>I'd like to see bulbs that can be assembled by hand in order: socket, controller, LEDs, enclosure. I'll bet you dollars that none of those things are failing.

>I'd like to see bulbs that can be assembled by hand in order: socket, controller, LEDs, enclosure. I'll bet you dollars that none of those things are failing. It's very likely capacitors. To make these cost effective, they have AC/DC converters and aren't putting a ton of love into SMPS buck switching. They're choosing the cheapest components pushed to their limits. Or, just plain don't care at all. The rated hours of a typical electrolytic cap is something like 2000 hours at it's rating and at 20ºC which these are not. So if you need more than that you over-rate it. But that's expensive, and someone will look at it and say "You have 12VAC, you can buy a 16V cap and that's all". Without too fine a point on the underlying issue... Stop buying future-trash made by people that really don't care what they're making.