive load on the circuit would cause issues with the power supplies. I had them replace one bulb on one string of lights with an incandescent and they stopped flickering. Another one for the circuit on the other side of the room and the LED flickering was gone. The fluorescent bulb flicker was an entirely different issue, but they weren't nearly as obvious from a distance as the LEDs were. I too strongly dislike the lack of replaceable bulbs in newer LED fixtures. It's outrageous how many things in modern construction shave a few cents here and there to get the initial cost down, and the long term costs are enormous. Once the house is sold it's someone else's problem and that mentality is disgusting.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

Curiously, modern lightbulbs for the home use multiple LED elements to achieve their rated brightness. Surely someone can devise an internal circuit to disable some combination of the LEDs to do proper dimming without relying on PWM.

bob1029 4y ago
The best part: These weren't even dimmable units nor were they on any sort of dimmer-style circuit. On/off only. Still garbage.
- p1mrx 4y ago
  Then that's not PWM; they cheaped out on the power supply by not including capacitors to smooth out the 60 Hz AC waveform.
  - bob1029 4y ago
    Agreed. I actually considered retrofitting the existing units with parts from digikey. I am 99% sure the issue is due to total absence of any electrolytic capacitors whatsoever on the PCB.
VLM 4y ago
LEDs are a lemon market where the only people making profit are those who ship lemons, everyone else gets pushed out of the market. The luxury days of installing an incandescent bulb that lasts for ten years are gone, lucky to get six months out of "contractor grade" LED products and consumer devices usually don't make it much over a year. Sure, burns a little less coal, but its not like LED manufacture and shipping is as environmentally friendly as beewax candle production LOL. Overall we're probably worse off as a civilization with LED lighting.
- seszett 4y ago
  > The luxury days of installing an incandescent bulb that lasts for ten years are gone, lucky to get six months out of "contractor grade" LED products and consumer devices usually don't make it much over a year. I'm always surprised to read such comments, incandescent bulbs definitely burned out regularly, and the LEDs we have now are more or less as durable in my experience. I still have a few CFL bulbs that are more than 10 years old (that I keep because their slow warm-up is actually desirable in some cases) and my Ikea LED bulbs are all between five and three years old. One of them (out of 12 I think?) did fail last year, it was four years old.
  - Sunspark 4y ago
    What cases exist where a slow warm-up is desirable?
    - seszett 4y ago
      The bedroom, bathroom, toilets for example because it's not as jarring as when the light turns on at once at full power. And it's infinitely cheaper and easier than setting up dimming.

rootusrootus 4y ago

That's interesting; I've been going the other direction. One by one I've been retrofitting my recessed can lights with fixed LED fixtures made by Cree. Because the LED floodlight bulbs fail relatively quickly, no matter which brand I buy, but I've never had a single one of the Cree fixed-LED fixtures go bad (and the oldest are pushing 10 years now). I figure the heat management is better on the purpose-built fixture, which explains why it lasts.

bob1029 4y ago
> Because the LED floodlight bulbs fail relatively quickly, no matter which brand I buy I think I solved this in my old house. BR40 bulbs. I don't recall the specific vendor but they were very expensive. The amount of work it takes to get up to the fixture is most of the effort, so I can lean both ways on this one.

KleerKut 4y ago

A local business had installed some expensive LED lights and were having flickering issues. At the time I remembered seeing something about power supply design and how having no resistive load on the circuit would cause issues with the power supplies. I had them replace one bulb on one string of lights with an incandescent and they stopped flickering. Another one for the circuit on the other side of the room and the LED flickering was gone. The fluorescent bulb flicker was an entirely different issue, but they weren't nearly as obvious from a distance as the LEDs were. I too strongly dislike the lack of replaceable bulbs in newer LED fixtures. It's outrageous how many things in modern construction shave a few cents here and there to get the initial cost down, and the long term costs are enormous. Once the house is sold it's someone else's problem and that mentality is disgusting.